XXI. RAKSASA OF THE CHANDI SEWU
(Centrum.)
By the time we reach the thousand temples, Surya, the sun-god, has driven his fiery carriage to the zenith of his daily course through the air and the fire-eyed raksasas, who guard the enclosure of holiness; two for each of the four entrances, stretch their gigantic limbs with dreadful menace in the warm brilliancy of indefinite space, tangible terror. Down on one knee to strike, snakes hanging from their left shoulders as poisonous baldrics, they seem to mark the transition between the worship of Kala, quickening destruction personified, and the creed which hails in death the portal to nirvanic nothingness, the liberation from life’s miseries. Behind them reigns the stillness of a tropical noon, subduing heaven and earth to silent but intensely passionate day-dreams. The kingly sun, the sun of Java, wide-skirted Jagannath, having mounted to the summit of the fleckless sky, pauses a moment before descending, he, the light of the world, exciting to generative emotion all that dwells below. The fructifying charm of his touch is manifest in the exuberant fertility of this island fortunate; in the vitality of its people, unrestrained in creative capacity by centuries of spoliation; in their mental make-up, revealed in their history, their beliefs, traditions and legends. The legend of the chandi Sewu may be adduced as an instance in point, though nothing but a different version of the legend of the chandi Loro Jonggrang. One ancient effort to account for architectural wonders deemed of supernatural origin, by an explanation whose Indian basic idea was transplanted from the fields of eastern to those of western folk-lore too, serving at first, perhaps, for all the monuments in the plains of Prambanan and Soro Gedoog, became the framework of different tales adapted to the requirements of different localities. Here it is the story of Mboq Loro Jonggrang repeated, and her lover Raden Bandoong Bondowoso is the son of the beautiful Devi Darma Wati, daughter of Prabu Darmo Moyo, king of the mighty empire of Pengging, whose two brothers, Prabu Darmo Haji and Prabu Darmo Noto, were kings respectively of Slembri and Sudhimoro.
The babad chandi Sewu describes a public function at the Court of Prabu Darmo Moyo, who sits on his throne of ivory, inlaid with the rarest gems. The aloon aloon outside swarms with his warriors and while he pronounces judgment and invests and displaces, ambassadors from Prambanan are announced. They deliver a letter from Prabu Karoong Kolo, in which the Boko, the giant-king, asks Prabu Darmo Moyo’s daughter, Devi Darma Wati, in marriage. The Princess, acquainted with his suit, declares that she will marry no one but the man, be he king or beggar, able to rede a riddle which is given, written on a lontar-leaf, to the ambassadors who thereupon depart. On their arrival at Prambanan, Prabu Karoong Kolo breaks impatiently the seal of the communication; learning its meaning, his eyes dart flames, his mouth foams and, tearing the lontar-leaf into pieces and trampling upon it, making the earth tremble and disturbing the sky with his noisy wrath, he collects his army and marches against Pengging to raze the kraton of Prabu Darmo Moyo and carry Darma Wati off. The King of Pengging, warned of the approaching danger, implores his brother Darmo Noto, King of Sudhimoro, to assist him; with his brother Darmo Haji, King of Slembri, an odious tyrant, he has broken long ago. Prabu Darmo Noto orders his son, the Crown Prince Raden Damar Moyo, to lead his troops against the giant-king. Traversing the woods at the head of his men, scaling cliffs and climbing mountains, crossing rivers and ravines, attacked by evil spirits and wild animals, Damar Moyo, strenuous in the cause of his uncle and his fair cousin, hastens to their defence but, leaving every one behind, he loses his way and, tired out at last, falls asleep. A strange sensation of heavenly joy awakens him and, opening his eyes, he beholds the supreme god, Bathara Naradha, who presents him with the celestial weapons of the abode of the immortals, Jonggring Saloko, salves his forehead with the divine spittle to make him invulnerable and invincible, and puts into his hand the flower Sekar Joyo Kusumo which will enable him to rede Devi Darma Wati’s riddle. Strengthened and more enthusiastic than ever, Raden Damar Moyo, having rejoined his army, engages the giants of Prambanan and defeats them, astonishing friend and foe with his acts of superhuman prowess. He redes the riddle, marries Darma Wati, and his father-in-law, Prabu Darmo Moyo, appoints him senapati, i.e. commander-in-chief of the forces of Pengging.
The legend being too long for insertion in full, besides its containing details too candidly illustrative of the generative emotion engendered by the wide-skirted Jagannath, a summary of the events which led to the foundation of the chandi Sewu must suffice. Boko Prabu Karoong Kolo, King of Prambanan, loses his life in another attempt at the subjugation of Pengging, and Raden Damar Moyo, having nothing more to fear from that side, but naturally inclined to strife and contest, resolves to take part in the wars then raging among the kings of the Thousand Empires, Sewu Negoro. So he leaves his wife and the son born to them, Raden Bandoong, who grows into a comely youth. Arriving at manhood and still in complete ignorance of his sire’s name and lineage, the prince questions his mother on that subject but, in obedience to an express order from the gods, she refuses to tell him. Vexed and suspicious, he equips himself from the armoury of his grandfather, Prabu Darmo Moyo, and eludes maternal vigilance, escaping from the kraton in search of his father. After many adventures, culminating in a conflict with his parent in the Sewu Negoro, the two meeting and exchanging hard blows and parting as strangers, he reaches Prambanan, kills Tumenggoong Bondowoso, left in charge of that realm, and falls in love with Devi Loro Jonggrang, daughter of the late Boko Prabu Karoong Kolo. But he has been forestalled in her favour by his cousin Raden Boko, who is to become her husband on condition of the overthrow of Pengging and Sudhimoro. Suspecting a rival while maturing his plans for conquest, this Raden Boko takes a mean advantage of the lady by a trick learnt from a recluse who lends him a tesbeh (string of prayer-beads) which possesses the power of transforming its temporary owner into a white turtle-dove. So disguised, he flies to the women’s quarter of the kraton of Prambanan and attracts the attention of Loro Jonggrang, who responds to the lovely bird’s advances, puts it in her bosom and pets and fondles it to her heart’s content until, alas! it is killed by an arrow sped from the never erring bow of Raden Bandoong, thanks to the busybodies of the palace having informed him of the idyllic progressive cooing. Woman-like, the bereaved Devi submits to the inevitable after a period of passionate mourning, and promises her heart and hand to the stronger if not more dexterous suitor on condition of his building a thousand temples in one night between the first crowing of the cock and daybreak. With the help of the gods of Jonggring Saloko he accomplishes the task, but at the moment that he whispers astaga[119] chandi Sewu, struck by the sight of the moonlit plain blossoming into a city of holiness, the immortals change him for his arrogant prayer into a monster of horrible aspect. Woman-like again, the Devi declines to keep her promise, pleading that she engaged herself to a man and not to a brute, and seeks refuge on the banks of the river Opak. Frightened by the persecution of Raden Bandoong, who tracks her from cave to cave, she gives untimely birth to a daughter, the fruit of her affection for turtle-doves, and dies. The brutal, baffled lover still haunts the neighbourhood, which therefore native mothers-to-be scrupulously avoid, though it is not observed that the virgins derive much instruction from the legend as far as concerns the consequences of Devi or Mboq Loro Jonggrang’s amours at an earlier stage.
From legendary lore we return to fact in the matter of the foundation of the chandi Sewu by taking cognisance of an inscription, mahaprattaya sangra granting or sang rangga anting, unearthed near one of its 246 (not thousand) temples,[120] extolling the munificence of the magnanimous Granting or Anting. The style of writing justifies the conjecture that the buildings date from about the year 800 and are consequently of one age with the Boro Budoor. If not erected by one architect at the command of one bounteous prince, and the gifts of several pious souls who possessed the wherewithal for devotional works, they were at least constructed according to one plan steadily kept in view, a good deal more than can be said of many religious edifices in western climes, which owe their existence less to co-operative than to contentious piety. In respect of area the largest of the temple groups in Java, the first impression received from it is that of a chaos of ruins, confusion being worse confounded by the quarries opened here and there, and partly filled again with earth and rubbish, while a luxuriant vegetation, regaining on the inroads of mattock and pickaxe, quickly covers what they disturbed. Looking closer, the separate shrines with their elaborate tracery appear in the fiery embrace of the sun like sparkling jewels, trembling with delight in the luminous atmosphere beneath the immaculate sky; the very marks of decay and ravaging time are beautiful; the weeds clustering round the broken ornament, the toppling walls, rouse to fanciful thought. No sound is heard; nothing stirs while we make our way to the principal structure, once lording it over the smaller ones which stood squarely in four lines, 28 for the inner, 44 for the next, 80 for the third, 88 for the outer circumvallation. Excepting those of the second row, their entrances faced inward and amidst their scanty remains the foundations have been uncovered of five somewhat larger ones: two to the east, two to the west and one to the north; like the outlying buildings, these are, with regard to their superstructures, as if they never existed. Of the terraces and staircases no other trace is left than the telltale unevenness of the ground. The resemblance in constructive methods between the chandi Sewu and the chandi Prambanan strikes one at the first glance; the same builders, it is surmised, strove here to do for the Triratna[121] what there they did for the Trimoorti; and if not the same, they discerned equally the one truth bound up in the old creed and the new, and expressed it with equal skill and conviction in these twin litanies of stone—so the workers wrought and the work was perfected by them.
The decorators in charge of the finishing touches, embellished this city of temples with a wealth of ornament which in the quivering glare of day, despite ravage of time and pillage, clothes sanctity in robes of encrusted winsomeness. The sculpture of the chandi Sewu, says a visitor of a century ago, is tasteful, delicate and chaste. Much of what he based his judgment on, has since been carried off or demolished, but what remains fully bears him out: foliage and festoons, garlands and clustered flowers, distributed over facings divided into lozenges and circles by pilasters and fantastically curved lines, with lions, tigers, cattle and deer in ever varying abundance, awaken reminiscences of the carvings which excited our admiration at Prambanan and lead to the question: Did the richly framed panellings of the twenty-four external wall-spaces of the central temple exhibit scenes from the epics and fable-books, besides this sumptuous adornment, to match the almost uniform bas-reliefs of the lesser structures? If so, they must have rivalled the artistic excellence of the Ramayana reliefs which beautify the shrines of Siva, Brahma and Vishnu. And a second question arises: Was the central temple the depository of a relic? In connection with this query it deserves to be noticed that, generally speaking and excepting statuary, the internal wall-spaces of the chandi Sewu lack ornament, evince a soberness in marked contrast to the extravagant representations of the abode of bitterness, as if sign- or house-painters had been entrusted with the illustration of Dante’s Inferno, repulsive attempts à la Wiertz minus the talent to be admired in the Rue Vautier at Brussels, nightmares of crude drawing and cruder colouring to depict perverse torture, I found in eastern edifices raised to satisfy priestly conventions, even in Ceylon, the island of the doctrine that the Buddha next to dwell on earth is the Metteya Buddha, the Buddha of Kindness. More in harmony with the soul’s yearning for his kingdom to come, is the lotus motive happily adapted to the decoration of the chandi Sewu, especially in one of the partially preserved small temples of the outer file, to the east of the southern entrance: from a strong stem which separates into three branches, on three of the sides, the entrance taking up the fourth, three lotus-flowers spring from the soil to carry, in a finely chiselled niche, the (vanished) image of the expected one, the gone-before and coming-after. A few of the outlying buildings have plain facings without any ornament at all, from which it has been concluded that here too something happened to stop the labour in progress. Where completed, the plump-bellied flowerpot, a familiar feature in Javanese ornament, enters largely into the decorative design and its frequent repetition bestows on the sculpture of the chandi Sewu, otherwise so very similar to that of Prambanan, a character all its own.
XXII. DETAIL OF THE CHANDI SEWU
(Archaeological Service through Charls and van Es.)