IX.
A short word about some sculptures we see on the three higher galleries. No double series are to be seen there, but the hewn panels, especially those of the back-walls of the second and fourth gallery, are a little higher, and have been partly modeled in an excellent style.
Wilsen’s and Leemans’ engravings are not always true representations of the sculptures themselves, f. i. no: 214 (W. L.) representing the unpardonably bad drawing of Maitrakanyaka’s mother. But for professor Speyer’s acute observation she would have been never recognised perhaps, and this group would then have remained unexplained for ever, if this sculpture, and so many other ones, might happen to be ruined at all. Fortunately enough, I ordered this group to be photographed for about 4 years ago, and these photos can’t possibly lie[59].
The productions, formerly taken by Mr. van Kinsbergen to the cost of the Dutch Government, are beyond my reach, and so I’ve not been able to control whether this sculpture has been photographed or not. I think it was not.[60].
Let me mention another example of Wilsen’s inaccuracy, the thirtieth sculpture we see on the back-wall of the second gallery, and so much the more, because it might have been easily photographed. More than one expert did so, among others, in 1901 (in my presence) the known Padang and Atyèh photographer C. Nieuwenhuis. Comparing this photo with Wilsen’s drawing we shall perceive that the two inner-pilasters of the small temple have been wrongly drawn, and that the outer-pilasters, behind the standing women, have been forgotten; that the prabha (glory) behind the saint’s head, we see sitting inside this small temple, impossibly goes upward before the upper-threshold of the entrance; and that the young lions and the throne’s carpet have been disfigured as well as the garlands and prayer-bells, both in form and placing. This also refers to the visitor’s parasol, and to the flower-offering we see near him. The second parrot, just above the right bodhi-tree, and one flower-piece to the right under this tree, have been wholly left out. This visitor’s hand flatly folded for a sĕmbah (salaam) has not been folded flatly, because the finger-tips only touch each other, so that the sĕmbah itself is to be recognised no more. The right foot of this man the drawer also forgot[61].
It is not difficult to show such mistakes in other drawings of Wilsen’s; and I therefore suppose them not to be relied upon for the explanation of further particulars.
There where Wilsen copied monks (bhiksyus) he nearly always raised them to Buddhas by decorating their clean-shaven heads with the hair-crown, the tiara or usynîsya! as if he, who didn’t even know the text the sculptor had followed, knew far better than the latter! And don’t we know how he, just like Ovid in his Metamorphoses, changed women into men or otherwise?
I further point to the above mentioned sculpture because of the worship of the bodhi-tree characterised by parasols and tyĕmaras (fly-flaps), rosettes and prayer-bells. Such fig-trees are still cultivated and honoured by all the Ceylon (and elsewhere) pagodae even at this day, and in consequence of this worship by buddhistic ancestors the Sundas and Javanese always respect kiaras and wĕringins (banyan-trees) and other akin Ficaceae.
Such trees as we always see on the alun-aluns, the front-places of kratons and dalĕms of princes and native chiefs originally meant, I think, a recognition to Buddha’s fig-tree. The preacher and his doctrine are forgotten here in Java, but one of the forms of this worship still exists.
I mention the eighteenth and the twenty-second sculpture (eastern staircase, fifth corner, 2 and sixth corner, 1) because of the winged shell, the syankha, provided with payongs and tyĕmaras as a sign of dignity.
Even now Javanese princes carry the tyåkrå, the trisulå and other weapons of deities in their ampilan[62], and so Vishnu’s tyankra doesn’t mean that the person whom it is carried after, should refer to this deity, though it is true that the Buddha of the Mahâyânists must be this god’s avatâra.
Among the following imageries I more especially see Hindu-gods as Buddha’s predecessors. (Bodhisattvas).
The four-armed sculpture we see on 18 (southern staircase, fourth corner 5), in Buddha posture on a throne carried by a bull, the nandi, the vâhana or Shiva’s carriage, makes us think, even without any other characteristic, of a Bodhisattva, perhaps. The lost head might have given more certainty.
Similar images we find on 100, 101, 102 and 104 W. L.[63].
On the first (northern staircase, second corner, 1) we see a four-armed sculpture on a lotus-throne in Buddha posture, with the glory, and in his left hand an elephant’s hook and a flower. The objects in his right hand are to be recognised no more. The throne itself has been adorned with elephants, lions and nâgas. The four arms near the single face may possibly refer to Vishnu or another deity, but not to Brahma which we see generally hewn four-faced: the small Buddha image in the crown only speaks of Buddhism[64].
And as Buddha, according to the northern church, had been Vishnu’s avatâra, this deity may by no means raise our astonishment because of his being represented here as a Bodhisattva.
Even the following sculpture (2 after the second corner) has been hewn four-armed, but too badly damaged to be recognised as the deity it should represent.
This also refers to the third sculpture (3 after the corner). The six arms may point to Shiva.
The fourth sculpture (5 after the same corner, W. L., 104) would not be easily recognised on Wilsen’s drawing. On the ruin itself however, there is no doubt whatever, because we here see clear enough that the upavîta is nothing else but the Cobra (snake) with a nicely modeled and crowned head. And this only speaks of Shiva or of his son Ganesha who has been always represented as an elephant or with an elephant’s head so that here he can’t be meant as such.
Another sculpture (W. L., 106, the seventh after the second corner) is still note-worthy, because the temple wherein it sits (not on a lotus-cushion) has been crowned by five shivaïtic trisyulas. Should this be a woman’s image it then may represent a Târâ or female deity, but it hasn’t any token to be recognised as Durgâ, the syakti of Shiva[65].
Unique of its kind is the sixty-ninth sculpture on the back-wall of the following, third, gallery (northern staircase, second corner, 2).
To the left we see a deity (a Bodhisattva, perhaps) in a temple crowned by eleven trisyulas. To the right such another deity (or greatness?) on a lower seat. Between these two stands a tree the branches of which don’t bear leaves or fruit, but swords and daggers. And beneath there we see a cauldron full of boiling contents hanging over a flaming fire. Next to this we see three (armed) men guarding three fettered prisoners who are likely to ask for mercy to the second, less great deity. It seems however, that one of the keepers is waiting for further instructions of the deity we see in the small temple.
The eleven trisyulas make us think of Shiva again, perhaps as Kâla, the god of death, the all destroying time.
Leemans thought this representation should be connected with a particular event or, should refer, in a general sense, to hellish punishments. The last mentioned explanation seemed acceptable to me, but then when taken in a pure symbolical sense.
The king of Siam simply called this a representation of hell. “Buddha sees hell.”
We may leave the walled terraces after having seen two other sculptures we find on the back-wall of the fourth and highest gallery which has no more than 20 angles and hewn wall-panels.
First of all I’ll mention the fifty-seventh sculpture (3 after the northern staircase). There we see a Buddha throning in a temple upon which we see, to the right, a flaming tyakra and, to the left, a crescent of the moon floating in the air on lotus-cushions.
And last of all I’ll point to the seventieth sculpture (fifth corner 2), showing us a similar representation, but where the tyakra has been replaced by the disc of the sun.[66]
One can’t possibly wish a more eloquent witness of the harmony of the tyakra and disc of the sun, and of the connection there is between these celestial bodies and the Buddha, between Buddha and Vishnu or, in other words, between the Buddha- and sun-worship.
For completeness’ sake I further mention that on the back-wall of this gallery are to be found many sculptures upon which more than five till seventeen Buddhas have been hewn in different postures (mudrâs). In my opinion the king of Siam rightly observed that here can’t be meant any Dhyâni-Buddha.
Foucher gave us another reasonable explanation of these sculptures by connecting them with Syrâvastî’s great wonder when the Buddha covered all the heaven with the reflexions of his own body. For the sake of brevity I therefore refer to that which has been mentioned hereabout in my “Oudheidkundige Aanteekeningen” IV, p. 42 and 44.
It only remains for me now to speak a few words about the relievoes major van Erp recognised to be jâtaka-representations guided as he was by the text of the great work of Mr. Cowell’s and contributors.
In the lower series on the front-wall of the first gallery we see, on the second sculpture south of the eastern staircase, the Bodhisattva ploughing his field as a farmer. Performing this task he suddenly finds a treasure the fourth part of which he presents the needy. (W. L., engraving CXXXVI). This is the Kanytyanakhandhajâtaka.
In the upper series on the very same wall van Erp thought the last of the 4 sculptures, after the fourth corner west of the southern staircase, to be another Sigala-jâtaka. In imitation of professor Speyer’s however, I described this as the jâtaka’s conclusion, the starving sparrow asking the lion for a little bit of the prey he killed shortly before. (W. L.’s engraving CLXX).
And in 5 relievoes on the same front-wall, but on the northern side of the ruin (not engraved in L’s) he meant he saw the Mora-jâtaka, where the Bodhisattva, caught as a peacock by the hunter of the king of Bénarès, teaches the doctrine to the prince.
Another jâtaka has been still mentioned in Leemans’ (Engraving CLXXXIII, and CLXXXIV and 3 other ones), where the Bodhisattva died a monkey when he sacrificed his life for the sake of his blind mother. His younger brother did likewise all which can’t prevent the hunter from shooting down even the mother-monkey after having first killed the two others.
It is the Syula-Nandiya-jâtaka in which the wicked hunter is being severely punished.
According to the pâli-text the Buddha himself related that this former hunter afterwards became his wicked nephew Devadatta; his younger brother-monkey Ananda, and that their blind mother was afterwards reincarnated in his step- and foster-mother Gotamî[67].
Van Erp gives us at last an explanation of another relievo we see on the lower series of the same wall, but this hasn’t been engraved in Leemans’ work either. Consulting the ground-plan we come across number 120 which refers to the panel it has been sculptured upon. Van Erp possesses a photography of this.
It corresponds pretty well to the relievoes I described as 11 and 12 of the upper series behind the second corner south of the eastern staircase, because in the two jâtakas the Bodhisattva represents a hare who flings herself into a fire to feed a hungry traveller; in this Syasya-jâtaka however, the mentioned hungry man does not represent the deity Indra but rather a risyi or anachorete, who rescues the hare out of the flames as well as Indra did.
I further mention that each of the terraces under foot lies about 3 yards higher than the preceding one, and communicates with each other by staircases of about 10 treads on an average.
Further, that each gallery between the walls is about 2 yards wide, and that these walls have a thickness of 1½ yard.
And finally, that there are among the architectural ornaments, I didn’t mention, numerous nâga-heads with opened mules and upward curled trunks which formerly carried off the rain-water (from under all these walls) to outside from terrace to terrace. Nowadays this water permeates through the time-worn stones into the rather loose soil of the hill till under the ruin. Dropping through all lower joints, and between the stones falling asunder more and more upon which the heavy stûpa has been built, it can’t be otherwise or all this is to destroy the ruin more and more, and sooner or later there will come a time when the temple itself shall partly or wholly fall to the ground, ... when the Dutch Government don’t know to prevent this by doing all that will be indisputably necessary.
And as it is a truth not to be denied that solar heat and rain-water are the two prevailing factors to cause the destruction of these and other ruins the only way to prevent all this must be therefore found by shutting out solar-heat and rain, that is, by means of a protecting cover such as drawn up and offered to the Dutch Government by Mr. van de Kamer. Any other manner of “restoration” will turn out to be a failure even when one may succeed in joining together all loose stones, and in cementing all the gaps. For the stone itself (andesit-lava) is so very porous that is used anywhere in Java for filtering-stones.
However, it doesn’t alter the fact that there will be no much chance that the Dutch Government will do what I also recommended her as the only thing needful.[68] The late Dr. Brandes, the first official president of the “Oudheidkundige Kommissie voor Java en Madoera” had proposed a far less sovereign but cheaper effort to the rectification of this sorrowful state of things, and even the authorities in Netherland concurred with this idea of his, though they would be inclined to think quite otherwise if they could unprejudicedly examine this question in loco. And the newly appointed president, the competent scholar and great authority on Indian matters, shall he think otherwise?[69]. Or will the rain-water continually permeate through and under the invaluable ruin, and carry away its bottom, and assure at last the ruin of the richest and most beautiful Hindu-work of art we possess, which, in all India and even in the mainland, speaks of the Buddha?... Should we then, as a civilised colonising power, not be worthy of such a treasure?
Oh, could I only persuade the Indian and Dutch authorities into willing and acting in quite another and better sense!
The major of the Indian engineer corps, Mr. van Erp, did everything he could, notwithstanding the limited means the Dutch Government allowed him to dispose of, and he consequently co-operated to the preservation of this precious ruin for a longer or shorter period of time. But this is not yet enough. Granting the means of our (Dutch) small empire to be too feeble to such a purpose—why then not try to form a Båråbudur-Society like the French founded a Société d’Angkor in behalf of the ruins of Kamboja, which not only found support from the side of fellow-country-men in Europe and Farther-India or anywhere else, but also from foreigners?