Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c46.26

c46.26

During this last period, a marked change gradually came over the arts, they took on a certain character, not of an extraneous nature, on the contrary they absorbed some of the indigenous qualities of the people, in other words they ceased to draw inspiration from any Indian source, so that there finally evolved a style having national attributions which has been defined as Indonesian. And as it progressed its indigenous character became more pronounced. Throughout its course the movement in the Eastern region resolved itself into three historical periods, according to the dominant rule at the time. These are (1) the Kadiri, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, (2) the Singasari, from 1250 to 1292, and (3) the Majapahit, 1294 to 1478. Although during the first of the phases, a ruler of some note, Erlanger (1010-1042), occupied an important place in the historical archives of the country, few remains of consequence have survived. But from these it is surmised that the decisive change of location referred to above affected very considerably the outlook of the people Two facts emerge, one of these being that the rulers were arrogating to themselves divine power, which found expression in canonization after death, as the sculptured statuary shows, and the other is that a form of royal tomb associated with a sacred bath was taking the place of the temple which had been almost the only structure erected hitherto. An example of this may be seen at Djalatunda, dated 977, while there are several others of a like nature to be found in East-Java. It should be remarked that although the building art was not prominent during this phase, which may be referred to as a stage of transition, some fine sculpture was produced under this and the succeeding regime, although perhaps of a somewhat florid order. Briefly the plastic art maintained its original supremacy while the structural art declined.