CHAPTER VI

EAST JAVA

cosi da l’ossa dei sepolti cantano i germi de la vita e degli spiriti.[87]

GIOSUÈ CARDUCCI, _Odi Barbare_ (_Canto di marzo_).

When, suddenly, for reasons still unknown, the classic period of art in Central Java closed, about 850 Saka (A.D. 928), East Java awakened and entered on an era of artistic activity in every direction, which lasted until the fall of Mojopahit six centuries and a half later. In architecture it offers nothing so grand and imposing as the ancient temples of the Middle Empire, but much more diversity, and numerous inscriptions, resembling, after 900 Saka (A.D. 978), in form and contents, what we possess of old Javanese literature, enable us in many cases to determine the dates and also the character of the _chandis_, found principally along the course of the Brantas in the residencies Pasuruan, Kediri and Surabaya. Moving eastward, it was there that Hindu civilisation made greatest progress, no more in the vigorous enthusiasm of a young faith eager to proselyte, but modified by and finally succumbing to the influences of the soil, the climate, the idiosyncrasies of the aborigines. The oldest dates (Madioon, Kediri, Surabaya and Pasuruan) fall between 890 and 1140; then we have a good many again from Kediri (1120-1240 and 1270-1460) and from Surabaya (1270-1490); also from Pasuruan, Probolinggo and Besuki (1340-1470), Madura (1290-1440) and Rembang (1370-1390); finally, the constructive energy returning to Central Java, from Samarang and Surakarta (1420-1460), Suku and Cheto bringing up the rear. In the palmy days of Daha and Tumapel a sort of transition style was elaborated; under Ken Angrok and his descendants on the throne of Mojopahit, East Java reached its architectural zenith, never equal in the grandeur of its conceptions to the Boro Budoor or even the Prambanan temples, to the symmetrical richness of the Mendoot, but making up in fantastic decoration what it had lost in sobriety of outline. The builders pandered to the unwholesome demand for that perfection at any cost which Ruskin censures as the main mistake of the Renaissance in its early stages, the workman losing his soul in exchange for consummate finish. But, though they bear the impress of decadence, the products of eastern Javanese constructive efforts are not wholly degenerate, never coarse or vulgar and well worth looking at from more than one point of view. The evolution of the ornament alone is exceedingly suggestive: the “recalcitrant spiral” which in Central Java ascends, decking the supports, topples, as it were, in East Java, losing its character and becoming a meaningless adornment of the casements of, _e.g._, the _chandi_ Panataran; the _kala_-heads remain but the _makaras_ change into a flame-like embellishment; where they are altogether dissolved, as in the _chandi_ Jago or Toompang, it is safe to conclude with Dr. Brandes to late eastern Javanese influences.[88]

It has been conjectured that the migration of Hinduïsm to East Java was the effect of Buddhism gaining ground in the central part of the island; that the pronounced Sivaïte tendencies of Mojopahit were a reaction against Buddhist innovations. But it remains still to be proved that Mojopahit, though worshipping Siva as the supreme god of the Trimoorti, adhered to his overlordship in all its orthodox purity. There are, on the contrary, indications of Vishnuïte leanings, of Buddhist heresy, of a syncretism no less pronounced than that of Prambanan and the Mendoot. In the time of Old Mataram’s hegemony, Buddhism must have ingratiated itself to some extent with her eastern vassals and, though not one of the temples in East Java is Buddhist after the fashion of the _chandis_ Boro Budoor, Mendoot and Sewu, vestiges of the Bhagavat’s doctrine are undeniable in Kediri, Southern Surabaya and Northern Pasuruan. A fusion of Sivaïsm and Buddhism has continuously controlled the construction of the larger temples of the later eastern Javanese period, says Rouffaer. Statues found in many places, _e.g._ in the _chandi_ Toompang, are distinctly Buddhist and, what is most remarkable, though of later workmanship than those of Central Java and of a different style, tainted by decadent methods, they possess high merits as works of art. In their Sivaïtic surroundings they confirm the statements of the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsiang who, perambulating India between 629 and 645, before the persecution of the Buddhists commenced, remarked upon the tolerance of the brahmins and _vice versa_, a virtue the Hindus carried with them to Java as already observed in the chapter on Prambanan. The kings of Mojopahit followed the example set in those regions: they were Saivas, Vaishnavas, Buddhists or followers of no one creed in particular, ready to protect and prefer each of them according to circumstances. In codes of law and poetry, Sivaïte priests and _sugatas_, pious brethren on the Buddhist road to perfection, are mentioned in one breath as conductors of the religious exercises on festive occasions, invoking the blessings of heaven on harvests and enterprises of peace and war; the poet Tantular calls the Buddha one with the Trimoorti.[89]

The Muhammadans were not so indulgent when the Pangerans of Giri increased in authority as spiritual leaders of their faith, successors of Maulana Ibrahim, its first apostle in East Java. The hillock of Giri became a centre of incitement to the holy war, particularly so under Raden Ratu Paku or Sunan Prabu Satmoto, whose tomb is still an object of Moslim pilgrimage.[90] With his approval, if not on his instigation, the Muhammadan states on the north coast combined under Raden Patah of Demak to compass the extermination of heathenism and he lived to see the overthrow of Mojopahit, though dying shortly afterwards. If the Moslemin yearned to gain Paradise, sword in hand, martyrs for their Prophet’s dispensation, those of the old creed remembered the power of _their_ gods, blowing the _sanka_, the war-shell of Vishnu, who proved to Sugriva and Hanoman his superiority over Wali by shooting his arrow through seven palm-trunks; who, in his fourth _avatar_, as _narasinha_, the man-lion, ripped open the belly of the sacrilegious demon Hiranya Kasipu. But Raden Patah, marching with his allies, marvellously helped in the way of the Lord against the idolaters of Mojopahit, the swollen with pride, proved to be the giant in the shape of a dwarf, Vamana, known from their god’s fifth _avatar_, conqueror of the three worlds. And Mojopahit, so great that the claims to the honour of her foundation, forwarded by as many princely houses as existed in those days, were fused in the tradition of her divine origin, her capital with its hundred gates and shining streets and palaces, the like of which had never been seen, having sprung from the earth in one night as a flower at the call of the fragrant dawn,--Mojopahit was overthrown and, laments the Javanese chronicle, the prosperity of the island disappeared. Not the last but the strongest bulwark of Hinduïsm had ceased to exist, bearing bitter fruit[91] of presumptuous pride indeed; the later Hindu empires, even Balambangan, which gave so much trouble to New Mataram and submitted only to the arms of the East India Company, leaving the ancient creed to die of slow exhaustion in the Tengger mountains, were nothing compared to her.

Like the remains, near the _dessa_ Galang, of the _kraton_ of the kings of the older empire of Daha, what has escaped total destruction of the capital of Mojopahit is constructed of brick. The ruins are situated about eight miles to the southwest of Mojokerto[92] in the valley of the Brantas; near Ngoomplak was the site of a royal residence in the building of which stone seems also to have been used. Raffles, visiting those heaps of debris scattered over quite a large area, found but scanty evidence of the fact that he trod the spot where great rulers had employed great architects, raising great structures for posterity to remember their great deeds by; Wardenaar, whom he had taken with him as a draughtsman, might have stayed at Batavia, though in his _History of Java_ he gives an illustration of “one of the gateways” and says that the marks of former grandeur there are more manifest than at Pajajaran, which, well considered, is saying very little. Now, a century later, a century of continued neglect, the general impression is still less calculated to prompt a vision of heroes subjecting thrones and dominions in the short space left them by their ancestor Ken Angrok’s murderous kris, defying the grave, unmindful of Mpu Gandring’s curse. Walking round in an effort to fit the scenery to historical dramas of love, hate and ambition, extreme care is necessary to avoid stepping on snakes coiled in dangerous repose or crawling among the brickbats which represent the foundations of princely mansions, digesting their last meal or hungry after the lizards that move restlessly in and out of chinks and crannies, lively beasties, enjoying the sunshine until snapped up, far more interesting really than the piles of rubbish bearing meaningless names. The natives one meets, will spin yarns _ad libitum_ anent the numerous graves and crumbling substructures, but few have an intelligible tale to tell. Here are portions of the city-wall; there the remnant of the gate Bajang Ratu; half a mile farther the _aloon aloon_, the _taman_ or pleasance, the tanks for bathing. A road, in great need of repair, leads through the Trowulan, the interior; exterior roads may be taken through ricefields and teak-plantations to the tomb of Ratu Champa, distinguished by curtains which once may have been white. Before a small building, enclosed by a fence, lies a stone supposed to cover the entrance to a subterranean apartment, the hiding-place, it is said, of the last king of Mojopahit when his capital was taken by the Moslim enemy. More graves surround that cache, graves without and, to intimate the pre-eminent importance of the elect thus honoured, graves _with_ dirty curtains, narrow strips of soiled cloth, sad offerings to the dead sovereigns of an empire of celestial fame. One feels almost inclined to refuse credence to the grand past this ragged display tries to commemorate and, from sheer disappointment, to join the ranks of the sceptics who doubt of the capital of Mojopahit ever having amounted to much, and maintain that, in any case, it had come down and was of no consequence compared with Tuban and Gresik, already in 1416, a century before its falling into the hands of the Muhammadans.

At Mojopahit it is the same old story of quarrying for building material: several sugar-mills in the neighbourhood with the dwellings of managers and employees, have been wholly or partly constructed of Mojopahit bricks. In 1887 I saw them used for the abutments of bridges, foremen of the Department of Public Works superintending. A short time before, twelve copper plates had been found with inscriptions in ancient characters, which disappeared in a mysterious way. The _rechos_ of Mojopahit were mostly left alone, a respectful treatment they owed to their general clumsiness. Some two or three miles from the ruins of the capital, a goodly number stand or lie together fair samples of statuary of the first eastern Javanese period, in its extravagance and exaggeration a travesty of the classic art of Central Java, crudity of conception floundering in a redundancy of form also observable at the _chandis_ Suku and Cheto; after the fall of Mojopahit, in the second period, the sculptor reverted to a close study of nature as manifested at the _chandis_ Toompang and Panataran; in the third, Hindu methods getting crowded within ever narrower limits, his fancy betrayed him again into lavish detail as exemplified in old Balinese imagery. At the gradual extinction of Hindu ideals of beauty, realised in decaying stone and brick, in statues defaced and vanishing like dwindling phantoms, a growing sensation of emptiness, emphasised by vague reminiscences of the artistic fullness of the _jaman buda_, claiming amends from succeeding creeds, received little from Islām and absolutely nothing from Christianity. Under Dutch rule very few attempts at style in Java and the other islands of the Malay Archipelago have been made at all, and of these few only one has resulted in an achievement not altogether ridiculous, namely the old town-hall, begun in 1707 and finished in 1710, of old Batavia, where the Resident has his office, by the natives very appropriately called _rumah bichara_, _i.e._ “house of talk”. With one or two utterly tasteless exceptions, the rest of the Government and private buildings, including the palaces of the Governor-General at Weltevreden and Buitenzorg, descend in their architecture to the lowest grade of the commonplace. To his Excellency’s ill-kept country-seat in the Preanger subverted Mojopahit seems almost preferable, notwithstanding the squalor of its threadbare _kaïn klambu_ decoration; the meanness of the viceregal reception- and living-rooms at Chipanas is not even picturesque and surely some of the public money regularly paid out for the maintenance of the “Government hotels” might be profitably expended on the improvement of the surroundings of Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands’ representative in the Dutch East Indies, including the rickety furniture, shabby napery, etc., which has a pitiful tale of unseemly parsimony to tell: the superiority of high rank needs decorum and nowhere more than in oriental countries, a truth lately too much lost sight of by officials, high and low, who, following the example set at Buitenzorg, hoarding against the hour of their demission, presume on their “prestige” without anything to back it.

Mojopahit had ceased to exist and the Muhammadans with the Christians in their wake overran Java, despoiling the land in which toleration and art could no more flourish, but dissension throve as the tree prophetically imaged at the Boro Budoor, whose branches bear swords and daggers instead of wholesome, luscious fruit. The old quarrels over political supremacy were surpassed in violence by religious strife, and fanaticism is still held responsible in our day for disturbances conveniently ascribed to Moslim cussedness when the acknowledgment of the real cause, discontent born from over-taxation, would be tantamount to a confession of administrative impotence. It was not Hanoman, the deliverer of Sita, who troubled the repose of Ravana’s garden, but the _raksasas_ and _raksasis_ who kept her in bonds, and there are two solutions of the Dutch East Indian problem, independent of the issue celebrated in the _Ramayana_ and both suggested in the ornament of Java’s temples: the devourer Time destroying all with his sharp teeth, and the lion, or tiger, to preserve the local colour, master of the fleeting moment, with a garland of flowers in his mouth, image of the clouded present holding out the promise of a brighter future. The two auguries, dark yet hopeful, belong to one old order of ideas, prefiguring things to come in dubious language, after the wont of oracles, ancient and modern, and we can choose the forecast which likes us best. So did the princes of Daha, Tumapel and Mojopahit, not to mention the lesser fry, creatures of a breath as we deem them now, doughty warriors and far-seeing statesmen to their contemporaries, who consulted their soothsayers before treading the fields of fame and blood whence they were carried to their graves, admiring nations rearing the mausoleums which now constitute the greater part of the historic monuments of East Java. The _Pararaton_ mentions no fewer than seventy-three structures of that description. Such as have been left are, for various reasons, hard to classify, the greatest difficulty arising from their bad state of preservation, though deciphered dates furnish important clues, for instance regarding some _chandis_ in Kediri: Papoh (1301), Tagal Sari (1309), Kali Chilik (1349), Panataran (1319-1375),[93] the last named being probably the principal tomb of the dynasty of Mojopahit. Springing from the soil in amazing dissimilitude, their architects seeking new modes of expression in new forms and never hesitating at any oddity, at any audacity to proclaim the message of artistic freedom from convention, they struggled free from the sober lines and harmonious distribution of spaces always maintained in Central Java, to run riot in fantastic innovations. Yet, they held communion with nature and neither shirked their responsibility nor sinned against the proper relations between their purpose and the visible consummation of their task as those of our modern master-builders do who contrive churches like barns or cattle-sheds, stables like gothic chapels, prisons like halls of fame and cottages like mediaeval donjons. From such architectural absurdities it is pleasant to turn, _e.g._, to the _chandi_ Papoh, a temple whose corner-shrines might pass for daintily wrought golden reliquaries inlaid with jewels, when the minute detail of their exquisite decoration is shone upon by the setting sun; or to the _chandi_ Sangrahan, when warmed to life from death and fearful decay, by the blue of a measureless sky, again budding from the earth, lovely as the lotus in the bliss bestowing hand of one of the five finely chiselled but headless statues near by.

Holiness in East Java, as everywhere in the island, took naturally to bathing. The retreat Bookti in the district Rembes, set apart for that pastime, according to the legend by Semu Mangaran, first king of Ngarawan (the later Bowerno and still later Rembang), had and has many rivals, nearly all in possession of antiquities to show their sacred character and the regard in which they were held. Some, like Bookti and Banyu Biru, the deservedly popular “blue water” of Pasuruan, are enlivened by colonies of monkeys, descendants of the apes kept there in Hindu times, beggars by profession, whose antics reap a rich reward. Sarangan in Madioon, Trawulan and Jalatoonda in Surabaya, Jati Kuwoong and Panataran in Kediri, Ngaglik and Balahan in Pasuruan, shared in olden times the renown which now is principally divided between Banyu Biru and Wendit, not to forget Oombulan, delightful spots, typical of a land where life is a continuous caress. Ngaglik has a beautiful female statue, evidently destined to do service as a fountain-figure after the manner of the nymphs which grace John the Fleming’s[94] Fontana del Nettuno in Bologna and countless other waterworks of his and the succeeding period. Wendit has Sivaïte remains: the prime god’s _nandi_, statues of Doorga, Ganesa, etc.; most of the _lingas_ and _yonis_ that used to keep them company as reminders of their inmost nature, have been carried off. Banyu Biru has a statue of Doorga, _raksasas_, fragments of Banaspatis, etc., and a very remarkable image of Ganesa with female aspect, an object of veneration, especially on Friday evenings when flowers and copper, even silver coins are strewn round to propitiate his dual spirit, candles are lighted and sweetmeats offered to the ancient deities taken collectively. The _chandis_ Jalatoonda and Putri Jawa served a double purpose: devotion and ablution, facilities for an invigorating bath playing a prominent part. The former, in the district Mojokerto, residency Surabaya, is the mausoleum of King Udayana, father of King Erlangga, and one of the oldest monuments in East Java; the latter, in the district Pandakan, residency Pasuruan, has much in common, as to ornament, with the _chandi_ Surawana of the year 1365 and belongs on the contrary to the younger products of Hindu architecture. _Chandi_ Putri Jawa means “temple of the Javanese princesses”, and Ratu Kenya, the Virgin Queen of Mojopahit (1328-1353), who spoiled her reputation for chastity by losing her heart to a groom in her stables and making him share her throne, as the _Damar Wulan_ informs us, may have repaired thither with her ladies-in-waiting to sacrifice and disport in the swimming-tank which is still replenished with water from the neighbouring river, flowing through the cleverly devised conduits; or the women of her luckless last successor, King Bra Wijaya, may have taken their pleasure there along with their devotional exercises before the Moslim torrent swamped their lord and master’s high estate, harem and all.

Cave temples have been found in Surabaya (Jedoong), in Besuki (Salak) and in Kediri (Jurang Limas and Sela Mangleng). The latter, of greatest interest and Buddhist in character, can be divided into pairs: Sela Baleh and Guwa Tritis, Joonjoong and Jajar. They are easily reached from Tuloong Agoong and, though the removable statuary is gone, except the heavy _raksasas_, defaced figures on pedestals, etc., the sculpture of the interior walls of the caves remained in a tolerable state of preservation. Above on the ridge is a spot much resorted to for meditation and prayer, where the view of the charming valley of the Brantas, bounded by the beetling cliffs of the south coast, the treacherous Keloot to the northeast and the majestic Wilis[95] to the northwest, prepares the soul for communion with the Spirit of the Universe. Remains of brick structures abound in East Java; besides the ruins of Daha and Mojopahit we have, for instance, the walls of the Guwa Tritis under the jutting Gunoong Budek, the _chandis_ Ngetos at the foot of the Wilis, Kali Chilik near Panataran, Jaboong in Probolinggo and Derma in Pasuruan. The _chandi_ Jaboong presents a remarkable instance of tower-construction applied to religious buildings in Java as further exemplified, conjointly with terraces, in the _chandi_ Toompang. The surprises offered by the _chandi_ Derma are no less gratifying, firstly to travellers in general who visit Bangil and, approaching the temple, which remains hidden to the last moment, suddenly come upon it in an open space adapted to full examination; secondly to archaeologists in particular because, dating from the reign of Mpu Sindok (850 Saka or before) and therefore one of the oldest monuments in East Java, if not the oldest in a recognisable state of preservation, it must be accepted as the prototype of Javanese architecture bequeathed by Old Mataram and is a valuable help to the study of the ancient builders’ technique, showing, among other things, says Dr. Brandes, that the larger ornamental units are of one piece of terra-cotta, joined to the masonry by means of tenons and mortises.

About a mile to the southeast of Malang, on the top of a hill near the _kampong_ Bureng, are traces of more buildings constructed in brick, the ruins of Kota Bedah. The foundation of that city is attributed to a son of Gajah Mada, chief minister of the last king of Mojopahit who, after his master’s fall, fled eastward and, subjecting Singosari with adjoining territories, became the progenitor of the dynasty of Supit Urang. The Moslemin pushing on and harassing the Saivas wherever met, invested Kota Bedah but, not prevailing against the strong defence of its commander Ronga Parmana, they caught the citizens’ pigeons which flew over their camp and, attaching pieces of burning match-rope to the birds’ wings and tail-feathers, they set fire to the thatch of the houses within the walls and so gained their end. Thereupon they destroyed the royal residence Gedondong, to the east of Malang, and those of Supit Urang took refuge in the Tengger mountains. This is one of several traditions explaining the existence of Sivaïte remains scattered in that neighbourhood: at Dinoyo, Karanglo, Singoro, Katu, Pakentan, etc. On the road to Toompang stands the _chandi_ Kidal, one of the best preserved in Java, only the upper part of the roof having fallen down. It is the mausoleum of Anusapati, the Hamlet of Javanese history, referred to in the preceding chapter, who was killed in 1249 by his step-brother. His likeness has been sought in an image of Siva, on the supposition that some statues of deities there erected, which point to the use of living models, represent the features of exalted personages. An enormous Banaspati over the entrance with smaller ones over the niches, _garudas_ and lions form the principal decoration in frames of highly finished ornament. Dr. Brandes remarks that in contrast to the decoration of the temples in Central Java, the heavy ornament of the relief-tableaux is here distributed over the parts which carry the weight of the superstructure, while the lighter ornament finds employment on the panels and facings. The methods of construction and the treatment of details mark clearly a transition to the younger period of eastern Javanese architecture best illustrated by the _chandi_ Panataran.

Somewhat older, built in 1278 as a mausoleum for Kertanegara, the last king of Tumapel, who reigned from 1264 to 1292 and was killed in battle by Jaya Katong, King of Daha, is the _chandi_ Singosari, near the railway station of that name, an excellent starting-point for an ascension of the fire-mountain Arjuno or Widadaren. It has been called one of the most unfortunate monuments in the island; not, presumably, because it shared the common lot, being gradually deprived of its finest ornament while its stones were freely disposed of for building material without the local authorities minding in the least, but because the spoliation could be watched by a comparatively large number of planters and industrials, settled in the neighbourhood, none of them interfering unless to its detriment. Insurmountable difficulties of transportation opposed the removal of the colossal _raksasas_ and so they were left with a _nandi_, a sun-carriage and, among fragments too defaced for recognition, a Ganesa and a female Buddhist saint, for this temple-tomb is of a mixed character in its religious aspect. A Javanese chronicle relates that Kertanegara was buried at Singosari in 1295, three years after his death, in the guise of Siva-Buddha, and at Sakala conformably to a more pronounced Buddhist rite. He was considered a wise ruler, notwithstanding his abusive attitude towards China, which had such dire results. He built an edifice, continues the _babad_, divided into two parts, the lower one Sivaïtic, the upper one Buddhistic, because in his life he prided himself on being a Saiva as well as a Buddhist. A richly ornamented _kala_-head in eastern Javanese style testifies to the admirable technique of the builders and decorators. According to popular belief a subterranean passage leads from Singosari to Polaman, about six miles away, a place of sacrifice in Hindu days, and another to Mondoroko, close by, the site of a ruin with a graceful statue of a female deity, two smaller ones which remind the beholder of Siva’s and Doorga’s creative faculties, and sadly damaged bas-reliefs. In 1904 an inscribed stone was recovered, at the intimation of a native, from a pond near Singosari. Confirming the data furnished by the Javanese chronicles, the inscription states that in 1351 Gajah Mada, the Prime Minister of Mojopahit, acting for King Wisnuwardhani, founded a temple-tomb, sacred to the memory of the priests, Saivas and Buddhists, who, in the year 1292, had followed their King Kertanegara in death, and of the old Prime Minister who had been killed at his feet.... “See here the foundation of the most honourable Prime Minister of Java’s sea-girt domain.”

Finest and most interesting of the Malang complex is the _chandi_ Jago, about twelve miles to the east of the capital of the assistant-residency, in the _aloon aloon_ of Toompang and hence more commonly named _chandi_ Toompang. It was the first taken in hand by the Commission appointed in 1901 and we owe most of the information, summarised in the following lines, to Dr. Brandes’ reports on this archaeological debut. A rare example of tower-construction of the kind also observed in the _chandi_ Jaboong, superposed on a raised level reached by terraces like those of the _chandis_ Panataran and Boro Budoor, the extraordinary Javanese mixture of Sivaïsm and Buddhism with a dash of Vishnuïsm has affected it to such a degree that even a recent description declares it to be a Buddhist pit-temple--a contradiction in terms. Begun in the middle of the thirteenth century, _i.e._ in the time of Tumapel’s political ascendency when Sivaïsm was the state religion, if we may speak of a state religion among peoples and princes whose predominant article of faith was tolerance and concession of equal rights to all religions, some of the learned investigators suppose with Professor Speyer that the Buddhist note was a consequence of the persecution of the adherents of Gautama’s creed in India and the hospitality extended to the emigrants all over the island Java. However this may be, syncretism became rampant in both the ground-plan and the decoration of the _chandi_ Toompang, conceived as an elevated dodecagonal structure on the highest of three irregularly shaped terraces, something quite exceptional in Javanese architecture. Apparently while the building was in progress, remarks Rouffaer, changes were made in the original project, and the more is the pity that the temple proper has fallen into almost complete ruin: not only that the roof is lacking, but the toppling back wall has dragged the greater part of the north and south walls down with it. The front or west wall has held out to a certain extent with the gateway, the chief entrance, a lofty, rectangular, monumental passage, ornamented on both sides and locked with a key-stone whose smooth middle space was destined, in the opinion of Dr. Brandes, to receive, but never did receive, the date of completion. Heaps of debris round about lead to the conjecture that the whole was encircled by a wall of brick and that the dwellings of the keepers or officiating priests were composed of the same material.

Several of the bas-reliefs fortunately escaped destruction and found an interpreter in Dr. Brandes, to whom we also owe explanations of the stereotyped decorative scrolls and flourishes. Though inferior in workmanship to the reliefs of Panataran, those of Toompang, “speaking” reliefs as he called them, are vigorously animated, gaining in interest to the devotee as he ascends the terraces, their masterly treatment culminating in what has been preserved on the portion still standing of the temple-walls. No better illustration of high and low life, of the nobility and the riff-raff portrayed in classic Javanese literature, could be imagined; the typical perfect knights and sly buffoons are there in crowds, princes and courtiers, warriors and peasants, gallivanting beaux and love-sick maidens, jealous husbands and frisky wives, worldwise sages and babbling fools, Javanese Don Quijotes riding out with their trusty squires of the Sancho Panza species, go-betweens neither better nor worse than Celestina, entangling dusky Melibeas. Every honourable soul is set off by his or her vulgar counterpart, of the earth earthy: the _panakawan_ (page) and the _inya_ (nurse) play most important rôles, almost equally important with those of the hero and heroine, and their characters are, conformably to the requirements of Javanese literature, clumsy and coarse but droll; their actions, whether they accomplish or fail to accomplish their tasks, reflect the performances of the born ladies and gentlemen whom they accompany, who lose each other and are reunited, who quarrel and make up, always in a comely, stately way, proud and sensitive, expressing their feelings in graceful gestures corresponding with the choicest words. When treating of Panataran, the ornamentation of the ancient monuments of East Java in its relation to Javanese literature will be more fully discussed. Here, however, belongs a reference to Dr. Brandes’ ingenious explanation of the slanting stripes or bars, left uncarved at irregular intervals on the narrow tiers of bas-reliefs at the _chandi_ Toompang; comparing those sculptured bands with the _lontar_[96] leaves on which the tales, whose illustration they furnish, were originally written, he saw in them the finishing strokes of the different chapters.

The statuary of the _chandi_ Toompang has been removed, for the greater part, to the Museum at Batavia and, possibly, one or two images, with Professor Reinwardt’s invoice of 1820, to that of Leyden. The deities are brilliantly executed, of idealistic design, to borrow Rouffaer’s words, exuberant to the point of effeminacy. Some of them show the conventional Hindu type and we can imagine the wonderful effect they produced among the essentially Javanese scenes chiselled on the walls. For their inscriptions Nagari characters have been used, a circumstance adduced to prove the predominant Buddhist significance of this temple. The principal statue seems to have been the decapitated and otherwise damaged, eight-armed,[97] colossal Amoghapasa, Lord of the World, reproduced by Raffles, including the head, “carried to Malang some years ago by a Dutchman,” he informs us, which, symbolic of unity with Padmapani, displays Amitabha, the Dhyani Buddha of the West, the Buddha of Endless Light, in the manner of a frontal. The goddess Mamakhi, scarcely less beautifully cut and also reproduced by Raffles in his _History of Java_, was carried to England _in tota_ by himself. Efforts to trace her whereabouts have not met with success; she remains more securely hidden, probably in one of the store-rooms of the British Museum, than the stone with inscription recording an endowment, transported from Java to the grounds of Minto House near Hassendean, Scotland. Talking of carrying away: a little to the southeast of the _chandi_ Toompang stood a temple of which hardly a stone has been left; a little to the south of the _chandi_ Singosari another is visibly melting into air. The Chinese community at Malang, as Dr. Brandes informed the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, boast of a permanent exhibition of Hindu statuary and ornament, consisting of more than 160 numbers, gathered together in the neighbourhood and on view in their cemetery. Baba collects Sivaïte and Buddhist antiquities with great impartiality, subordinating religious scruples to practical considerations, as when he lights his long-stemmed pipe at one of the votive candles on the altars in his places of worship. Excellent opportunities for the study of Chinese influences on Javanese art are offered by the decoration of his temple in Malang with its motives derived from creeping, fluttering, running, pursuing and fleeing things: tigers, deer, dragons, bats, especially bats, shooting up and down, flitting off, swiftly turning back, circling and scudding. The mural paintings of a good many other _klentengs_, too, are of more than passing interest since they promote a right understanding of the development of the Greater Vehicle of the Law, which in Java exchanged fancies and notions with both Chinese Buddhism and Taoïsm, discarded the classic for the romantic, if the expression be permissible in this connection, and still continues to live among the island’s inhabitants of Mongolian extraction, as Sivaïsm among the Balinese, their creative thought moulding old fundamental ideas in unexpected new forms. If Buddhism brought new elements into Chinese art, stimulating ideals and religious imagery, as the Count de Soissons remarks,[98] leading, for instance, to sublime personifications of Mercy, Tenderness and Love, the debt is repaid and emigrating Chinese decorators shower the graces of their benign goddess Kwan Yin on their labours in distant climes. As to Java, with which China entertained relations from the remotest Hindu period, they animated and reshaped in endless variation the ornament they found, the _makaras_, the _kala_-heads, at last, in their _saï-shiho_ tracery, being gradually supplanted by the bat-motive.

The _chandi_ Panataran is the most beautiful, for many reasons also the most remarkable temple in East Java and, with the exception of the Boro Budoor, the largest in the whole island. It was discovered by the American explorer Thomas Horsfield. Its foundations and the interior of its sepulchral pit are constructed in brick; its terraces are in general design not unlike those of the _chandi_ Toompang; among its statues, stolen and scattered far and wide, it may have contained images of Buddhist purport and inspiration. Sivaïtic in aspect, however, as it stands now, it is the only one of the monuments in Kediri sufficiently preserved to determine its religious origin. Fergusson classes the _chandi_ Panataran with the tree- and serpent-temples whose most peculiar feature in the residencies Malang and Kediri consists in having “a well-hole in the centre of their upper platform, extending apparently to their basement,” and the suggestion occurring to him “as at all likely to meet the case, (is) that they were tree-temples, that a sacred tree was planted in these well-holes, either in the virgin soil, or that they were wholly or partially filled with earth and the tree planted in them.” He compares the _chandi_ Panataran with the Naha Vihara or Temple of the Bo-tree in Ceylon and bases its claim to being called a serpent-temple on the fact that “the whole of the basement moulding is made up of eight great serpents, two on each face, whose upraised breasts in the centre form the side-pieces of the steps that lead up to the central building, whatever that was. These serpents are not, however, our familiar seven-headed Nagas that we meet with everywhere in India and Cambodja, but more like the fierce, crested serpents of Central America.” So far Fergusson; but the well or pit, notwithstanding the veneration of which the bo-tree was the object, seems rather to have been a receptacle for the ashes of the princes of Mojopahit whose memory the founder of this mausoleum, probably Queen Jayavisnuvardhani, the above-mentioned Ratu Kenya, immortalised in the _Damar Wulan_, intended to perpetuate. The _raksasas_, guardians of the ruins of the principal structure, bear the date 1242 Saka (A.D. 1320); a minor temple and terrace give the dates 1369 and 1375, from which it has been concluded that they were added in the reign of Ratu Kenya’s son Hayam Wurook.

The edifice rose from a square base and large statues of Siva as Kala adorn the feet of the staircases which lead to the first and second terrace. Of the temple proper not a stone is left; the walls of pit and terraces are covered with sculpture, a sort of griffins on the highest, scenes from the _Ramayana_ and illustrations of other popular poems and fables on the lower ones, beautiful work but irreparably damaged by official bungling. As if the apathy which suffered this noble monument to be despoiled and the providentially undemolished parts to crumble away, had not done enough harm, an amateur invested with local authority conceived a plan of restoration and preservation on official lines, that beat even the methods of the art-connoisseurs of the chain-gang to whom the care for the antiquities at Jogjakarta is entrusted, which would make reconstruction impossible for all time to come and deface the ornament in the thoroughest possible way. In obedience to a Government resolution of June 22, 1900, Nr. 18, the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences having been consulted with a view to save the _chandi_ Panataran from further decay, the Contrôleur in charge of the administrative division within whose boundaries it is situated, engaged native masons who, following their instructions, cemented, plastered and whitewashed to the tune of fl. 989.10 (about £82) with the magnificent result that the upper terrace has been transformed into a thickly plastered reception-bower for picnic parties; that everything has received a neat coat of whitewash to rejoice the hearts of housewives out for the day with their husbands, little family and friends; that the architectural detail has been hidden under solid layers of mortar and cement. Plaster, whitewash and cement everywhere: the noses and other extremities of the scanty statuary still in place but injured by time and hand of man, have been touched up with it; from top to bottom it has been smeared over whatever could be reached, making the venerable old temple hideously ridiculous--an orgy of “conservation” in the pernicious official acceptance of the word, hoary age being ravaged by cheap, destructive “tidying up”. This is how the theory of Government solicitude for the ancient monuments of Java works out in practice.

It must be considered a miracle or evidence of the native masons possessing a higher developed artistic sense than their employer, that the bas-reliefs have suffered less than this extraordinary process of restoration and preservation portended, though much detail has been destroyed, thanks to their vandalism under orders from Batavia as understood by the Philistine of Blitar. In the first place we find again, divided by medallions with representations of animal life, a sculptural delineation of the _Ramayana_, the artist’s buoyant fancy, blending the celestial with the human, shedding a divine light on acts of most common daily occurrence by making gods and semi-gods partake of man’s estate in deeds sublimely natural. The _Ramayana_ was a great favourite for the decoration of temples, as proved by the _chandis_ Panataran, Toompang, Surawana and Prambanan; the _Mahabharata_ or, rather, its Javanese version, the _Brata Yuda_, came as a good second; the _Arjuno Wiwaha_ of the poet Mpu Kanwa has been put to use for the embellishment of the _chandis_ Surawana and Toompang; the _Kersnayana_ for that of the _chandis_ Toompang and Panataran. We might do worse and, in fact, we are doing worse with our insipid epitaphs and tasteless lapidary pomposity in our cemeteries, than adorn the tombs of our great departed with imagery taken from our poets, tellers of good tales and fabulists, the life they knew so well aiding us to fathom death with its mysteries and promises. The promise most cherished by the Hindu Javanese was that personified in Siva: death to make new life grow and increase in beauty among mortals feeding on happiness, by reason of Kala’s breath destroying the misery of tottering old age, raising man to equality with the gods. That is what the people, for whom the marvellous ancient monuments of Java were built, loved to read in the masterpieces of their literature, carved for their benefit on the mausoleums of their kings, heeding the wise lessons for whoso chooses to reflect, of their _Canterbury Tales_, _Faerie Queene_, _Paradise Lost_ and _Paradise Regained_; their _Narrenschiff_, _Dil Ulenspigel_ and _Faust_; their _Divina Commedia_ and _Decameron_; their _Romancero del Cid_ and _Conde Lucanor_; their _nouvelles_ and _joyeux devis_, their _vies très horrifiques_ of their Gargantuas and Pantagruels. Life in their thought being intimately connected with death, which consequently inspired nothing of the abject terror the practice of western Christianity clothes it with, in curious contrast to the saving hope of its eastern origin, we discern cheerfulness, the effect of serene meditation, the true _amrita_, the rejuvenating nectar of self-existent immortality, as the keynote also to sensible earthly existence in the infinitely varied forms inviting our examination on the walls of the _chandi_ Panataran. _Greift nur hinein ins volle Menschenleben!_ If the beholder be a philosopher or an artist, or both, desirous to grasp the full life of man, he will receive rare instruction; and if a _lustige Person_ as well, joy will accrue to him from the sempiternal relevancy of Javanese allegorical humour, at times almost prophetic: the sculptor of the pigheaded but self-satisfied peasant who cultivates his land with a plow drawn by crabs,[99] must have had a vision of the Dutch Government endeavouring, after periodical visitations of worse than customary want, misery and famine, to secure progress and prosperity in the island by appointing long commissions with long names, toiling long years over long reports that leave matters exactly where they were.

The skies in the scenery of the bas-reliefs on the lowest terrace of the _chandi_ Panataran have something very peculiar, termed cloud-faces by Dr. Brandes, who recognised in the fantastic forms of the floating vapour as reproduced in the hard stone, demons and animals to which he drew special attention: a _kala_-head, a furious elephant threatening to charge, etc. The figures of all bas-reliefs, mostly perhaps those of the second tier from below, are notable for their departure from the smooth treatment generally accorded to Javanese sculpture of the period and best defined perhaps in the phrase of one of Canova’s critics when he derided that artist’s “peeled-radish” style. Angular and flat, they remind one of the _wayang_-puppets, and the obvious correspondence between the manner in which the _chandi_ Panataran illustrates some of the chief productions of Javanese literature and the performances of the Javanese national theatre, has been cleverly insisted upon by Rouffaer. The _wayang_, _i.e._ the dramatic art of the island, sprang probably from religious observances of pre-Hindu origin. Dr. G. A. J. Hazeu[100] is of opinion that it formed part of the ritual of the ancient faith, and even now the _hadat_ requires a sacrifice, the burning of incense, etc., before the play commences. The Javanese word _lakon_, a derivation from _laku_, which signifies both “to run” and “to act”, applied to stage composition, is the exact etymological equivalent of our “drama”; the _lakon yèyèr_ (_layer_ or _lugu_) confines itself to tradition, the _lakon karangan_ to subjects taken from tradition but freely handled, the _lakon sempalan_ to episodes from works otherwise unsuitable because of their length. The _wayang_ appears, according to means of interpretation, as _wayang poorwa_ or _kulit_,[101] _gedog_, _kelitik_ or _karucil_, _golek_, _topeng_, _wong_ and _bèbèr_, of which the _wayang poorwa_ holds the oldest title to direct descent from the ancestral habit of invocation of the spirits of the dead. The epithet _poorwa_ has been derived from the _parwas_ of the _Mahabharata_ which, together with the _Ramayana_ and similar sources, offered an abundant supply of dramatic material; it is from the _wayang poorwa_ that the Javanese people derive their notions of past events, as the inhabitants of another island did theirs from their poet and playwright Shakespeare’s histories before eminent actor-managers set to “improve” upon his work, mutilating him on his country’s stage in the evolution of a (fortunately more textual) interpretation, pointedly designated as Shakespearian post-impressionism.

A _wayang poorwa_ performance knows nothing of the showy accessories devised by and for our histrions to hide poverty of mentality and poorness of acting, futile attempts to make up in settings, properties, costumes and trappings, tailoring, millinery and disproportionate finery what they lack in essentials. The performer sits under his lamp behind a white, generally red-bordered piece of cloth stretched over a wooden frame on which he projects the figures. He speaks for them and intersperses explanations and descriptions, directing the musicians with his gavel of wood or horn, striking disks of copper or brass to intimate alarums, excursions, etc. Formerly all the spectators were seated before the screen, as they still are in West Java, Bali and Lombok, but gradually the men, separating from the women and children, moved behind, so that in Central and East Java they see both the puppets and their shadows. The _wayang gedog_, much less popular than the _wayang poorwa_, evolved from it in the days of Mojopahit as Dr. L. Serrurier informs us; while the latter draws its repertory principally from Indian epics, the former with Raden Panji, Prince of Jenggala, for leading hero, is more exclusively Javanese and prefers the low metallic music of the _gamelan pelog_[102] to that of the _gamelan salendro_[102] with its high notes as of ringing glass. In the _wayang kelitik_ or _karucil_, of later invention and never of a religious character, the puppets themselves are shown: since _wayang_ means “shadow”, the use of that word is here, for that reason, less correct, and the same applies to the _wayang golek_ in which the marionettes lose their spare dimensions and become stout and podgy; to the _wayang topeng_[103] and _wong_[104] in which living actors perform, an innovation not countenanced by the orthodox, who are afraid that such deviations from the _hadat_ may result in dread calamities; and to the _wayang bèbèr_ which consists in displaying the scenes otherwise enacted, in the form of pictures. Every one finds in the _wayang_, of whatever description, an echo of his innermost self: the high-born, smarting under a foreign yoke, in the _penantang_ (challenge and defiance), the lowly in the _banolan_ (farce), the fair ones of all classes in the _prenesan_ (sentimental, gushing, spoony speech). It is a treat to look at the natives, squatted motionless for hours and hours together, their eyes riveted on the screen, listening to the voice of the invisible performer, marvelling at the adventures of the men and women who peopled the _negri jawa_ before them and faded into nothingness, even the mightiest among them, whose mausolea at Prambanan, Toompang, Panataran, bear witness to the truth of those amazing deeds of derring-do, love and hate, which will remain the wonder of the world. To them the phantom-shadows are reality of happiness in a dull, vexatious life which is but the veil of death.

From Java, says Dr. Juynboll, the _wayang poorwa_ was transplanted to Bali, where it is still called _wayang parwa_ and the puppets present a more human appearance. Beside it thrives, especially in Karang Asam, the _wayang sasak_, introduced from Lombok and more Muhammadan in character, whose puppets have longer necks after the later Javanese fashion. Apart from such influences, Balinese art, however, does not disown its Hindu-Javanese origin. The inhabitants of the island, with the exception of the _Bali aga_, the aborigines in the mountains, different in many respects, pride themselves on the name of _wong_ (men of) Mojopahit and adhere to the Brahman religion, though here and there a few Buddhists may be encountered. They are divided into castes and Sivaïte rites play an important part in the religious ceremonial of the upper classes. The common people have adopted a sort of pantheism which makes them sacrifice in the family circle to benevolent and malevolent spirits of land and water, domiciled in the sea, rivers, hills, valleys, cemeteries, etc. The village temples are more specifically resorted to for propitiation of the _jero taktu_, a superior being entrusted with the guidance of commercial affairs and best approached through the guardian of his shrine, who is held in greater respect than the real priests. Every village has also a house of the dead, consecrated to Doorga, a goddess in high repute with those desirous to dispel illness, to secure a favourable issue of some enterprise, to learn the trend of coming events; the heavenly lady enjoys in Bali a far wider _renommée_ than her lord and master Siva, who is honoured in six comparatively little-frequented temples. As to the decadent architecture and excessive ornamentation[105] of the Balinese houses of worship, Dr. Brandes considers both the one and the other a direct outcome of the decay of the eastern Javanese style, exemplified in the _chandis_ Kedaton (1292), Machan Puti,[106] Surawana and Tegawangi. The leading ideas of the _chandi bentar_ or entrance gate, and of the _paduraksa_ or middle gate, adduces Rouffaer, are related respectively to those of the gate Wringin Lawang at Mojopahit and of what the present day Javanese call _gapura_ in sacred edifices as old _kratons_, old burial-grounds, etc.; and to those of the gate Bajang Ratu, also at Mojopahit. These gates Wringin Lawang and Bajang Ratu, states the same authority further, can teach us moreover a few things anent the architecture of the _puris_ (palaces). The temples and princely dwellings of Mataram in Lombok were completely destroyed during the inglorious war of 1894; the country-seat of Narmada, however, a fine specimen of an eastern pleasance, has escaped demolition. For how long?

In this respect it seems relevant to point to the circumstance that the monuments of the smaller Soonda islands, much more conveniently placed for the unscrupulous spoiler because under less constant observation of the general public, are exposed to even greater danger than those in Java, Government supervision counting for worse than nothing. A Batavia paper denounced quite recently a traveller who had been visiting the Dutch East Indies and, armed with letters of recommendation from personages of the highest rank and title in the Netherlands, had been collecting curiosa and antiquities on a vast scale only to advertise his collection for sale as soon as unpacked after his return to Europe. It contained carved ornament from temples, sacrificial vessels and statuary from Bali, besides woven goods, implements used in _batikking_, musical instruments, _wayang_-puppets, etc. The profit attached to this sort of globe-trotting is enormous, since the coveted objects can be acquired for a mere song by taking advantage of the influential assistance secured through letters of recommendation over high-sounding names. A hint from those in authority goes a very long way with the docile native, in fact goes the whole way of appropriation at a nominal value, and the big official who left his post in the exterior possessions, bound for home, also quite recently, with fifty boxes of antique ware of a different kind, collected in his residency, made certainly as good a haul as the distinguished, brilliantly recommended tourist.

FOOTNOTES:

[87]

So from the bones of those inhumed sing The germs of life and of the spirits.

[88] Cf. Miss MARTINE TONNET’S article in the _Bulletin of the Dutch Archaeological Society_, 1908, on the work of the Archaeological Commission.

[89] Cf. Professor J. H. C. KERN’S paper on Sivaïsm and Buddhism in Java apropos of the old Javanese poem _Sutasoma_, Amsterdam, 1888.

[90] The Pangerans of Giri continued for almost two centuries to exercise their spiritual authority, opposing the supremacy of the Princes of New Mataram until the Susuhunan Mangku Buwono II. had the last of them assassinated with all the male members of his family (1680).

[91] _Mojo_ means “fruit”, _pahit_ means “_bitter_”.

[92] _Kerto_ means “shining, glittering”.

[93] These dates are taken from Miss MARTINE TONNET’S paper in the _Bulletin of the Dutch Archaeological Society_ already cited, where she calls attention to the ardent religious life in that region at that time, as also attested to by the zodiac-beakers, mostly unearthed in Kediri and bearing dates between 1321 and 1369.

[94] More generally known as Giovanni da Bologna, though a native of Douay.

[95] On the summit of the Wilis are four heaps of debris and two enclosed terraces; on its eastern slope is a place of prayer, consisting of three terraces with bas-reliefs and called Penampihan, where the natives still congregate for sacrifice.

[96] _Borassus flabelliformis_ of the palm family, which, though hardly used in these times of cheap paper as a provider of writing material, serves the natives for a hundred other purposes.

[97] Two of the eight arms were already missing in 1815 to judge from Raffles’ reproduction.

[98] See his article, _Pictorial Art in Asia_, in the _Contemporary Review_ of May, 1911.

[99] Bas-relief on the remains of a small building detached from the _chandi_ Panataran proper.

[100] _Bijdrage tot de Kennis van het Javaansche Tooneel._

[101] _Kulit_ means leather, the material of which the puppets are made.

[102] The _gamelan_, as already remarked, is the Javanese orchestra, and besides the _gamelan salendro_ and the _gamelan pelog_, the _gamelan miring_ should be mentioned, which varies from the former in the higher pitch of one of the five notes as produced by some of the instruments. The Kiahi Moonggang, a relic of mighty Mojopahit, the oldest, most sacred and least melodious of the royal sets of _gamelan_ instruments, is played every Saturday evening and so long as its tones fill the air, all other _gamelans_ must remain silent. Cf. Dr. J. GRONEMAN, _De Gamelan te Jogjakarta_.

[103] The _topeng_ actors are masked conformably to the meaning of the word. Masques and masquerades seem to be of high antiquity in Java; the _Malat_ of the _Panji_-cycle already mentions that kind of dramatic entertainment.

[104] Utilised for prose works in the _langen driya_, devised by Pangeran Arya Mangku Negara IV., and in the _langen asmara_, devised by Prabu Widaya, a son of Paku Buwono IX.

[105] In Balinese decoration, writes Miss MARTINE TONNET (see her article already cited), the _naga_- (or _kala-naga_-) seems to flourish beside the _makara_-ornament.

[106] Lit. “white tiger”, situated in Banyuwangi.