The Borobudur Temple is considered as one of the seven wonders of the world. This temple is located at Borobudur District, South of
Magelang, Central Java.
The expression of experts who had been studying Borobudur
Temple varied someway. Bernet Kempers' expression was: “Borobudur is Borobudur”,
meaning that Borobudur Temple is very unique in her own way. Nieuwenkamp (an artist) imaginated Borobudur as “a big lotus flower bud ready to bloom” which was “floating” on a lake. Nieuwenkamp’s
imagination was supported by N. Rangkuti (1987) that from the air, the Borobudur
Temple looks floating. From the geological studies, experts were
able to prove that Borobudur area was one time a big lake. Most of
the villages around Borobudur Temple were at the same altitude, 235 meters above the sea-level. The same altitude included the Pawon and
Mendut temples. Thus the area under 235 meter altitude was below the lake water level.
Based on the inscription dated 842 AD, Casparis suggested that Borobudur was one time a place for praying. The inscription stated a phrase such as: “Kawulan i Bhumi
Sambhara”. Kawulan means the origin of holiness, “bhumi sambhara” is a name of a place in Borobudur. Paul Mus stated that Borobudur Temple had the structure of stupa (conical form) with double expression.
As a whole, the Borobudur Temple was an open-flat stupa, but on the other hand, the temple
expressed the idea of a “closed
world”. The latter expression could be felt when one is already inside
the temple. Whenever person is inside the temple, his or her view will be limited to high walls full on relieves, the verandah is always squared in
such a way that one could not see other parts of the temple,
even in
a same floor. The same feeling
happened if one stood on arupadhatu round platform, he or she will have a
wider view only on
that level, but are not able to see
the lower level nor the upper level like the one on rupadhatu and
kamandhatu. It could
be said that Borobudur
is a symbol of cosmic mountain covered by the
sky roof, a specific world that
could be reached through isolated alleys as stages. The closed
structural design of the temple expressed the concept of a closed world, not just a technical reasons
as had been suggested by other experts ( Daud AT, 1987)
Borobudur was built by Sanmaratungga in the
8th century, and belongs to Buddha Mahayana. Borobudur was revealed
by Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles in 1814. The temple was found in ruined
condition and was buried.
The overall
height was 42 meters, but was only 34.5 meters after restoration, and
had the dimension
of 123 x 123 meters (15,129 square
meters). There were 10 floors. The first floor up to the sixth floor was
square form, the
seventh to the tenth floor were
round form.
Borobudur is facing to the East with a total
of 1460 panels (2 meters wide each). Total size of the temple
walls
was 2500 square meters, full of
relief. The total number of panels with relief was 1212. According to
investigations, the
total number of Buddha statue was
504 including the intact and damaged statues. The temple undergone restoration from 1905 to 1910, and the last restoration was done in 1973 to 1983. |
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