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Manasara Series (I. A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture; II. Indian Architecture according to Manasara-Shilpashastra; III. Manasara on Architecture and Sculpture: Sanskrit Text; IV. Architecture of Manasara: Translation; V. Architecture of Manasara: Illustrations; VI. Hindu Architecture in India and Abroad; VII. An Encyclopaedia of Hindu Architecture) v6.c41.s22: Java

Mānasāra Series (I. A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture; II. Indian Architecture according to Mānasāra-Śilpaśāstra; III. Mānasāra on Architecture and Sculpture: Sanskrit Text; IV. Architecture of Mānasāra: Translation; V. Architecture of Mānasāra: Illustrations; VI. Hindu Architecture in India and Abroad; VII. An Encyclopaedia of Hindu Architecture) v6.c41.s22

Language
English

Contents

Java

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The Indo-Javanese connexion has been further established by Javanese tradition,¹ the Kavi chronicles like the *Nagarakṛitāgama* and the *Pararaton*, the inscriptions of the Malay Archipelago, the remnants of buildings, sculptures, paintings, and other archaeological remains, and the Chinese records. The Dutch, French, English and Indian scholars, historians, travellers and archaeologists have contributed largely to reconstruct the Hindu-Buddhist period of Javanese history.²

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¹ Sir Stamford Raffles, *History of Ancient Java*.

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² Kern, Brandes, Krom, *Hindoe—Javaansche Greschiedenis*. A. S. Wallcott, *Java and Her Neighbours*. Messrs. R. C. Majumdar, B. R. Chatterji. N. P. Chakravarti, P. N. Bose.

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In point of time, the earliest reference appears to have been the passage in the *Rāmāyaṇa*, according to which the King Sugrīva, the friend and ally of Rāmachandra, is stated to have sent out search parties in quest of Sītā, among other places to the island of Java (Yavadvīpa) also. The exact dating of this passage is not possible, although the *Rāmāyaṇa* itself is an earlier composition than the other epic, *Mahābhārata*, the kernal portion of which must have been composed before 500 to 600 B.C. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy, who wrote his geography in the second century A.D., refers to this island as Jabadieu.

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So far as the Indian colonization of Java is concerned, it is believed by many historians that a prince from Gujarat, with some 5,000 followers, settled in Central Java in A.D. 525, 599, or 603. (It is also a fact that the Hindus of Java had been conquered by the Muslim invaders before the first arrival of the Portuguese settlers in the beginning of the sixteenth century.) A reinforcement of 2,000 people was sent from Gujarat. ‘From this period Java was known and celebrated as a kingdom; an extensive commerce was carried with Gujarat and other countries, and the Bay of Matārem was filled with adventurers from all parts.’

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During the sovereignty of this unnamed prince and his two immediate successors, ‘the country advanced in fame and prosperity. The city of Mendang Kamulan, since called Prambānan, increased in size and splendour; artists, particularly in stone and metals arrived from distant countries, and temples, the ruins of which are still extant, were constructed both at this place and at Boro-Budur, in Kedu, during this period by artists invited from India.’¹

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¹ Sir S. Raffles, *History of Java*, Vol. II, pp. 87 *et seq.* Lassen, *Indische Alterthumskunde*, Vol. II, ss. 1059, quoted by Fergusson, *History of Indian and Eastern Architecture*, II, p. 418.

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‘This is supported by an inscription found at Menankabu, in Sumatra, wherein a king who styles himself Mahārājādhirāja Ādityadharma, the first king of Java, boasts of his conquests and prowess, and he proclaims himself a Buddhist, a worshipper of the five Dhyāni Buddhas, and records his having erected a great seven-storeyed *vihāra* in honour of Buddha.’²

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² Fergusson, *History of Indian and Eastern Architecture* (1910), Vol. II, p. 419.

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Fah-hien’s visit to the island in A.D. 414, on his way from Ceylon to China by sea, for five months, has further supported the Indian colonization of Java. ‘In this country,’ he says, ‘heretics and Brahmans flourish, but the Law of Buddha is not much known.’³ Commenting on this, Fergusson says, ‘that there were Brahmans in these islands before the advent of the Buddhist emigrants in the seventh century seems more than probable from the traditions about the Brahman Tritresta on Tritāstri collected by Sir S. Raffles and others’⁴; but they seem to belong to a non-building class, as no early remains of Brahmanical buildings are available.

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³ Beal’s Translation, p. 169, *Buddhist Records*, Vol. I, p. LXXXI.

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⁴ Fergusson, *loc. cit.*, Vol. II, p. 419. Refers to Lassen, *ref. sup.*, pp. 1063 *et seq.*

Boro Budur

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The famous monument is locally known as the Tjandi Boro Budur. The phrase has been variously spelt and interpreted. The most acceptable interpretation would be the ‘Shrine of the Many Buddhas.’ It is undoubtedly a Buddhist monument and appears to have been built to shelter some portion of Buddha’s ashes, which were taken by king Asoka from their original resting places and distributed in 84,000 parts throughout the Buddhist world, ‘to be reburied under such sacred mounds and venerated by rapidly increasing bodies of converts in countries far remote.’ From a critical examination of its carvings and sculptures it has been established that ‘it was erected under the auspices of members of the northern sect or Mahayanists, the more progressive sect, which, in its growth, took over *en masse* [Figure: PLAN CHANDI JAGO TEMPLE most of the popular Hindu gods and their followers and eventually spread through Nepal and Tibet to China and Japan.’ The shrine of Boro Budur appears to have been erected between the seventh and ninth century A.D., although Rhys Davids holds that it must have been erected in the thirteenth century. An inscription of A.D. 656 discovered in Sumatra mentions that a seven-storey temple was erected to the five Dhyāni Buddhas by the Mahārājadhirāja Aditya-dharma of Prathanna (or Great Java). It is, nevertheless, not quite settled if this temple refers to the shrine of Boro Budur, which, however, was built by a prince of the sect that worshipped the Dhyāni Buddhas and that it is usually spoken of as having seven storeys. This fact has been further corroborated by the inscriptions in old Javanese on the base walls of the shrine itself, which are dated to the ninth century by Professor Kern. Groneman, also, believes the shrine to have been in existence in the ninth century.¹

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¹ Walcott, *Java and Her Neighbours*, pp. 205–206.

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BORO-BUDUR

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‘The fundamental formative idea of Boro Budur monument is that of a *dagoba* with five procession paths. These, however, have become square in plan instead of circular; and, instead of one great domical building in the centre, we have here seventy-two smaller ones, each containing the statue of a Buddha; and one large one in the centre, which was quite solid externally but had a cell in its centre, which might have contained a relic or some precious object.’

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‘With the idea of a *dagoba*, however, Boro Budur also combines that of a *vihāra*. There the cells, though only copied solid in the rock, still simulated the residences of the monks, and had not yet advanced to the stage we find in the Gandhara monasteries, where the cells of monks had become niches for statues.’ ‘The cells of the Māmallapuram are here repeated in every face. So great, indeed, is the similarity between the two, that, whatever date we assign to the one, drags with it that of the other. On the other hand, having so similar a Buddhist development in Java in the seventh century, it seems difficult to separate the monuments of the north-east of India from it by any very long interval of time.’

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‘The monument may be described either as a seven- or a nine-storeyed *vihāra*, according as we reckon the platform on which the seventy-two small *dagobas* stand as one or three storeys. It is, however, either for its dimensions or the beauty of its architectural design that Boro Budur is so remarkable, as for the sculptures that line its galleries. These extend to nearly 5,000 feet, almost a mile, and as there are sculptures on both faces, we have nearly 10,000 lineal feet of bas-reliefs; or, if we like to add those which are in two storeys, we have a series of sculptures, which, if arranged consecutively in a row, would extend over nearly three miles of ground.'¹

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¹ Fergusson, *loc. cit.*, Vol. II, pp. 424–425.

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‘The primary construction of the Boro Budur was effected by truncating a hill more or less pyramidal in form, filling out and slicing off its sides and sheathing them with stone, digging out central chambers below the level top, and covering this last with a domed or spired *dagoba*. The Boro Budur is not, as it appears, a solid mass of masonry, but a mass of earth over which has been built a thin shell of stone.’

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The present condition of the site tends ‘to decry rather than to enhance the proportions and architectural value of the monument. The hill on the top of which it has been built is low and irregular, overlooking a plain of waving palm trees. There is a dreary view of distant volcanoes and the indented peaks of a line of high mountains, from some hundred feet above the plain, which is the highest point of the shrine.’

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‘The form of the structure is that of a truncated step pyramid with base dimensions of about 400 feet, resting on a platform practically square and facing the cardinal points. Strictly speaking, the walls have thirty-six sides, not four, for each main wall juts out several times as it approaches the middle point from either end. There is not a single pillar or column in the whole structure, and no doors or windows are to be found—merely tier after tier of galleries joined by stairways to a top platform. The original base is now hidden by some 7,000 cubic yards of reinforcing stone blocks which form the present visible base.’

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‘Above the present base, the side walls are terraced in such a way as to form galleries about 7 feet wide, though one may walk between an outer wall, 5 feet thick, which is actually the parapet of the inner wall of the gallery next below, and an inner one, whose parapet similarly forms an outer wall for the gallery above. These galleries run continuously around the Tjandi, broken only by a stone stairway at the middle of each side. Their walls are adorned with over a thousand sculptured bas-reliefs depicting scenes from the life of Gautama Buddha in his various incarnations, groups of Buddhas, angels, and saints. Above these sculptures, on the parapets of the walls, are small recessed shrines, in all over 400, each containing a Buddha image a couple of feet high.’

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‘Above the four sculptured galleries rise three tiers of circular terraces, bearing, altogether, 72 bell-shaped, latticed *dagobas*, each about 5 feet in height and containing a lotus-enthroned Buddha, which may be seen through the lozenge-shaped openings in the sides. From the centre of the upper of these circular terraces rises what is left of the former apex of the shrine, a ruined *dagoba* about 30 feet high, containing in an interior chamber a large and apparently unfinished image thought to represent the Buddha yet to come. The cone- or parasol-shaped spire, which doubtless once covered this highest *dagoba*, has wholly disappeared.’

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‘The stairways of Boro Budur formerly had gate-houses at each landing and their arches are ornamented with great heads with bulging eyes. At the sides are the heads of *nāgas* with upper lips prolonged into short trunks.’¹

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¹ Walcott, *Java and Her Neighbours*, p. 212.

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The shrine, however, owes its fame more to its artistic detail than its purely architectural features. Its wall sculptures are remarkable. ‘The subjects are almost beyond enumeration and include practically every phase of life and action. The scenes portrayed may still be seen in the Java of today. Kings and nobles, dancing girls and palace women, peasants and fishermen, bearded strangers from foreign lands, elephants and monkeys, deer and horses, birds and fish, fruit-trees and shade-trees, native houses, ships, war chariots, ploughs, musical instruments, state umbrellas, and hundreds of other things typical of the country are depicted here in a way that is wonderfully life-like and truthful. The representations of the scenes from the *Jātakas* (tales of Buddha’s life in his earlier incarnations) are particularly interesting, for each one has its own story, and some of these are very very entertaining.’ For instance, Walcott quotes the following from Dr. J. Groneman :

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‘The Lord (Buddha or incarnation of Vishṇu), being a turtle in the sea, perceives a ship sinking and surrounded by sharks and other fishes. Taking the crew and the passengers on his back, he carries them to the shore, where he offers them his own body as food.’²

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² *Ibid.*, pp. 211, 208–210.

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There are two other smaller shrines in the Boro Budur group. The one known as the Tjandi (Chandi) Pawan (kitchen shrine) is situated in a grove at a short distance from the principal shrine. The structure has been restored, but the images housed therein are now quite gone. The other is situated at a distance of a mile and a half. This is known as the Mendoet Tjandi. ‘This temple is pyramidal in form and about 60 feet high, with exterior walls elaborately sculptured. In an interior chamber, some 10 feet square, are three figures, one of which is definitely identified as Buddha, the others being variously denominated as Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, princely benefactors or worshippers, or even as adoring women.’ This temple was built at a period slightly later than the Boro Budur.

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There is in Java a Hindu group of temples also, comprising Prambavan, the Tjandi Loro Djonggrang. Unlike the Boro Budur and Mendoet shrines, these temples are monuments of the Hindu or Brahman faith. They have been built for the worship of Brahmā, Vishṇu, Śiva, Kālī, Durgā, Pārvatī or Laro Djonggrang (virgin), and Gaṇeśa. ‘Unfortunately all but two or three of the original group of over a hundred had already fallen into the last stages of decay and ruin, and today, in spite of the conscientious work of the restorers, it is difficult to frame more than an imaginative conception of the appearance of the original whole.’ ‘In the plan of construction three circular walls enclosed three circular rows of small shrines, and in the centre stood a group of eight more important shrines arranged in an oblong, three on each side and one at each end to the north and south.’ The central western temple is the most important and may serve as an example of the rest. ‘It is pyramidal and rests on a base which is practically square. Its outer walls are covered with bas-reliefs and other sculptures of great artistic merit and careful workmanship, representing scenes from the *Rāmāyaṇa* and other tales of Hindu mythology. An entrance on each side is reached by a corresponding stairway, and an external gallery surrounds the structure at some distance from the ground level.’¹

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¹ Walcott, *Java and Her Neighbours*, pp. 216–217.

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There are four chambers and a sort of entrance hall, the *mukha-maṇḍapa* of the *Silpa-śāstra*. In the largest central chamber, which is about 20 feet square, is installed an image of Śiva, four-armed, bearded, and with a snake for a belt. In the western chamber is the image of Gaṇeśa. In the room to the south is again the image of Śiva, the recluse with trident and water bottle. In the north chamber is the image of Kālī, Loro Djonggrang, with eight arms and prominent breasts and hips, a feature so common in Hindu art. The goddess is represented in the life-size, ‘standing on her sacred cow and grasping by the hair a small demon or evil spirit. This statue is responsible for the name of this entire group.’¹ In other buildings are Brahmā, Nandi (bull), and a few fragments.

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¹ Walcott, *Java and Her Neighbours*, p. 218.

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‘The exterior of these temples, built, like the Boro Budur, of small blocks of lava stone, are covered with elaborate carvings.’ ‘Grotesque representations of the monkey-king and his followers recur again and again, as do rather graceful groups of dancing girls (the three graces of the foreigners). The incidental ornamentations, borders, friezes, and the like, are particularly artistic, and might well be adapted to modern use.’

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‘The precise date of their erection is unknown, but, as in the case of the majority of the ruins of the Prambanan plain, it may roughly be given as the ninth century.’ But their Indian origin and Hindu style is obvious.

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The Tjandi Sewoe or Chandi Sewu, implying a thousand temples, is situated at a short distance from the Laro Djonggrang. ‘Chandi Sewu is neither more nor less than Boro Budur taken to pieces, and spread out, with such modifications as were necessary to adapt it to the position.’² This group has suffered more seriously at the hands of vandals and from earthquakes, and no idea of the original can be gathered from the remains without a reference to the re-constructed diagrams. ‘In this case there was a central cruciform (*svastika*) shrine of the usual truncated pyramid type, surrounded by four successively larger squares of small shrines, two and forty in all, and each about 11 feet square and 18 high. The entire enclosure, some 500 feet square, was protected by a wall, with a gateway on each side, through which passed a broad, straight avenue leading to the central edifice. These gates were guarded by pairs of grotesque, pot-bellied, kneeling stone figures, perhaps 10 feet high, with fierce moustaches, tusk-like teeth, and pop eyes, and with snakes as head, arm, and body ornaments.’

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² Fergusson, *loc. cit.*, II, p. 435.

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‘The Tjandi Sewoe was built in 1094, according to old court documents still in existence in the Solo archives.’

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‘There are many more ruined temples on this Prambanan plain and on one elevated piece of ground lie the scant remains of a former palace of the Mataram days.’¹

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¹ Walcott, *Java and Her Neighbours*, p. 220.

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There is a group of temples on the tableland at the foot of Mount Prahu, known as Dieng Plateau, about 35 miles north of Boro Budur ‘They consist only of simple sanctuaries and are not remarkable for the beauty of their details. But they are Indian temples pure and simple and dedicated to Indian gods. What these temples tell us further is, that if Java got her Buddhism from Gujarat and the mouths of the Indus, she got her Hinduism from Telingana and the mouths of the Krishnā. These Dieng temples do not show a trace of the curve-lined *śikharas* of Orissa (*Vesara*) or of Indo-Aryan (*Nāgara*) style.’ ‘Nor are these temples Dravidian in any proper sense of the term. They are in storeys, but not with cells, nor any reminiscences of such; but they are Chalukyan, in a clear and direct meaning of the term.’²

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² Fergusson, *loc. cit.*, Vol. II, p. 430.

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There are numerous epigraphic references to a number of Hindu buildings erected in Java. The Janggal inscription of Central Java, in Grantha (Pallava) script and Sanskrit language, of the Saka year 654 (A.D. 732), ‘refers to the reconstruction of a Śaiva temple on the model of a celebrated shrine in the holy land of Kunjara Kunja, to be identified with the Āśrama of Agastya of that name in south India.’ Another inscription found at Dinaya in Eastern Java, dated Saka 682 (A.D. 760), ‘describes the construction of a black stone image of Agastya Ṛishi.’ In another inscription of Śaka 785 (A.D. 863), in Sanskrit and Kavi (mixture of Sanskrit and Polynesian dialect), mention is made of a temple of Bhadraloka having been built by Agastya himself. In another inscription, found at the temple of Kalasan in Central Java, of Śaka 700 (A.D. 778), this temple of Tārā is stated to have been built at the command of the Śailendra, king of Śrīvijaya, in his own kingdom. ‘The great building activity continued in Central Java under the Mataram princes; for to this period of Hindu revival belongs the famous Prambanam group of temples with its magnificent reliefs depicting scenes of the *Rāmāyaṇa*.’³

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³ B. R. Chatterjee, *India and Java*, Part I, pp. 3, 4, 5.

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Dr. Krom refers to several inscriptions relating to engineering operations for the drainage of a river. In a Kavi (old Javanese)

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inscription, of 932 Śaka, from Soerabaya, mention is made of a watercourse. In another inscription of the same place, of 856 Śaka, the construction of dikes for regulating the course of the river is described.¹ The Tugu rock-inscription refers to ‘a canal known as Chandrabhāgā, dug by the father of Pūrṇavarman, and then again to another canal Gomatī, dug by Pūrṇavarman himself.’²

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¹ *India and Java*, II, pp. 22, 23.

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² *Ibid.*, pp. 26, 27.

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The Dinaya inscription of 682 Śaka refers to king Devasiṁha who, having seen an image made of wood by his ancestors, ordered the sculptor and ‘had a wonderful image of black marble prepared.’³

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³ *Ibid.*, pp. 37, 39.

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The inscription of Vieng Sa refers to ‘excellent houses for the wielder of thunderbolt, the conqueror of Māra, and the producer of Jaya,’ and also to the *chaitya* houses and *stūpas*.⁴

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⁴ *Ibid.*, pp. 41, 42, 43, 44.

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The only reference to town-planning has been supplied by the *Nagara Kṛtāgama* (science dealing with the city-plan). Therein is given a detailed account of the capital, Majapahita (Bilvatikta), ‘with its deep tanks, avenues of *kesara* and *champaka* trees, public squares, market places, palaces, the royal pavilion (*bitāna*) where the prime minister, the Āryas (nobles), and the trusted five (the cabinet) approached the king. In the eastern part of the capital dwelt the Śaiva Brahmanas, in the southern part the Buddhists, and in the western part were the houses of the Kshatriyas, ministers and others.’⁵

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⁵ *Ibid.*, p. 11.

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Although no further details are available, it will be seen that similar distribution has been prescribed by the *Mānasāra* and other architectural texts. In view of the fact that temples, deities, reliefs, etc., were predominantly of Hindu style, it may safely be held that the town-planning and village schemes were also of Hindu origin.

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HINDU ARCHITECTURE IN OUTER INDIA

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