XXVIII. BASE OF THE BORO BUDOOR SHOWING THE (FILLED UP) LOWEST GALLERY
(C. Nieuwenhuis.)
The Boro Budoor being undermined and gradually scattered to the four winds, it was but natural that the natives, following the example set by the elect, even by the elect of the elect acting in this or that official capacity, who used, for instance, chandi stones for the flooring of the Government pasangrahan,—that the inhabitants of the neighbouring kampongs should carry off what appeared suitable for their own ends, and the least heavy jataka reliefs claimed their first attention. So things went from bad to worse and the most disastrous year, a veritable annus calamitatis for the Boro Budoor, arrived with 1896, when the late King of Siam paid his second visit to Java. Much interested, as was to be expected of a ruler of a Buddhist country, in the Buddhist monuments of the island, so interested, in fact, that his Majesty tried to put the mahayanistic temples of the Kadu to the credit of his own, the hinayanistic church, his endeavours in this kind of mental annexation inspired authorities, eager to share in the honours of Siamese Knighthood (White Elephant, Crown of Siam, etc.) distributed with right royal generosity, to urge him to annexation in deed. If foreign visitors of little account had been permitted to help themselves in a small way to “souvenirs” for a consideration to keepers’ underlings left without control, why should foreign visitors of distinction not be served wholesale? His Majesty Chulalongkorn, to whom no blame attaches for gratifying his desire where he found Dutch functionaries, high and low, more than willing to oblige, was invited to make his choice and we must still thank him for his moderation, which limited the quantity of sculpture selected to eight cart-loads: there is scarcely a doubt that if he had requested them to pull part of the Boro Budoor down in consideration of Knight Commander- or Grand Masterships in this or that Order, the official conscience would have raised no objection. This came to pass, of course, after a more than usually fine flow, at the Hague, of ministerial rhetoric anent the priceless heritage Holland has to protect in the “brilliant mementos of Java’s historic past,” and the lover of ancient Buddhist architecture who wants to make a study of its acknowledged masterpiece, must now of necessity travel on to the banks of the Meynam to get an idea of some of its most characteristic imagery, not to speak of fragments of ornament and statuary removed by tourists of commoner complexion and dispersed heaven knows where.
XXIX. DETAIL OF THE BORO BUDOOR
(C. Nieuwenhuis.)
This instance of the ancient monuments of Java being officially despoiled to please crowned heads and other visitors in exalted stations, pour le bon motif, seemed so incredible that, when I censured it in the Dutch East Indian Press, the Dutch Press, over-zealous in hiding colonial enormities, also pour le bon motif, considered it an easy task to deny, waxing eloquently indignant at the denunciation until in regular, normal sequence, always observable in the perennial case of Dutch whitewashing versus colonial boldness of speech, the correctness of the statement could no longer be assailed, new evidence accumulating steadily, Mr. J. A. N. Patijn, for one, describing, in the Kroniek and the Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indië, a collection displayed near the Wat Pra Keo at Bangkok and brought thither from Java in 1896.[152] The frolicking monkeys doubtless, the people of the large cheek-bones, represented on some reliefs thus transferred, prompted an enthusiastic, genuine archaeologist’s imprecation on the heads of the guilty official and non-official toadies, inasmuch as he wished them, if there be anything in the dogma of Karma, which provides for our sins being visited on us in lives to come, that their least punishment might be their transformation, when called to new birth, into apes abandoned to ceaseless squabbles over their kanari-nuts (honours, dignities, preferment with big salaries, fat pensions, etc.), clawing one another with their sharp nails, to find at last that all the shells are empty. Desisting from a profitless discussion on the possibilities of retribution in a future existence, it requires to be stated that the official mind needed several years’ reflection in this before reaching the conclusion that really, in the matter of the conservation of the Boro Budoor something more was wanted than the periodical outbursts of gushing sentiment, grossly disregarded in practice, which are le moyen de parvenir of Dutch colonial politicians. The independents of the colonial Press, however, had at last the satisfaction that Captain T. van Erp of the Engineers was detailed to take the work of restoration in hand, building himself a house in the shadow of the chandi confided to his care, anxious to direct the necessary labours on the spot. Stationed there since August, 1907, his promotion to the rank of Major fortunately did not result in the withdrawal of his services from the archaeological field and, the climax of laxness with regard to the Boro Budoor having been capped in the Siamese episode, brighter days may dawn for that venerable edifice.
XXX. DETAIL OF THE BORO BUDOOR
(C. Nieuwenhuis.)
One of the rooms of the pasangrahan, reserved, under the old dispensation, for the storing of detached pieces of sculpture, was called the sample-room because, according to current report, orders were taken there for the delivery of such still undetached ornament and statuary as might have struck the visitors’ fancy. Other images lined the path from the pasangrahan to the temple, among them two Dhyani Buddhas, a fine Akshobhya and a still finer Amitabha, and lions, the poor remainder of those which once adorned the steps leading to the raised level of the building, whence the name: Avenue of Lions. Seemingly commanded to descend from the places where they kept guard as solitary sentinels, and to unite for defence at the point of greatest danger, terrible havoc was wrought in their ranks by the onslaught of souvenir-hunters, and one of their large-limbed, beautifully chiselled chiefs, who himself watched the entrance with a vauntful air as if proclaiming to foe and friend alike: Et s’il n’en reste qu’un, moi je serai celui-là, had to suffer the ignominy of being captured and carried off to Siam—which proves his Majesty Chulalongkorn’s good taste: it was the best specimen of animal carving on that scale in Java. These are no cheerful reflections when approaching the eminence skillfully converted into a stupa whose equal, both in originality of design and cleverness of execution, can nowhere be found. Though India furnished its prototype, the style here evolved baffles, on close examination, all comparison. The only building it can be likened to is the Taj Mahal at Agra, and only in this single respect while differing in all others, that, conceived by a titanic intellect, the delicate decoration suggests the minute precision of the jeweller’s craft. Opening and closing a distinct chapter in architecture, this admirable production rises in terraces which form galleries round the hill-top, enclosed by walls, spaced on the outside by 432 niches for statues of the Buddha with prabha (aureole) and padmasana (lotus cushion), on the inside with representations illustrating sacred and profane writings in bas-relief; the galleries of the superstructure raised on the square ground-plan, become circular and are bounded by 72 bell-shaped chaityas containing statues of the Buddha without either prabha or padmasana, or any ornament whatever. The profuse decoration of their surroundings never detracts from the powerfully expressed central idea of praise to the Enlightened One, the one who has fulfilled his end; the repetition of the motives manifesting the religious purpose, directs rather than confuses the attention of the worshipper in their multiformity of application. The spiritual father of the Boro Budoor must have been a man of strong mental grasp, of honest masculine endeavour stimulated by a highly sensitive temperament; his work, “a goodly heap for to behold,” growing in dignity and beauty the closer it is observed, a realisation of the sublimest aspirations of Buddhist Java, will perpetuate also, as long as it can endure, the memory of his own superior mind.
XXXI. DETAIL OF THE BORO BUDOOR
(Centrum.)