At Boro-Boedoer, ten miles from Magalang, there are the remains of the vast temple of that name; and about a mile distant, on the nearer bank of the Prago river, is the small and externally insignificant temple of Mendoet. Inside this latter is a vaulted chamber, the roof of which springs from walls twenty feet in height, and rises to sixty feet in the centre, covering a fine statue of Buddha.
At Brambanan, a village near Djokja, there is a large mass of ruins, of which the most important are the temple of Loro-Jonggrang and a group of small temples called Tjandi Sewoe, or Thousand Temples. In the neighbourhood of the former ruins there are six large and fourteen small temples, twenty separate buildings in all. The ruins of the latter group cover a space of six hundred, square feet, and contain many splendid colossal figures. They are arranged in five regular parallelograms, consisting of an outer row of eighty-four temples, a second of seventy-six, a third of sixty-four, a fourth of forty-four, and a fifth (forming an inner-parallelogram) of twenty-eight. The centre is occupied by a large cruciform temple, ornamented with sculpture, and surrounded by flights of steps. All of these remains are greatly marred by the luxurious growths of tropical vegetation which cover them.
Half a mile further are the Tjandi Kali Bening, or Temples of Kalasan. Here there is a very fine and well-preserved temple, seventy-two square feet in extent, of which Mr. Wallace says that it is "covered with sculptures of Hindu mythology that surpass any that exist in India." There are also other ruins of palaces, halls, and temples in the neighbourhood.[13]
The stones used for the construction of the Boro-Boedoer and other temples in Java, and for the images found throughout the island, are of volcanic origin. They are supplied by the numerous volcanoes in the island, and carried down the sides of the mountains to the plains below in lava streams. To-day such stones are used largely for making roads. There is, however, a little limestone found in the southern districts of the island.
In the Boro-Boedoer, at Mendoet, and in the Tjandi Sewoe, Buddha was worshipped; but in the Temple of Loro-Jonggrang at Brambanan, and in the Temples of Kalasan, Siva (the third person of the Hindu Trinity—Brahma, Vishnu, Siva) was the central object of adoration. As the connection between the religion of Buddha and Brahma has been often misunderstood, a few words on this point may be of service to the reader.
Brahmanism, which was the established worship of the Hindus when Buddha taught, was a religion which admitted of many sects; and Buddha, although his ethical system was independent of Brahmanic theology, recognized the existence of the popular deities. The distinction, then, between Brahmanism and Buddhism is purely arbitrary; the latter is merely a new growth of the former, and they both exist in British India at the present day. In China also there is a similar fusion of religious beliefs, where there are three established cults—those of Brahma, Confucius, and of the Taöists, or nature-worshippers. The Confucian religion is rather a system of ethics than a cult; but the rites of the Buddhist and Taöist temples are attended indiscriminately by the majority of the Chinese, the priests of the separate temples alone confining themselves to the worship of a particular deity. In India, however, the special followers of the two systems do not exhibit an equal liberalism of sentiment; while the worship of Brahma is considered orthodox, the cult of Buddha is regarded as heretical. The Buddhistic temples of Java, coming midway between the oldest Buddhistic temples of India and the modern shrines in Burmah, Ceylon, and Nepaul, the present seats of the cult, supply an interesting lacuna in the antiquities of Buddhism. The Javan form of this religion is especially allied to that of Nepaul. It bears a general resemblance to the Buddhism of Northern India, but is distinct from that of Ceylon and the south. It is not surprising, therefore, that ruins of temples dedicated to the services of both religions should exist side by side, nor that the grosser and more popular Brahmanic forms should have developed more largely than the more spiritual worship of Buddha, both in India to-day and in Java previously to the Mohammedan conquest.
GROUND PLAN.