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Lifting the Indonesian Veil
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18351 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1990 |
2,308 Words |
| Author
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Jane Addams Allen
Jane Addams Allen is an award-winning art critic who now
resides in Cornwall, England. |
On the other side of the globe in far-off Indonesia are clusters of ancient temples, the equal in size and splendor of any in the world.
Borobudur is, of course, the most famous of these temples. The largest Buddhist stupa in the world, this overwhelming ninth-century monument crowns a cone-shaped hill in Central Java. Encircled by Sculptured terraces, surmounted by a forest of pinnacled stupas, the shallow pyramidal edifice spreads out against its jagged backdrop of volcanic mountains like a vast mesa (one commentator likened it to a “mammoth flying saucer”). Five kilometers of exquisite narrative reliefs await the visitor with patience to look at them all. The basic concept of the stupa, originally intended to house relics of the Buddha, comes from India, but there is nothing like this structure in the land of the Ganges.
But there are many other temples, or candies, as they are called in Java, each one with its own special beauties and mysteries. Situated near Borobudur is Prambanan, the most important Hindu shrine of the Central Java. Completed in A.C. 956, Prambanan, or Candi Loro Jonggrang, as it is called in Indonesia, originally included eight main buildings in a raised court surrounded by 224 smaller shrines. The Central Shiva shrine soars into the air fifty meters high; a balustrade around its base is adorned with dramatic reliefs of the Ramayana epic that continues around the balustrade of the adjacent Brahma shrine. Both the Brahma and the Shiva shrine have been recently restored.
The crisp outlines and ornamentation of Candi Simbasari, a Shiva temple discovered under volcanic ash in 1966, look almost as fresh today as they
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