Along the outer-edge of the first we see stand 32 open worked dagobs or tyaityas; on the second there are 24, and on the third and highest 16, so altogether 72. And within this circle rises the majestic middledagob as the only real dagob or stûpa representing the leading idea, the final purpose of the whole ruin.
When standing on the polygonal upper plane the space between the spires of niches and tyaityas of the highest wall offers a strikingly beautiful aspect deep down and far off on the surrounding mountainous landscapes; a vista we enjoy far better when from the third and highest circular terrace. The whole valley of Prågå lies there westward at the foot of mount Mĕnoreh, a neptunian formation of volcanic materials—and, to the east, of the high twin volcanoes Mĕrbabu and Mĕrapi, and, to the north, of the Sumbing, the highest volcano of this part of Central Java.
All the open worked tyaityas of the round terraces have a round foot modeled like a lotus-cushion doing duty as Padmâsana which carries the sculpture (placed thereupon and inside) with its bell-shaped barrow.
The bell with square openings has a height of 1½ yard carrying a slantingly rising square stone-block crowned with an octangular cone rounded off on its top[70].
The large middle-dagob has the same type, but its wails partly rise in a perpendicular line above the foot nicely framed and hewn in the style of a colossal lotus-cushion in order to finish into a flat cupola rising for at least 8 yards above the highest circular terrace.
It was van Erp who found back some fragments of the large cone, which once crowned this real dagob, so that he was able to finish again this stûpa, now wholly closed again, and crowned once more with the basis of the cone.
The unfinished Buddha image found inside in its bhumi-sparsya-mudrâ had been kept outside, and provisionally deposited on the hill at the north-western foot of the ruin.
Now it will be impossible to reach this dagob’s top because the temple-stone staircase leading to this (it should be understood however, that the staircase itself did not belong there), has been removed, but a walk on the highest terrace situated at the foot some 40 yards above the hill-top is still worth while, and the eyes are pleased then with the very same beautiful vista formerly to be overlooked from a brick bench placed on the damaged cupola, and overburdened as it were with the names of unknown visitors scratched upon it.
Deep, ever greening and blooming, or, in harvest-time, brown-yellow or earth-colored planes, most often cloud-likely bedewed early at morn, breathing life and enjoyment of life, so to say under the powerful ribs of mount Mĕnoreh, badly bursten and highly crowned, and the cloud-like tops of craters of more than three volcanoes, and the active Mĕrapi still vomitting death or destruction in their surroundings, but also producing new life on the soil all covered with time-worn volcanic-ruins.
In face of such a stupendous creation we feel very little—yet, as the children of the very same creation, rich, and as thinking beings happy and great[71].