Edmund Spenser, Faerie Queene, Canto X.
Among the ancient monuments of Insulinde[125] the chandi Boro Budoor stands facile princeps. Situated in the Kadu, it is easily reached from Jogjakarta, about twenty-five miles, or from Magelang, about eighteen miles distant, by carriage or, still more easily, by taking the steam-tram which connects those two provincial capitals and leaving the cars at Moontilan where an enterprising Chinaman provides vehicles, at short notice, for the rest of the journey via the chandi Mendoot on the left bank of the Ello, just above its confluence with the Progo. No better approach to the most consummate achievement of Buddhist architecture in the island or in the whole world, can be imagined than this one, which leads past the smaller but scarcely less nobly conceived and conscientiously executed temple, a commensurate introduction to the wonderful, crowning edifice across the waters, portal to the holiest in gradation of majestic beauty. The Kadu has been well styled the garden of Java, as Java the pleasance of the East, full of natural charms which captivate the senses, abounding in amenities soothing to body and soul; but if it had nothing more to offer than the Boro Budoor and the Mendoot, it would reward the visitor to those central shrines of Buddhism far beyond expectation.
Behind the horses, a mental recapitulation of the characteristics of Hindu and Buddhist architecture in the golden age of Javanese art will not come amiss, and there may be some wonder that with so much veneration for the Bhagavat in friendly competition with the Jagad Guru, nowhere in the negri Jawa an imprint is shown of the blessed foot of promise, with the deliverer’s thirty-first sign, the wheel of the law on the sole. If, in explanation, it should be adduced that he never travelled to those distant shores, what does that matter? Has he been in Ceylon? And how then about the sripada, the record left there as in so many other countries, with the sixty-five hints at good luck? While we revolve such questions, our carriage rolls on; the coachman cracks his whip, evidently proud of his skill in turning sharp corners without reining in; the runners jump with amazing agility off and on the foot-board and crack their whips, rush to the front to encourage the leaders of the team up steep inclines, fall again to the rear when it goes down hill in full gallop. The exhilarating motion makes the blood tingle in the veins. How lovely the landscape, the valley shining in the brilliant light reflected from the mountain slopes, ...
Another turn and we dash like a whirlwind past the kachang-oil[126] and boongkil[127] mill of Mendoot; still another turn and, with a magnificent display of his dexterity in pulling up, our Jehu brings us to a sudden standstill before the temple. Opposite is a mission-school conducted for many years, with marked success, by Father P. J. Hoevenaars, in his leisure hours an ardent student of Java’s history and antiquities, ever ready to apply the vast amount of learning accumulated in his comprehensive reading on a solid classical basis, to the clearing up of disputed points, though his modesty suffered the honours of discovery to go to the noisy players of the archaeological big drum. His large stock of information was and is always at the disposal of whoever may choose to avail himself of it and, writing of the chandis Mendoot and Boro Budoor, I acknowledge gratefully the benefit derived from my intercourse with this accomplished scholar, lately transferred to Cheribon.
The exact date of the birth of the chandi Mendoot is unknown but there are reasons for believing that it was built shortly after the chandi Boro Budoor, at some time between 700 and 850 Saka (778 and 928 of the Christian era), in the glorious period of Javanese architecture to which we owe also the Prambanan group, the chandis Kalasan, Sewu and whatever is of the best in the island. There are additional reasons for believing that the splendour loving prince who ordered the Boro Budoor to be raised and under whose reign the work on that stupendous monument was begun, founded the Mendoot too as a mausoleum to perpetuate his memory, and that his ashes were deposited in the royal tomb of his own designing before its completion. If so, he was one of the most prolific and liberal builders we have cognisance of; but his memory is nameless and all we know of him personally, besides the imposing evidence to his Augustan disposition contained in the superb structures he left, rests upon two pieces of sculpture at the entrance to the inner chamber of the mortuary chapel, if such it be, which represent a royal couple with a round dozen of children, just as we find in some old western churches the carved or painted images of their founders’ families.[128] We are perhaps indebted for the preservation of these suggestive reliefs to the circumstance of the chandi Mendoot having been covered, hidden from view during centuries and to a certain extent protected against sacrilegious hands by volcanic sand, earth and vegetation. Almost forgotten, its slumbers were, however, not wholly undisturbed for, when Resident Hartman, his curiosity being excited by wild tales, began to clear it in 1836, he found that treasure-seekers, out for plunder, had pierced the wall above the porch and that by way of consolation or out of vexation at missing the untold wealth reported to be buried inside, they had carried off or smashed the smaller, free standing statuary. The process of cleaning up rather stimulated than prevented new outrages: stripped of its covering of detritus, which had shielded it at least against petty, casual pilfering, the chandi Mendoot excited by its helpless beauty the most injurious enthusiasm. Fortunately, the statues which formed its chief attraction were too big for the attentions of the long-fingered gentry whose peculiar methods in dealing with native art strongly needed but never experienced repression by the local authorities.
XXIII. CHANDI MENDOOT BEFORE ITS RESTORATION
(Cephas Sr.)
Speaking of the statuary and comparing it with Indian models, more particularly a four-armed image, seated cross-legged on a lotus, the stem of which is supported by two figures with seven-headed snake-hoods, Fergusson says: The curious part of the matter is, that the Mendoot example is so very much more refined and perfect than that at Karli. The one seems the feeble effort of an expiring art, the Javan example is as refined and elegant as anything in the best age of Indian sculpture. Of the Mendoot carvings, however, more anon. I shall first endeavour to give a general idea of this temple which, according to the same writer, though small, is of extreme interest for the history of Javanese architecture. Rouffaer calls it the classic model of a central shrine with substructure and churchyard, while observing that the principal statue of the Boro Budoor, the rest of whose statues are turned either towards one of the cardinal points or towards the zenith, faces the east and the Mendoot opens to the west, the two temples therefore fronting each other. Closely observed, the latter proved of double design since it consists of a stone outer sheath, built round an older structure of brick, the original form with its panellings, horizontal and perpendicular projections, having been scrupulously followed. The neatly fitting joints, both of the hewn stones and of the bricks of the interior filling, show a mastery of constructive detail rarely met with at the present day and certainly not in Java. To this wonderful technique, adding solidity to a graceful execution of the ground-plan, belongs all the credit for the Mendoot holding out, notwithstanding persistent ill-usage. An ecstatic thought brightly bodied forth by a daring imagination and astonishing skill, a charming act of devotion blossoming from the flower-decked soil as the lotus of the good law did from the garden of wisdom and universal love, it must have looked grandly beautiful in its profuse ornament, which taught how to be precise without pettiness, how to attain the utmost finish without sacrificing the ensemble to trivial elaboration. Yet this gem of Javanese architecture seemed destined to complete destruction. Its pitiful decay did not touch the successors of Resident Hartman. When, in 1895, after several years’ absence from the island, I came to renew acquaintance, it had visibly crumbled away; official interference with “collectors” limited itself to notices, stuck up on a bambu fence, warning them of the danger they ran from the roof falling in. It needed two years more of demolition, the walls bulging out, the copings tumbling down, before the correspondence, opened in 1882 anent a desirable restoration, produced some result; before the Mendoot, the jewelled clasp of that string of pearls, the Buddhist chandis pendent on the breast of Java from the Boro Budoor, her diamond tiara, was going to be refitted.
And how? It is an unpleasant tale to tell: after two decades of consideration and reconsideration, in the fourth year of the preliminary labours of restoration, the local representative of the Department of Public Works, put in charge of the job as a side issue of his already sufficiently exacting normal duties, aroused suspicions concerning his competency in the archaeological line. An altercation with Dr. Brandes, followed by more controversy de viva voce, in writing and in print, led to compliance with his request that it might please his superiors to relieve him from his additional and subordinate task as reconstructor of ancient monuments. From that moment, January 2, 1901, until May 1, 1908, absolutely nothing was done and the scaffoldings erected all round the building were suffered to rot away, symbolic of the extravagant impecuniosity of a Government which never cares how money is wasted but always postpones needful and urgent improvements till the Greek Kalends on the plea of its chronic state of kurang wang.[129] When most of the fl. 8600, fl. 7235, fl. 25142 and fl. 4274, successively wrung from Parliament for excavations and restoration, had been squandered on what Dr. Brandes considered to be bungling patchwork, the expensive, useless scaffoldings, becoming dangerous to the passers-by in their neglected state, necessitated the disbursement, in 1906, of fl. 350 for their removal. On the continuation of the work, in 1908, by other hands, of course a new one, also of teak-wood, had to be erected. And, the restoration once more being under way on the strength of fl. 6800 grudgingly allotted, Parliament decided finally that no sufficient cause had been shown to burden the colonial budget with the sum which, according to an estimate of 1910, was required to bring it to an end! The profligately penurious mandarins of an exchequer exhausted by almost limitless liberality in the matter of high bounties, subsidies, allowances, grants for experiments which never lead to anything of practical value; in the matter of schemes which cost millions and millions only to prove their utter worthlessness,—the penny-wise, pound-foolish heads refused, after an expenditure of fl. 52401 to little purpose, to disburse fl. 21700 or even fl. 7000 more for the completion of the work commenced, this time under guarantee of success. Arguments advanced to make them revoke their decision, were met with the statement that the Government did not intend to deviate from the line of conduct, adopted after mature deliberation in regard to the ancient monuments of Java, restricting its care to preservation of the remains ... a characteristic sample of Governmental cant in the face of grossest carelessness and the kind of preservation inflicted on the chandi Panataran or wherever its officials felt constrained by public opinion to act upon make-believe circulars from Batavia and Buitenzorg before pigeon-holing them. And so the perplexing inconsistencies of Dutch East Indian finance, parsimony playing chassez-croisez with boundless prodigality, are faithfully mirrored in the tribulations of the chandi Mendoot: the reauthorised work of restoration was stopped again, on the usual progress killing plea of kurang wang, after the adjustment of the first tier above the cornice, and the temple, bereft of its crowning roof in dagob style, calculated to fix the basic conception in the beholder’s mind, has in its stunted condition been aptly compared to a bird of gorgeous plumage, all ruffled and with the crest-feathers pulled out.
