On the other side of the globe in far-off Indonesia are clusters of ancient temples, the equal in size and splendor of any in the world.
Borobudur is, of course, the most famous of these temples. The largest Buddhist stupa in the world, this overwhelming ninth-century monument crowns a cone-shaped hill in Central Java. Encircled by Sculptured terraces, surmounted by a forest of pinnacled stupas, the shallow pyramidal edifice spreads out against its jagged backdrop of volcanic mountains like a vast mesa (one commentator likened it to a “mammoth flying saucer”). Five kilometers of exquisite narrative reliefs await the visitor with patience to look at them all. The basic concept of the stupa, originally intended to house relics of the Buddha, comes from India, but there is nothing like this structure in the land of the Ganges.
But there are many other temples, or candies, as they are called in Java, each one with its own special beauties and mysteries. Situated near Borobudur is Prambanan, the most important Hindu shrine of the Central Java. Completed in A.C. 956, Prambanan, or Candi Loro Jonggrang, as it is called in Indonesia, originally included eight main buildings in a raised court surrounded by 224 smaller shrines. The Central Shiva shrine soars into the air fifty meters high; a balustrade around its base is adorned with dramatic reliefs of the Ramayana epic that continues around the balustrade of the adjacent Brahma shrine. Both the Brahma and the Shiva shrine have been recently restored.
The crisp outlines and ornamentation of Candi Simbasari, a Shiva temple discovered under volcanic ash in 1966, look almost as fresh today as they did in the ninth century. With 90 percent of its original stones in place, Simbasari is situated five meters below ground level in its own green park.
In large measure the obscurity of these monuments, and many others equally fascinating, can be attributed to the Indonesians' inherent dislike of publicity. “No news is goodness,” is their motto,” says Gilbert Kinney, who was in charge of the U.S. consular district of East and Central Java and Bali from 1969 to 1972 and who chaired the United States fund-raising effort to save Borobudur. “Indonesia is the fifth-largest country in the world but they keep a low profile. Until now, they have never promoted tourism.”
But also the temples themselves used to be inaccessible, in ruins and sometimes nearly invisible - vast piles of stones were hidden by vegetation or buried in volcanic ash from the eruptions that periodically devastate Java. Unused since the fourteenth century, when Islam became the dominant religion of Java, the Hindu and Buddhist monuments were forgotten and ignored.
Indonesian isolationism is changing. Ever since 1986, when oil revenues took a steep dip, the government has been gearing up to receive tourists. Visa and customs procedures have been streamlined; hotel construction is booming. Intended to generate a stream of U.S. visitors replete with U.S. dollars, the 1990-91 Festival of Indonesia will be sponsoring exhibitions and performance all across the United States for the next year. Funded by Mobil oil, the Natural Gallery of Art's magnificent touring show The Sculpture of Indonesia kicked off these efforts. The Indonesian government has dubbed 1991 “The Year of the
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