Monumental Java

by J. F. Scheltema

VIII. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS
(Cephas Sr.)

The demi-gods and heroes with their followers on the outside of the Siva temple, occupy, counting from the base upward, the third tier of ornamentation, also the highest in the roofless condition of the building: the few niches left above are empty. Beneath, the story of Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu, is told in bas-reliefs which belong to the very best Hindu sculpture discovered in Java or anywhere else. The division of the casements is effected by bo-trees, sitting lions and standing or dancing women in haut-relief, especially the last being of exquisite workmanship. In endlessly varying attitudes, embracing one another or tripping the light fantastic toe, retreating and advancing, their measured steps being regulated by the musicians on interspersed panels, they represent the apsaras, nymphs of heaven, adorning the house of prayer to acquaint mortal man with the joys in store for the doer of good. The human birds and other mythical animals under the bo-trees, the prayer-bells and flowers in the garlanded foliage, enhance the charm of this ingenious decoration, the splendidly limbed virgins disporting themselves in a frame of imposing magnificence, their graceful movements being worthily seconded by the sumptuous setting. Nor does this wealth of detail, this marvellous display of artistic power, of skill perfected by imaginative thought, divert the attention from the divine idea embodied in Siva or from the introduction to its understanding provided by the Ramayana, initiating the beholder’s intelligence by degrees. All is so well balanced that the lower guides to the higher in whetting comprehensive desire. First, on reaching the terrace, starting from the low level of vulgar interest, curiosity and sympathy are awakened by the epic which shared popular favour with the Brata Yuda. It is not known who enriched the literature of Java with a version of the Ramayana adapted to Javanese requirements; as in the case of the Mahabharata he was probably one of the poets living at the cultured courts of the eastern part of the island. Whatever his name, he made a hit with his tale of the god who descended from heaven, bent on flirting with the daughters of men, and won a wife, the tenderly loving Sita, by drawing Dhanusha, the mighty bow of Siva. His success may be appraised by the circumstance that scenes taken from his poem were deemed suitable to embellish the tombs of sovereign rulers. Can it be called an improvement after more than a thousand years of progressive western civilisation that we, to honour the memory of our dead, make shift with inflated epitaphs advertising virtues in life often conspicuous by an absence which the maudlin angels of our cemeteries, rather than shedding undeserved, vicarious tears, perpetually seem to bemoan on their own account?

IX. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS
(Centrum.)

The adventures of Vishnu in his Rama guise are told from the moment of Dasharatha, King of Ayodhya, invoking his aid to make the royal consorts partake of the blessing of motherhood. Vishnu, resting on the seven-headed serpent of the sea, Sesha or Ananta, the one without end, dispenses a potion which makes Kantalya, who drinks half of it, conceive Rama; Kaykaji, who drinks a fourth part of it, Bharata; and the third spouse, who drinks the rest, the twins Lakshmana and Shatrughna. We can follow Vishnu, reborn from mortal woman, on the reliefs of the Siva temple, which are tolerably preserved, through the first stages of his earthly career as Rama, but must renounce studying his subsequent story on the exterior of the temples dedicated to himself and Brahma, where the third tier of sculpture has altogether disappeared, save a few mutilated bas-reliefs. That is a great pity, for the illustration of the Ramayana by the artists entrusted with the decoration of the chandi Prambanan, judging from what we still possess, marks the apogee of Hindu-Javanese art; revelling in accessory ornament, it never surfeits, keeping the leading idea well in view, every embellishment adding to its intrinsic value. The heavy moulding above the lowest band of chiselled work of the Siva temple has fortunately protected it from being damaged by falling stones; here we are able to discover the sculptor’s technique at close quarters and it is worthy of note that some of the curly lions are wanting in their appointed places. This, coupled with the fact that a few of the apsaras remained unfinished, while others, like statues of gods on higher planes, have only been outlined, and spaces, evidently contrived for ornament, present flat surfaces, has led to the conjecture of a catastrophe which surprised the builders and made them suspend their labours as in the case of the Bimo temple of the Diëng plateau.

X. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS
(Centrum.)

One of the salient features of the decoration at Prambanan, indeed of all ancient Javanese art, Sivaïte and Buddhist, is the representation of animal life as an important factor in human destiny. If the Buddha was called the Sakya Sinha, the Lion of the Sakyas, and his sylvan embodiment adorns in many reproductions the Boro Budoor, his stateliest temple, at Sivaïte Prambanan we find the king of the desert extensively utilised in the general decoration, together with the beasts of the field under the bo-trees and fanciful combinations of man and his lowly friends, not dumb but of different speech, like the kinnaris, the bird-people. The Ramayana bas-reliefs echo the kindness[46] shown to those humble companions in Indian myth, history and present-day asylums for the aged and infirm among them. Attending the monkey warriors with whose help the simian deity Hanoman restored King Sugriva to the throne of his forefathers at Kishkindhya (an allusion, it is thought, to the doughty deeds of the aborigines of the Deccan), bajings[47] and bolooks[47] are gambolling round the house of the Most Awful and Mysterious, once worshipped here by great nations whose very names are lost, but whose art, giving a place to all creation in symbolic expression of the divine, still teaches us the lesson that the animals are also children of the gods, endowed with life not to be exterminated to serve our pleasure and our vanity, or to be abused for our profit, but to enjoy the fullness of the earth and the good gifts of heaven as we do ourselves, or might do if we were wise. Mother Nature, Siva’s sakti Doorga, nurses at her bosom all her husband’s offspring, without distinction, and at Prambanan she superintends the growing world, as the mistress of his household, in the highly finished form the artist has given her: Loro Jonggrang, daughter of Ratu Boko of the Javanese legend. Not in her outward character of the demon-steer subduing virago does she attract her worshippers here, nor in that of the woman of the golden skin riding the tiger, full of menace, but in that of Uma, the gentle goddess who sheds light on perplexing problems of conduct, to whom one turns in distress. Ideal of high-born loveliness, Loro Jonggrang is especially venerated by those of her own sex who are in trouble or have a desire to propound in the fumes of incense they burn: barren matrons praying for issue from their bodies to their lords and masters, like the wives of King Dasharatha; virgins anxious to get married; pseudo-virgins who have trusted too much in the promises of their lovers, following the hadat established by herself at Prambanan and diligently observed (not only, it should be noticed, in that neighbourhood, but likewise where no one ever heard of Loro Jonggrang and her escapades d’amour), insisting that, in the name of the precedent she set, consequences shall be warded off. When pasar, i.e. market, falls on a Friday,[48] her votaries are exceptionally numerous, mostly native women entreating deliverance from female ills or help in the attainment of feminine wishes. Chinese, half-caste and occasionally European ladies may, however, be observed among them: it is said that several happy mothers of the ruling race at Jogjakarta and Surakarta owe their husbands and children to Notre Dame de Bon Secours of Prambanan; that brides having obtained their heart’s desire in union with the beloved, the bridegrooms in their turn repair to her shrine, after a honeymoon ended in storm-clouds, with an earnest supplication for means of release. This explains the sprinkling of males among the fair devotees on Fridays, dejected looking persons who smear the statue of Doorga with boreh, despite notices to desist, supplicating her to repeal former decrees, having different objects in view, of course, with their salvings of Ganesa and Siva’s nandi. Favours are requested, pledges are given, votive sacrifices are performed, the gods and their attributes, Mboq Loro Jonggrang in the first place, are wreathed and festooned with flowers in compliance with an old Hindu custom so deeply rooted that we may notice grave, turbaned hajis yielding to it, unheedful of the Prophet’s anathemas against those who commit the unpardonable sin of idolatry, straying more widely from the right path than the brute cattle, wicked doers, companions of hell-fire whose everlasting couch shall be on burning coals.

XI. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS
(Centrum.)