Excepting the two réchas, or porters, I saw no remains of statuary; but it is probable that images of Hindu deities lie buried in the rubbish. These porters or giants seem to have been posted as if to guard the approach to the sanctuaries of the gods. The hair of each is plaited and wound round his head, after the fashion of the mendicant priests of India. He wears large cylindrical ear-rings, like those of the Javan women, bracelets and necklace of beads. His waistband, which is very bulky and reaches almost to his knees, is confined by a chain of square links, and receives on the right side a small square-hilted dagger. Between his legs and under the waistband there passes a lungofa or kopina, the ends of which hang down before and behind. In his right hand he holds an octagonal club; in his left a snake, coiled and darting its tongue along the breast: small twisted snakes also form his armlets, and one passes over his left shoulder diagonally across the body, the head and tail forming a kind of knot. His head is broad; his forehead and chin short but wide; his eyes quite round, large, prominent, and staring; his lips thick; his mouth open, and shewing two very large dog teeth and four others of the upper jaw. Singular as the countenance is, it has generally an open good humoured expression. The Sepoy who attended me, and who had resided two years among the Bramins at Benares, and, of a corps of upwards of eight hundred Sepoys, was acknowledged to be the best acquainted with such subjects, informed me that similar figures were common guardians of the entrance to the temples of India, and seemed perfectly well acquainted with their history, purpose, and distinctive accompaniments; but he was lost in surprise at the number, magnitude, and superior execution of those at Brambánan, to which he said that India could in no respect furnish a parallel. Every thing here, he said, was manifestly the work of the gods, as no human power could have effected such things. The temples at Brambánan are entirely composed of plain hewn stone without the least mixture of brick, mortar, or rubbish of any kind, even in the most extensive solid masses, or to fill up the floors and basements of the largest structures. Large trees have made their way through many of them, and give an air of high antiquity.
Close by the road side at Brambánan, and in front of the bándar's house, there are several pieces of sculpture deserving of notice. One is a very well executed relievo on two small stones, of about eighteen inches by five, within the bándar's kámpung: it represents elephants completely caparisoned in the Hindu fashion. Another is a piece of sculpture representing the wide-extended mouth and erect curled proboscis of the elephant, having a figure (I believe of a Gôpie or inferior deity or demi-god) seated in an erect posture on the animal's tongue, surrounded with a formidable array of teeth. This is found on either side of the top or bottom of flights of steps, grand entrances, or portal of all the Brambánan buildings. There is also a more finished specimen of the same kind as the last, but having instead of a Gópia a lion, decorated with a necklace, to whose head descends from the lotos flowers which crown the elevated proboscis of the elephant, a very rich cluster of beads. Two stones are sculptured in relief with the figures of seven apes traversing a wood: they are each about two feet six inches high by two feet wide. These pieces are more damaged by time and weather than any others I met with, and perhaps more ancient. They appear to be entirely historical, and probably formed together the memorial of some legendary event, which the learning of my Brahmin did not reach: he seemed however positive that Hanumán was not of the number. The shield occurs twice, a reptile of the lizard kind led by a string once, and all the figures appear armed with sticks.
The only other piece of sculpture found here is of a headless naked figure, sitting on a double throne, surrounded with foliage, opposite the Bandáran at the corner of a field. The journal of Colonel Mackenzie, which had previously appeared in the Transactions of the Batavian Society, had so fully persuaded me that all these rude figures in a sitting cross-legged posture were Jain or Budhist, that I by accident only asked my companion if he knew what this was? To my astonishment he replied, that this, with all other similar images, were tupís wurri, or Hindus in the act of devotion, and that this figure was evidently a Brahmin (from the sacrificial or sacred string over his left shoulder) employed in tupísya. I asked him whether it might be Budh? to which he replied, No; that Budh held a very low rank in the estimation of the Brahmins, who, in consequence of the schism between Brahmins and Budhists, did not choose to make tupísya before him, or erect his likeness in their temples; and that, as all the temples at Brambánan were entirely Braminical, or had their origin from the same sect of which he himself was a member, it was not likely that any images of Budh should be found thereabouts. When we afterwards came to examine the temples at Lóro Jóngran and other places, where the same figure complete appears seated in the small temples, surrounding the great central one, I pointed out to him the long-extended ears, short curled head of hair, and other marks, which I had understood served to distinguish the Jain or Budh images from all others. He said he was only more convinced that they were all simple Hindu devotees in the act of making tupísya, in the presence of the principal deity enthroned in the grand temple in the midst of them; that this was frequently the case in India, and wherever practicable the Brahmins placed images of devotees, of exactly similar form and attitude, around the fanes of Brahma and their inferior gods; that what I called curled hair was nothing more than a peculiar kind of cap (topi he called it) worn by devotees when in the most sacred acts of tupísya, which caps are common, he said, throughout Bengal or Hindustan, and are made for the purpose, by a particular class of people. I found the lower part of two counterpart decorated stones, having the part of the body of Ganésa in the centre of each. They were extremely well executed and in good preservation.
CHÁNDI LÓRO JÓNGRANG; or TEMPLES OF LÓRO JÓNGRAN.
These lie directly in front (north) of the village of Brambánan, and about two hundred and fifty yards from the road, whence they are visible, in the form of large hillocks of fallen masses of stone, surmounted, and in some instances covered, with a profusion of trees and herbage of all descriptions. In the present dilapidated state of these venerable buildings, I found it very difficult to obtain a correct plan or description of their original disposition, extent, or even of their number and figure. Those that remain, with any degree of their primary form or elevation, are ten, disposed in three lines, running north and south. Of those on the western line, which are far the largest and most lofty, that in the centre towers high above the rest, and its jutting fragments lie tumbled about over a large area. Nothing can exceed the air of desolation which this spot presents; and the feelings of every visitor are attuned, by the scene of surrounding devastation, to reflect, that while these noble monuments of the ancient splendour of religion and the arts are submitting, with sullen slowness, to the destructive hand of time and nature, the art which raised them has perished before them, and the faith which they were to honour has now no other honour in the land.
After repeated visits to the place, I am perfectly clear, that the temples of Jongrángan originally consisted of twenty separate buildings, besides the enclosures and gateway; that of these, six large and two small temples were within the second wall, and twelve small ones, exactly similar to each other, formed a kind of square about the exterior of the inner wall. The first temple that occurs on entering, is the small central one on the right hand of the present pathway; and though its roof is gone, a most beautiful terrace appears, which supported the building, and measures twenty-three feet six inches by twenty-two feet ten inches. At present the height of it is barely three feet and a half. The lower part contains five small niches on either side, profusely decorated and resting on small pilasters, each niche occupied by a lion, seated exactly similar to those described in the elephant's mouth. The intervals between the niches are very neatly filled with diminutive pilasters and other ornaments, displaying real taste and skill, which again support a double fillet projecting all round. One carved most beautifully, with a running festooned beading, with intermediate knots and pendents, each festoon filled with a lively representation of a parroquet with expanded wings, the other fillet with a fancy pattern more simple. On the opposite, or north side, was a building similar to this, but now a mound of stone.
The largest temple, apparently about ninety feet in height, is at present a mass of ruin, as well as the five others connected with it; but ascending to its northern face, over a vast heap of stones fallen from it and the third temple, at the height of about thirty feet, you reach the entrance: the whole is of hewn stones, fitted and morticed into each other, without rubbish or cement of any kind. Directly in front of the door-way stands the image of Lóro Jóngran. I had previously found a very similar, and I think a more beautiful representation of Dévi, as the Bramin called it, in the village of Kuwíran, about fifteen miles north-east from Brambánan. The image of Lóro Jóngran here has exactly the same attributes and accompaniments as that found at Kuwíran, but it is larger, not at all damaged, perfectly smooth, and with a polished surface: the buffalo is entirely recumbent; the character of the countenance, general figure, and attitudes, are very different, and the shape, attitude, and visage of the goddess, far less elegant and feminine. The figure at Brambánan is six feet three inches by three feet one inch in the widest part at the pedestal; that at Kuwíran is three feet nine inches high by twenty inches. The general description of this goddess, as read to me by the Bramin from a Sanscrit paper he copied at Benares, will serve to illustrate both these images, in the literal precise manner in which I took down his words.
"Bhawáni, Dévi, Soca, Juggudumba, Mahamya, Lutala, Phulmuttis, and Mata, are the designations of this powerful goddess, who resides at Shasi or Basini (Benares), at an angle of the sacred Ganges. Her adoration is called urchit with oblations of flowers, chundun, kundun, and mugt. In her hand she holds a tulwar, called khug: round her neck she has a mala of sumpurun, toolsi, or chundun. Her weight is very great, and wherever her effigy is placed the earth trembles and becomes much heavier. The name of her buffalo is Mahisa, and the Dewth who attempts to slay it is Ussoor. She sleeps upon a bed of flowers."
Thus much could I understand, and repeat verbatim of this goddess's power and attributes. For the rest, in her eight arms she holds, 1st. the buffalo's tail; 2d. the sword called khurg; 3d. the bhulla or janclin; 4th. the chukur or whut; 5th. the lune or conch shell; 6th. the dhat or shield; 7th. the jundah or flag; and 8th. the hair of the Dewth Mahikusor, or personification of vice, who, while attempting to slay her favourite, Mahisa is seized by the goddess in a rage. He raises a dhat or shield in his defence, and a sabre, or some offensive weapon, should be in his right hand.
The apartment in which this image and some other sculptured stones are placed, rises perfectly square and plain, to the height of ten feet, and there occurs a richly carved cornice of four fillets, a single stone to each. From this rises the roof in a square pyramid, perfectly plain or smooth, for ten feet more.