Part 7

When standing on the polygonal upper plane the space between the spires of niches and _tyaityas_ of the highest wall offers a strikingly beautiful aspect deep down and far off on the surrounding mountainous landscapes; a vista we enjoy far better when from the third and highest circular terrace. The whole valley of _Prågå_ lies there westward at the foot of mount _Mĕnoreh_, a neptunian formation of volcanic materials—and, to the east, of the high twin volcanoes _Mĕrbabu_ and _Mĕrapi_, and, to the north, of the _Sumbing_, the highest volcano of this part of Central Java.

All the open worked tyaityas of the round terraces have a round foot modeled like a lotus-cushion doing duty as _Padmâsana_ which carries the sculpture (placed thereupon and inside) with its bell-shaped barrow.

The bell with square openings has a height of 1½ yard carrying a slantingly rising square stone-block crowned with an octangular cone rounded off on its top[70].

The large _middle-dagob_ has the same type, but its wails partly rise in a perpendicular line above the foot nicely framed and hewn in the style of a colossal lotus-cushion in order to finish into a flat cupola rising for at least 8 yards above the highest circular terrace.

It was van Erp who found back some fragments of the large cone, which once crowned this real _dagob_, so that he was able to finish again this _stûpa_, now wholly closed again, and crowned once more with the basis of the cone.

The unfinished _Buddha_ image found inside in its _bhumi-sparsya-mudrâ_ had been kept outside, and provisionally deposited on the hill at the north-western foot of the ruin.

Now it will be impossible to reach this _dagob_’s top because the temple-stone staircase leading to this (it should be understood however, that the staircase itself _did not belong there_), has been removed, but a walk on the highest terrace situated at the foot some 40 yards above the hill-top is still worth while, and the eyes are pleased then with the very same beautiful vista formerly to be overlooked from a brick bench placed on the damaged cupola, and overburdened as it were with the names of unknown visitors scratched upon it.

Deep, ever greening and blooming, or, in harvest-time, brown-yellow or earth-colored planes, most often cloud-likely bedewed early at morn, breathing life and enjoyment of life, so to say under the powerful ribs of mount _Mĕnoreh_, badly bursten and highly crowned, and the cloud-like tops of craters of more than three volcanoes, and the active _Mĕrapi_ still vomitting death or destruction in their surroundings, but also producing new life on the soil all covered with time-worn volcanic-ruins.

In face of such a stupendous creation we feel very little—yet, as the children of the very same creation, rich, and as thinking beings happy and great[71].

XI.

It only remains for me now to add a short description to the _Buddha_ sculptures which made the ruin call: _Båra-buddå_ or _Pårå buddå_, that is, the _many_ or _conjoint Buddhas_.[72].

All of them are in a sitting posture with crossed legs, almost in the same posture the Javanese call _silå_, but upright.

They are dressed in a thin mantle uncovering their right arms and shoulders—such as the monks of the southern church wear their cowls—and have the _tiara_, the round hair-knot, on their heads all covered with short curls. Even the _ûrnâ_, the little tuft of hair on their fronts is still to be seen on many a sculpture, and on the other ones, less accurately hewn, they are forgotten[73].

The posture of all of them tells resignation and peace, and may speak of the later final dissolving in the _nirvâna_, the joy- and painless _not-to-be_.

But the sculptor didn’t succeed in interpreting all the sculptures in this sense. Not all the sculptors had been equally good artists for they must have had much more work the best of them might have finished alone.

Among the sculptures placed opposite the _five_ zones of heaven, the East, South, West and North and the Zenith, there is to be seen a _slight_ difference in the posture of the right hands, and something more difference in the posture of the _two_ hands with regard to those sculptures we see on the round terraces. _All_ the sculptures on the _five_ encircling walls have been hewn with their left hands in their laps, that is, with the palm on the right foot. Those on the _four lower walls_ have (on the east side) their right hands with their backs, on the _south_ side these very same hands with the palms upwards on the right knees; those of the _west_ (opposite to the setting sun) hold both their hands in their laps, and those of the _north_ rise their right hands a little above the right thigh, palm forward, and the _five_ fingers closed together in a perpendicular line.

The sculptures of the _whole fifth_ and _highest_ walls dominating _all_ the regions of heaven only distinguish themselves from those on the _northern_ lower walls by means of the _bent_ index of the raised right hand forming a _closed circle_ with the somewhat joined thumb, that is, because of the stone’s brittleness.

The sculptures of the open worked _tyaityas_ on the three round terraces however, raise their _two_ hands before the epigastric region, the left one with the palm and the bent finger-tips in an upward direction, the right one with the palm to the left and the fingers bent over those of the other hand[74]. Moreover, they all miss the glory and have not been placed in open temple-niches above a human and mythical- and animal world represented by many sculptures, but hewn _in transparently closed graves_, and in higher spheres above this world. There is consequently more difference than between the sculptures of the five encircling walls.

There is still another sculpture unique of its kind.

When, a long time ago, in the beginning of our last century, the middle-dagob was opened a double space was found inside, a smaller above a larger one, and, among others, a Buddha image corresponding in size to all other sculptures, whereas the posture of the hands tallied with those on the _eastern_ lower walls[75].

This image having been unfinished can’t be ascribed to the merest chance or to an untimely stop of the temple-building, because the dagob itself, where it had been _wholly closed in_, was finished afterwards.

So it must have been intentionally left in this state, but _I_ can’t possibly accept the supposition that it should refer to the _future_ [fifth] Dhyâni-Buddha in state of being.

A future, _not yet existing_ Buddha can’t be materialized by a _half-sculptured_ image, and the _fifth_ Dhyâni-Buddha is never hewed in the posture of the hands of the _second_, but always, such as on the northern lower walls, in his _own mudrâ_ whereas the _future_ Buddhas as _Bodhisattvas_ were represented not only in other postures but also in another dress and ornament and with their own attributes.

Besides, the hypothesis challenged by me would not yet solve still existing mysteries, but would only give rise to other enigmas which don’t bring us any farther.

The explanation of the fact may be much simpler.

_I_ think it may have been considered quite unnecessary to finish a sculpture in such an accurate manner like all the other ones, if it should be hidden from sight for ever.

What is the meaning of these different Buddhas?

According to the posture of the hands we may divide them into _six_—according to other data into _three_ groups. _Nothing more_ and _nothing less_.

The _three_ groups are:

1. The 432 Buddhas of the open temple-niches on the five richly hewed encircling walls, all of them seated on lotus-thrones and crowned with glories.

2. The 72 Buddhas of the open worked _tyaityas_ on the three round terraces, without any glory or lotus-throne but represented by the _padmâsana_ of the tyaitya-foot. But even the human and animal world hewn under the niche-Buddhas we don’t see there again.

3. The _only_ Buddha of the large dagob entirely sequestered, without glory or throne, but seated above the _padmâsana_ which carries the whole dagob.

The posture of the hands however, ought to refer to _six_ groups, because there are _six_ different _mudrâs_.

Wilhelm von Humboldt was the first who considered _five_ of the _six_ Buddhas to be the representations of the five _Dhyâni_-Buddhas.

_Three_ of them: Vairotyana, Akshobhya and Ratna Sambhava successively redeemed and ruled over three following former worlds; the _fourth_, Amitâbha—our Gautama or _Shakya-muni_—ruled over _our_ world these 24 centuries, and is said to be succeeded, after the creation of a new world, by the _fifth_ and last, Amogasiddha, the _Buddha of love_.

Especially in the posture of the hands there is some conformity between five of the six Båråbudur-images and the five Dhyâni-Buddhas such as we see them hewed in Asia. But there are also some points of difference.

In the Mongol countries, for instance, the _two first_ Dhyâni-Buddhas are throning in the East; the _third_ in the South, the _fourth_ in the West and the _fifth_ in the North[76].

Taking, according to the posture of the hands, the images of our ruins to be _Dhyâni_-Buddhas the East would then be only occupied by the _second_ and the _zenith_ by the first of them, that is, above the round terraces which don’t dominate any region of heaven. But this happens more elsewhere in Asia.

But which will be the _sixth_ Buddha represented there by _all_ the sculptures of the fifth and highest encircling wall, and dominating _all_ the zones of heaven, but which _can’t be a Dhyâni-Buddha_?

That’s a new enigma rightly explained by the king of Siam, I suppose,[77] and which I’m going to show directly.

And that the unfinished Buddha of the _large_ dagob _can’t_ represent the _fifth_ Dhyâni-Buddha appears from the posture of the hands which would refer to the _second_, 92 times hewed on the eastern lower-walls.

Should it represent a _Dhyâni_-Buddha, it must be this one and for such an idea _I_ can’t find any reason.

Had the _Mahâyânists_ had the intention to place there one of their five _Dhyâni_-Buddhas, they surely would have rendered homage to their _own_ Redeemer, the _fourth_. The four other ones may have only had a legendary-historical sense, consequently also the _second_. In spite of the _mudrâ_ of this second _Dhyâni_-Buddha the image itself should not be meant as Akshobhya, but simply as the perfect Buddha, the _Shakya having taking flesh as Buddha_—for this is the meaning of this _mudrâ_ even to the Buddhists of the southern church _who don’t know several Dhyânis_ but the _only_ Buddha.

And as these five Dhyâni-Buddhas don’t wholly explain the images of the Båråbudur, and don’t wholly expound the _sixth_, I therefore thought it reasonable to take all the Buddhas of the five encircling walls as one separated group, those of the three circular terraces as a _second_, and the ones of the closed dagob as the only representative of a _third_, whereas the placing of the sculptures on these five walls should be connected with the _five_ zones of heaven Siddhârta took possession of after his birth[78].

Should this group represent the Buddha perhaps, with reference to the human- and animal world described by the sculptures hewed beneath there, we then may refer to Wilsen’s and Leemans’ and accept the images (_taken from the mentioned world_) of the upper-terraces to be the Buddha as _Arahat_ in a state of supreme purity or holiness, in the _nirvâna_, perhaps. The Buddha wholly enclosed by the large dagob, and so positively separated from the world, may refer to the _parinirvâna_, that is, the _wholly_ dissolving in the infinite _not-to-be_; _death without regeneration_, the _final purpose of all life_[79].

For this dagob is a closed grave in which for about, or at least, eleven centuries ago the Buddhists may have hidden the vase containing some ashes of the really died Buddha; a trace of the remainders of the great wise man, the spotless preacher; a minim quantity of the Master’s ashes, the divine redeemer of all that lives and suffers, that thinks, feels and dies.

Mr. Foucher starts from the principle that he doesn’t like to contradict the explanation as if these _Buddha_ images were to represent _Dhyâni-Buddhas_, but he means that they should be examined more closely, and completed, and that the different groups ought to be judged again after severe study.

As for the present he discerns:

1, the _bhunisparsya mudrâ_ in the 92 niches on the 4 first walls to _the East_;

2, to the _South_ the _vara-mudrâ_;

3, to the _West_ the _dhyâni-mudrâ_;

4, to the _North_ the _abhaya-mudrâ_, and

5, in the 64 niches on the fifth and highest wall the _vitarka-mudrâ_ (the gesture of _discussion_) and higher, among the 72 cupolae of the 3 circular terraces:

6, the _dharma-tyakra-mudrâ_ (mark of distinction), and finally the _only_ sculpture from the wholly closed _dagob_, hewed in the _bhumi-sparsya-mudrâ_.

So there is a slight difference between Foucher’s idea about the north-indian _Mahâyânists_ and my defended explanation of the _Siam Hînayânists_.

“_This is Buddha preaching the tyakra_” said king Tsyula Longkorn to me, “_and this means the tyakra_”, joining the tops of the thumb and the index of his right hand so as to form something like a circle.

This seemed convincing to me, and I found this idea confirmed not only on all and still undamaged statues on the highest wall, but also, and especially, on a great many _relievoes_ of the second gallery which represent the _Buddha_ in a preaching posture.

It is true that the exactness of this view of mine had been indirectly _denied_ by my great official antagonist, the late Dr. Brandes, but never did he dispute or refute this scientifically.

Mr. Groeneveldt, formerly the most competent authority on our Hindu sculptures in the Dutch Indies, thought the unfinished image of the middle-dagob to be a representation of the _Adi-Buddha_, and this would certainly have expounded this statue in it separately placing, if this _im_material _primeval_ Buddha might have been ever represented in a material image. And there are more objections than only this _impersonality_ of the divine primeval being materially revealing himself in the different _Buddhas_, and consequently _not_ hewed at _Nepâl_ and _Tibet_ but only represented by a symbol, a circle or two eyes[80].

Would the mahâyânistic architects of the Båråbudur have acted in quite a different sense?

_I_ don’t see any _Dhyâni_-Buddha in this Buddha, but only the _perfect_ preacher _having taken flesh_ as the Buddha, the Master, who, though he did die, continues to live as long as _this his_ world will exist.

Each posture of the hands has its own meaning, and there are much more than five _mudrâs_ even in the hînayânistic countries like _Siam_ where one doesn’t know any Dhyâni-Buddha.

This also refers to the posture of the _sixth_, for a long time unexplained Buddha on the highest encircling wall whose mudrâ was rightly called _dharma tyakra_[81]. Thumb and index, circularly joined together, represent the _tyakra_, god Vishnu’s disc, the sun, the symbol of the _dharma_, the buddhistic _Doctrine_.

Buddha has been consequently hewed there as _preacher, preaching the doctrine_ to all people, and _consequently_ towards _all_ the regions of heaven. And this teaching of the king-Buddhist has been perfectly confirmed by the fact that on _all_ the sculptures (especially on those we also see on the backwall of the second gallery) the thumb and the index join each other in the very same manner.

That this preaching preacher has been placed upon the highest wall will be easily understood if we consider the preaching of the doctrine to be the highest vital expression of Buddhism, and possibly referred to both the world of the four zones of heaven and to the one of the celestials in the _zenith_.

XII.

A few remarks about the sculptures of the original foot of the outer-wall we didn’t discover before 1886. In 1890 I proposed them to be uncovered and photographed, afterwards they were covered again in the ancient manner, and hidden from sight.

They have been hewed on a projecting wall-foot which goes tolerably deep beneath the heavy ogive, now resting as a socle again on the surrounding outer-terrace that has been afterwards built all round the 36-angled basis of the temple, but only on 24 of the 40 panels. The _two_ sides of each of the double fore-buildings of the four temple-fronts built towards the different zones of heaven, _haven’t_ been adorned with any sculpture, but the staircases divide the four middle fore-buildings into _two_ panels.

Each of the 24 hewed panels contains _six_ or _eight_ imageries one metre long by about 80 inches high. A system of flat frames might have separated the whole series from the mentioned ogive, so to say, a regular combination interrupted by the staircases only.

If the 160 scenes which form this combination are to represent a series of following events or legends we then must try to find the beginning (like on nearly all other hindu temples) to the south of the eastern staircase following it from there through the South, West and North till the starting-point in the East.

This _didn’t_ happen and could not have happened when they were photographed because the temporary uncovering began and was continued at more than one place at the same time without knowing how many sculptures there would be found. They have been marked on the clichés with capital letters for the different panels, and with figures for the scenes of each panel (from 1 till 6 or 1 till 8), but these numbers have been occasionally noticed in a just direction, and from time to time in a reversed successive number. On a few copies we don’t see any letter and number; they may have been cut off with the margin of papier.

Fortunately, the figures in lead pencil on the back-side could assist me, though they sometimes started from quite a wrong point.

The Dutch Government ordered 15 pair of photos to be taken from these clichés, and presented them to special musea or societies. _I_, the schemer of the plan, do not belong to the favoured. But the afterwards wrecked Archaeological Society did, notwithstanding I, her president, sent this plan to the Government for about 25 years ago[82].

Those who desire to examine these photos will find here the letters and figures in the _just_ successive number of the sculptures to begin with C 1 south of the eastern staircase.

C, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; B, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8; A, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; U, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1; T, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1; S¹, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1; S, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; R, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8; Q, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; P, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1; O, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1; N¹, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1; N, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; M, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8; L, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; K, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1; I, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1; H¹, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1; H, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; G, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8; F, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; E, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1; D, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1; C¹, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1;

Six of these 160 sculptures are badly damaged whilst one of them is wholly lost. (R. 5). Seven have less suffered. Twenty representations remained partially unfinished (C 3 and 4, B 7, A 2, U 4, S 1, O 7, N 5, M 2, K 4 and 3, H¹ 2, H 1, G 4 and 8, F 2, 4 and 6, D 3 and C¹ 4). Partly _finished_ but for the rest not yet drawn in the rough are 3 scenes (H¹ 1, F¹, and D 4) whereas one (I 1) has been scarcely sketched.

On the flat frame above the series we see a few short indications engraved in ancient-javanese characters—dating, according to professor Kern, from about the year 800 of the Syaka-era,—roughly hewed and in a perfunctory manner, as if it were scratched in stone with a knife or a chisel, that is, above H 1, 2, 3 and 4 (twice); 5 (bis) and 6 (bis); F 1, 4, and 5; E 6 and 5; D 8, 6 (bis), 5 (bis), 4, 3 and 1 (bis)[83].

Some of these legends are no more or hardly to be read but the other ones read by Dr. J. Brandes don’t teach us any more than that which we may understand by closely examining the representations themselves, for instance, that the _sĕmbah_ of the persons seated around a tomb or sanctuary refers to a reverence to a _tyaitya_[84].

Some inscriptions may contain the name of the person to be hewed, and to assist the sculptor.

The unfinished and scarcely sketched sculptures prove us that they, such as on other _tyanḍis_ at _Parambanan_, have been hardly hewed here on the walls of the finished temples.

In these sculptures I could not have recognised any continuous series. Among many a domestic and some rural scenes I saw two or three fowlings with a pea-shooter or bow and arrow (M 5 and 3), and one fishing (I 6); one war-dance (C 5) and some other dancings on the occasion of which a wind-instrument provided with a bagpipe (S 2 and R. 17) was played on. Further there are offerings of food or flowers to Bodhisattvas or other venerable personalities, and once to the Dhyâni-Buddha Amitâbha, the Redeemer of this world (K 3), by six crowned men and to be distinguished by their glories (Bodhisattvas perhaps?)

On one sculpture (K 2) Amitâbha (?) has been four times represented as an ascetic in the wilderness. Sometimes there are hewed demons or _raksyasas_, most often attacking or killing other people (M 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8); _tyaityas_ are to be seen more than once (U 3, T 6, 4 and 3, K 4, G 6, F 6, E 6, D 8, 6 and 3, and C¹ 6). _Bodhi_-trees covered by _payongs_ and some _gandharvas_ under their shade, such as to be found more than once in the _Parambanan_ ruins and speaking of _Buddhism_ even there, have been hewed five times (K 6, G 4, F 3 (_bis_) E 4 and C¹ 6), and once with a _payong_ only (D 1). _Vishnu’s tyakra_ has been once represented on a lotus-cushion in the sky (C 2).

Concluding word.

In a small compass I suppose to have mentioned all that may be discussed about the _three_ buddhistic monuments speaking in this valley, on the two banks of the river _Prågå_, of a former high civilisation and of a very developed art.

Those who require, or desire, a better insight into the ancient Buddhism, and those who wish to know more about its sanctuaries to be found here in Java and elsewhere in India, are kindly referred to the works I consulted by the study of this subject, and to those I wrote myself and which have been for the greater part mentioned in or at the bottom of the text of this little book.

Granting Buddhism to have been lost in Java and elsewhere in India,—yet, it still exists, more or less degenerated, still counting more followers than any other religion ever counted, and its lucky freedom from bigotry, especially in the hînayânistic countries, and noble doctrine of love and self-command is raised above all suspicion[85].

_Jogjakartå_, October, November 1906, and 1911.

FOOTNOTES.

[1]See, among others, _H. Kern’s “Geschiedenis van het Boeddhisme”, II, page 308_ and following ones, and Dr. _S. Lefman’s “Geschichte des alten Indiëns_”, Berlin 1880, page 768 and following ones, and the engravings on page 769 and the picture “_Der Açokafelsen van Girnaroden Junàgadh im Jahre 1869_”, in the 3^d number of this work opposite to page 257.

[2]See my illustrated work published in 1893 by “_het Koninklijk Instituut voor de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van N. I._” entitled: “_Tyanḍi Parambanan na de ontgraving_” and therein the photo’s of many deities represented as _Bodhisatthvas_, and my “_Boeddhistische tempel- en klooster-bouwvallen in de Parambanan-vlakte_”. Surabaya 1907.