Chapter III

Not anything do we know about the Buddhists of eleven centuries ago who once populated these regions where afterwards arose the Mohammedan empire of _Mataram_. We only know that there formerly must have existed a _Hindu_ empire of this name because of a found copper engraving all covered with ancient-javanese writing which contained in a oath-formula the words: “_Sri mahârâja i Mataram_.”

We understand them to have come from India, probably from the North, but we don’t know when this happened, and when they first began to deposit their Buddha ashes worthily.

It may be easily imagined however, that also the _Båråbudur_ must have been such a depository, and so much the more, because of its being too large to think of a mausoleum built in honour of even the most powerful prince of that empire.

In flat defiance of _Rhys Davids_’s opinion who declared the Båråbudur to be only 7 centuries old, we, on the other hand, are inclined to give this monument, according to later data, more than eleven centuries[8].

That the Buddhists of Central Java were a powerful nation at that period of time may fully appear from the extent and splendour of the building which surpasses all other Buddha- and Hindu temples on all the earth.

And though it may be true that the grouping of the rock temples of _Alara_ (vulg. _Ellora_) and _Ajunta_ in India occupies more room, and granting _Angkor_ in _Kamboja_ (which wasn’t a Buddhist temple) to seem more majestic when seen at a distance, still, according to competent judges who also visited these ruins, the Båråbudur is grander by far as well for the unity of its whole as for the harmony of its different parts, and for both the nobleness of the schemer’s thought and the excellence of the execution.

This harmony supports the opinion of this building’s having been built after the scheme of one and the very same architect; a man of a surprising intellectual capacity indeed, who could have conceived such a scheme to be carried out in an incalculable number of years by hundreds of thousands of labourers.

We cannot possibly believe that so much labour and time would have been spent on the building of a prince’s mausoleum, however powerful he might have been.

Moreover, there are reasons enough to suppose that _the_ prince of _this_ empire, at whose command the Båråbudur must have been built, commenced or partly achieved, should have died before the finishing of this colossal work, and that his ashes were buried in the sumptuous grave temple, at that period of time most likely already finished, and the ruins of which we shall visit in the _desså_ (native village) of _Mĕndut_. Or more exactly: that his successor or children or blood-relations, or perhaps his people, built this _tyanḍi_ on the pit in which those ashes had been put away, and that as a worthy mausoleum to the king who once presented his subjects with the Båråbudur.

Some unfinished parts of both the Båråbudur and the ruins in the valley of _Parambanan_, especially the unfinished imageries at the foot (hidden again under the outer-terrace) on the outer-wall of the large temple, make us suppose that these products of art had been _scarcely_ achieved, and the imageries _hardly_ finished and placed on their walls, when the buddhistic empire of Central Java fell into a state of decay or became ruined at all.

Upwards of a thousand years have rolled since over these colossal ruins. Earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions replaced their masses of stone, solar heat and torrents introduced and supported their decay, parasitic plants dispersed their foundations, and narrow-minded slaves of ignorance and fanaticism damaged or spoilt many of their produce of art—still the ruins stand there as an impressive fact scarcely no less uncredible than undeniable; a majestic product of a master-mind of the past, a stone epic immortal even in its decline.

On account of its general form (“_par le dessin général, mais par là seulement_”) the French scholar about Indian matters _A. Barth_ called the Båråbudur the only _stûpa_ in Java[9], and this may be just when we understand a _stûpa_ to be only those barrows where were buried some ashes or another relic of the Buddha himself, and when we consider all other _tyanḍis_ in this island—with the exception of the monasteries which are no _tyanḍis_—to be nothing else but the mausolea of sons of Princes, or of _gurus_ and monks, or belonging perhaps to other noble men and women.

Hereabove we already saw reasons enough to make us suppose that _Tyanḍi Mĕndut_ had been built on the ashes of the prince of the buddhistic empire of which we don’t know anything but its having been supreme in Central Java for at least eleven centuries ago.

These ruins stand in the village after which they have been named, along the road leading from _Jogyåkartå_ to the _Båråbudur_, not far from the _Magĕlang_ route, and as they are the first we reach on our way from one of the two capitals, and generally visited, we shall therefore first describe this most interesting grave temple.

Tyanḍi Mĕndut.

Leaving Jogyåkartå by steamtram or by carriage, and driving through the dessa of _Muntilan_—properly speaking a Chinese settlement—,turning two or three miles farther on near the stopping-place of _Kalangan_, 8 miles south of _Magĕlang_, into a by-path leading westward to the Båråbudur, we, within an hour, shall arrive at the real javanese village of _Mĕndut_, which is situated on the left bank of the river _Élo_. On this spot, as it were under the shadow of the Buddha temple, eleven centuries old at least, a Roman Catholic mission built a little church and parsonage, and opened a school for javanese children.

Living Christianity near the ruins of dead Buddhism!

Heavy teak wooden scaffoldings surrounded these ruins on all sides, and on the north-western frontside solid wooden stairs lead upward till under the _attap_[10] temporary roof. This was to protect the Båråbudur’s pyramidical roof (at that time not yet shut off again) and protect also the three almost undamaged gigantic images from rain and sun-blaze. This scaffolding still appeared as a witness of _W. A. van de Kamer_’s clever diligence. Some eleven years ago, when in Government’s service as official for ways and roads, he got the order given to him by choice, to begin the work of restoration, and that above his own work as overseer in service of the Department of Public Works. Notwithstanding, he continued for three years this enterprise trusted to him, and without any other reward but the title of architect the diploma of which he had already got in Netherland for many years ago. Under his command, and without any accident, he had the heavy and badly menaced pyramidic roof brought downward, and he succeeded in having the decaying and declining walls erected again, and that in a manner (as I once witnessed) unconditionally admired by competent experts, among whom I know high-placed engineer officers. But his work became unjustly objected by the philological president of a newly appointed Båråbudur committee he saw suddenly placed above him (_van de Kamer_), and the pitiable manner in which the former official induced him to ask for exemption from the labour dear to him, and to retire from Government’s service some years afterwards, I already explained and blamed in 1901 by means of some non-published writings, because the latter, still subordinate at that time, could not defence himself, and above all, because of my being competent and obliged to do so as an honest man, loyal to the ancient device: “_Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra_”. Even to me this deed became a source of misunderstanding and grief.

The first striking thing we see is that, in contravention to almost all other buddhistic buildings, the frontage of these ruins have not been placed opposite to the East, the sun-rise, but strange enough, opposite to the Northwest. When I first visited this temple in 1875 I saw that the porch which had been built before this frontage, had partly disappeared. Only its side-walls, the greater part at least, and fortunately, the two interesting sculptures had remained. This was also the case with the 14 large stone steps leading from without to the same porch, and flanked by heavy holds in the form of the _garuḍa-nâga_ ornament we are going to know by-and-by.

The colossal pyramidic roof, and part of the front wall above and north of the entrance to the inner-room were greatly lost.

The two sculptures before the entrance show us, to the left, a princess in a garden of fruit-trees, with a suckling at her breast, and many playing children all round about her. And opposite to them, to the right, we see an Indian,—_not_ buddhistic—prince with much more children in such another garden.

All the children wear a crescent of the moon on the hind part of their heads, but both the children and their parents miss everything that might have spoken of a buddhistic character. The prince himself wears a three stringed cord of a caste (_upavîta_), and is therefore characterised as a _not_ buddhistic one. Buddhism doesn’t know any caste.

Nevertheless, there are Dutch scholars who suppose this prince to be _Buddha_’s father, this woman _Buddha_’s mother. Even professor _Kern_ wrote to me that this woman with her suckling should be nobody else but _Mayâ_ with her son in _Lumbini_ garden. The Indian prince however, remained inexplicable.

The buddhistic king of Siam, _Chula Longkorn_, gave me in 1896 another and far better explanation which solved all difficulties, and to which I’ll come back again after having first given a superficial description of the gigantic images we see in this temple.

Let us therefore enter through the opened iron railing now replacing the wooden inner door, which for more than some 70 years ago, was used perhaps, as fire-wood.

The space before the unadorned south-easterly back-wall is occupied by a heavy altar-shaped throne not yet long ago newly built in an exceedingly simple style.

And on this throne sits a colossal _Buddha_ image, by no means however, a nude one, so as professor _Veth_ wrongly wrote in his standard work: “_Java_,” but this is dressed in the cowl of the _southern_ Buddhists uncovering his right shoulder and arm; his two legs dangling and resting on a small cushion with his two hands before his breast in such a posture (_mudrâ_) as the Mahâyânists, the followers of the “_Big Carriage_” of the _northern_ church, generally (not always) give to the _first_ of their five _Dhyâni-Buddhas_. In Ceylon and in Farther India however, there where _Hînayânism_ of the _southern_ church still exists, which doesn’t know any Dhyâni-Buddha, this posture simply means “_blessing_.”

To the right of this Buddha nearly 4 yards high, we see a _buddhistic_ prince seated on a throne abundantly decorated with nâgas, lions, and elephants, and ornamented with lotus-cushions and feet cushions. The monk’s hood, the bottom of which goes under the princely garb over his left shoulder and breast, and the small _Buddha_ image in his crown characterise him as a _Buddhist_, and that in contradistinction to the other prince we see opposite him, to the left of the Buddha. And though this prince also has his seat on an equally richly ornamented throne, yet we don’t see any image in his crown, and then he doesn’t wear a monk’s hood, but only the three-stringed _upavîta_ which characterises him as _not_ buddhistic.

On this ground professor Kern thought this Indian prince as inexplicable as the other one we saw in the porch before the entrance.

The two kings wear the _prabha_, or disk of light, on the back part of their heads. _Buddha_ does not, or no more; for this may have been fixed to the wall of the temple, and afterwards fallen down after that the image itself had slidden from its seat, or before its having been placed there[11].

On account of the posture of his hands before his breast there are some Dutch scholars who suppose this _Buddha_ to be the first _Dhyâni-Buddha Vairotyana_, and the two other princes they think to be _Bodhisattvas_ or future Buddhas, whilst the one on the north-easterly wall is said to be the _fourth_ Dhyâni-Bodhisatthva, _Padmapâni_ because of his being provided with a small image of the fourth Dhyâni-_Buddha_, _Amitâbha_, in his crown.

Which Bodhisatthva we then must see in that other image nobody could tell us, because it misses all attributes.

This however, is also the case with the buddhistic king’s image, and though it may be provided with a Buddha image in its crown, occasionally given to some Bodhisatthvas, yet it doesn’t characterise every wearer as such.

Moreover, I more than once demonstrated that _all_ the crowns are provided with no other image but the one of the Buddha himself in his posture of _meditation_ (or rest after death), and therefore we can’t accept these images to be Bodhisatthvas, or more especially _Padmapâni_, the Bodhisattva of the fourth Dhyâni-Buddha who, after all, should have been characterised by this Bodhisatthva’s usual attribute, the _padma_ or lotus placed near his face. But these two images also miss this flower and the stem of the lotus which the Bodhisatthvas generally keep in their _left_ hands. Sometimes however, we see them in their _right_ hand, and the flower with the symbol above one or two leaves.

So the meaning of the mentioned scholars _doesn’t explain these 3 images_ whereas Siam’s king, on his visiting this temple in 1896, satisfactorily interpreted the north-westerly image, wearing, like he does himself, a Buddha image in his crown, to be perhaps the king of the buddhistic empire, under whose reign the Båråbudur was built.

Further he supposed the other image to be the latter’s not-buddhistic father and predecessor whilst both father and son (the latter afterwards became a buddhist), might have been honoured by their descendants who brought together the two images in this sanctuary under the _blessing_ of the only Buddha, the redeemer of this world. So this Buddha image has nothing to do with any _Dhyâni-Buddha_, and by no means with the _first_ of them.

This explanation of the king-Buddhist became so comprehensible and logical to me that I could not but accept and defend it against others, and so I came to the hypothesis that the ashes of the two kings (but certainly the _son’s_ ashes) must have been buried in this _tyanḍi_. Their urns may be found back again in a deep pit under the throne of the Buddha, or under the seats of the other images, just as we had found such urns of ashes in other tyanḍis, in square pits, under the pedestals of the images, and generally adorned with some figures of precious metal and provided with some coloured precious stones, the emblems of the _seven treasures_, the _sapta ratna_ which were given to the dead.

These pits occupied the whole depth of the foundation of these temples, under the floor of the inner-rooms which may have been intentionally built so high above the surface of the earth. This, perhaps, is also the reason of the heavy substructure of _tyanḍi Mĕndut_.

Had _Van de Kamer_ remained charged with the work of restoration to these ruins the Resident of Ked̆u would then have granted us to examine this affair more closely before the throne was rebuilt again, and the Buddha image replaced upon it.

But this didn’t happen.

That Siam’s king declared the two images before the entrance to be the representations of the buddhistic king’s parents with their children seemed more than reasonable to me, especially, because of all difficulties being solved then. Didn’t _Mayâ_, like any other mother of Buddha, die seven days after his birth? And then, all writings known to me, don’t mention anything about _Siddhârta_’s brothers or sisters. And all these children can’t possibly be angels or celestials, because in the smaller panels, above the groups in the porch, we always see them hewn floating in the air.

However reasonable this idea of the hînayîstic king may have seemed to me, yet I could not maintain this when I was told by Mr. A. Foucher, the great knower of the ancient Indian Buddhism, that in Old _Gandhâra_ he often saw the Buddha, just as is the case here, sculptured in the _mudrâ_ of preaching, standing between the two Bodhisatthvas, _Avalokitésvara_ and _Manjusri_. This, among others, is to be seen at _Sârnâth_ in the northern environs of _Bénarès_ which passes for the very place where the _Buddha_ should have preached for the first time. This is ordinarily indicated by means of the tyakra between two gazelles, and consequently hewn at the foot of Buddha’s throne. Mr. _A. Foucher_ also taught me that my fellow-country-man, Dr. _J. Ph. Vogel_, leader of the archaeological service in British India, rightly declared the two demi-relievoes in the porch (volume 4th of the “_Bulletins de l’école française d’Extrême-Orient_”) to be the representations of _Hâritî_ and _Kuvera_, the goddess and the god of the _Yakshas_ with some of their children. In many a cloister in _Gandhâra_ he saw the Yakshî _Hâritî_ represented with one child at her breast, and that, after she herself, who is said to have been the former personification of small-pox (_variolae_), had been converted by the _Buddha_.

He had taken away one of her 500 children, and remonstrated with her on the sorrow she gave the mothers of the children killed by her, in consequence of which she totally changed her character, became truly converted and afterwards honoured as a patroness of children.

I am not going to expatiate about the artistic value of this produce of the ancient plastic arts in Old India. One should see them oneself and then judge whether the Indian sculptor knew how to chisel out living thoughts which are not less striking and beautiful than those of the Greeks in the age of _Pericles_, and much better hewn than those of the Egyptians in the time of the hieroglyphics, of _Memphis_ and _Thebae_, of _Carnak_ and _Philae_[12].

But there are more things to be seen in the sanctuarium of tyanḍi Mĕndut.

The space within the four heavy walls is not a square or rectangular one, but rather a trapezoid with parallel front- and back walls. Its side-walls somewhat join each other from front to back. I don’t know any other example of deviation from the rectangular form, and therefore try to find its meaning in the sculptor’s effort to increase the impression the large images make upon the visitor, by slightly supporting its perspective.

Two niches have been spared in each of these side walls, but not symmetrically like we see them hewn before the impressive image-group, and not behind it or on the back wall. Half way between the entrance and the two corners however, two similar niches adorn the front wall. All these six niches have been framed with the _garuḍa-nâga_ ornament, that is, with two composed serpent’s bodies whose tails disappear into the mule of a monstrous _garuḍa_ head we see above the vault of these niches, and whose outward turned heads are provided with a proboscis.

In each niche there lies a small lotus cushion but without any image. Even in 1834 during the digging up of the ruin buried under an overgrown mound, no images were found in- or outside these niches.

What then was the meaning of them?

They were explained to us by the French Indian architect _Henry Parmentier_ who spoke of analogical cases in Farther India [_Bulletins de l’école française d’Extrême Orient_][13]. Even there the temples closely related to the Hindu ruins in Java had _no_ windows or openings outside the entrance which opened into an equally dark porch; and as it was very dark inside the walls were provided with niches for lamps to light the images throning in these sanctuaries.

After mature consideration I came to the conclusion that the niches of tyanḍi Mĕndut must also have had this destination, and this may be the reason why all of them were affixed in front and opposite (not behind) the three images, so that I never doubted the four walls to have had _any other opening_ than the door which opened through the front wall into the almost equally dark porch.

This conviction of mine has been confirmed by some corresponding cases, among others, by the fact that the four still undamaged walls of the comparatively large inner-rooms of _tyanḍi Sévu_ in the plain of Parambanan, have no other opening but the door which gives entrance to the (eastern) porch. However, we don’t see any niche in the inner-room of _tyanḍi Kalasan_, perhaps because there was room enough in these two sanctuaries to place one or more lights before or on the altars which carried the _Buddha_ or _Târâ_ image.

In the main temples of the _Parambanan_ group, with the exception of _tyanḍi Shiva_, there was no place for these lights. The altar-shaped pedestals of the images were much smaller there, and round about them there was but little room.

This temple’s walls hewn with exquisitely modelled festoons had also no niches, and could not have had them unless one would have partly sacrificed its panels. But in all other, less spacious temples whose walls were unadorned, are still to be found simple and square formed stones, 2 of which we see in each side-wall, and 1 on every side of the entrance through the front wall, consequently just as the 6 niches in _tyanḍi Mĕndut_ and equally fit to the same purpose. Had not the front walls of these sanctuaries partly fallen down I am sure we then could see that they also had no windows above the entrances, and that neither the inner-rooms of _tyanḍis Sévu_ and _Kalasan_, nor the sanctuary of _tyanḍi Mĕndut_ ever had them till before some years when the president of the “_Oudheidkundige Commissie_” (board of antiquarian science) ordered these openings to be pierced through the front wall scarcely rebuilt by Van de Kamer. And that, _contrary_ to this architect’s official objections, and against my not-official but well argued warning. An irresponsible _deforming_, a _violation_ of the original architecture, a _desecration_ of a primevally pure style!

And this becomes much clearer to us when we raise our eyes, and fully _see_ how this polygonal hole spoils the harmony of the character of the pyramidical vault so beautifully thought, and which I mean to have once known as a closed whole.

Those who contemplate this pseudo-vault unprejudicedly will no more regret than I do, that such a thing could have happened without having been redressed up to this date. It is true, it would cost much labour again, and money too, but this labour and money would undoubtedly be far better accounted for than that which was uselessly spent to commit such an unpardonable mistake.

_Dr._ Brandes may have been deceived by the form of the hole the dropping stones had made _outside_ in the front wall above the entrance, and which he knew from engravings only, for, when he first visited this temple Van de Kamer had this wall erected again just as it once was, and without any other opening but the door. On account of analogical Indian ruins pictured in Fournerau’s and Porcher’s works, I stated elsewhere how the falling asunder of such walls which had been run up with hewn stones without mortar, are to form the very same angular lines of breach _Dr._ Brandes unrightly ascribed to the architect’s intention to build them so.

It is true that the front wall of the inner-room of _tyanḍi Sévu_ makes us think, from its inside at least, of such a _relievo vault_, but this had been entirely shut off to its outside, and consequently not likely to have ever done duty as a “light-case”[14]. Had _Dr._ Brandes taken van de Kamer’s objections and my warning into unprejudiced consideration, this meaning of his would not have been possible.

_Tyanḍi Mĕndut_ has the outward appearance of a quadrangle with a somewhat rectangular wing in the centre of each of its four sides.

Consequently an icosahedral resting on an equally polygonal foundation of larger extent. The north-western forebuilding, which reached much farther, and formerly had been separately roofed in, contained the porch to which a broad and fourteen-tread staircase will lead us even now. This staircase is flanked by heavy banisters formed of composed _naga_ and _garuḍa_ heads we are going to know somewhere else.

However, among the sculptures we see on the outer-wall, Mr. M. Foucher recognised not without some reserve the main image on the _northeast_ side as the eight-armed mahâyânistic deity _Tyundâ_ or _Tsyundâ_, standing between the _Bodhisattvas Avalokitésvara_ and _Manjusri_; on the wall to the _south-east_ (the hind-part thus) he thought he saw _Avalokitésvara_ himself, four-armed, and between two _Taras_; and on the _south-western_ side he saw _Tsyundâ_ once more, but now four-handed and standing between the very same two _Bodhisattvas_ we see on the north-easterly outer-wall. On the side-panels of _this_ wall he recognised the _Bodhisattva_ _Manjusri_, on the _south-east_ side _Vajrâpani_, the _Bodhisattva_ of the _second_ _Dhyâni-Buddha_; and on the outer-wall to the _south-west_ he saw _Manjusri_ again, the former with his sword and the latter with his book on a blue lotus. All the small series sculptured on the outsides of these heavy stairs refer to ancient legends.

The king of _Siam_ told us that in the whole of his buddhistic empire there was only one image which, though much more damaged, could be compared to the colossal Buddha image we see here, whilst his brother, prince _Damrong_, called the Mĕndut Buddha _priceless_.

In 1896, and afterwards in 1901, H. M. rendered due homage to the _Buddha_ image by a devout _sĕmbah_ (salaam) and by strewing _sĕmboja_-flowers (_Plumeria acutifolia_ Poir) in its lap; and so did the Queen.

Tyanḍi Pawon.