Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c46.31

c46.31

What has enabled many of the historical buildings in Java to be studied most advantageously is that within recent years their restoration has been perfected in a singularly scholarly and scientific manner by experienced officials employed for this particular work by the Netherlands Government. This operation may not have been so difficult as in other countries owing to the circumstances by which their ruin was brought about, but this is no reflection on the skilled and conscientious methods by which these reconstructions have been made. For while no doubt considerable dislodgment of the stones may have been due to the insidious growth of vegetation within the joints of masonry, in all probability the main demolition has been caused by earthquakes, to which the island is frequently and often violently subjected. Such disturbances, while sometimes throwing down large portions of the building and damaging in the process some of the materials of which it is composed, do not usually entirely destroy these stones, as has often been the case in other countries, as for instance when iconoclastic man is bent on utilizing these for his own base purposes In Java the masonry though displaced, lies about where it has been thrown in a more or less uninjured condition and in the vicinity of the structure it previously adorned, so that with care and judgment it can be returned to fulfil the specific purpose for which it was originally prepared In this operation the Netherlands officials have definitely shown the way in which such responsible work may be undertaken, with the result that a considerable number of the historical buildings on the island present now much the same appearance as when first erected over a thousand years ago. Specially does this apply to the vast structure of the Borobudur, which from a tumbled mass of scattered blocks strewn over the entire site, as was its condition at the beginning of this century, the whole monument is now in the most perfect order, having been rescued from impending disintegration, thus enabling its remarkable character to be studied under ideal circumstances ¹