Arriving At The Temple
It was at least an hour before sunrise when I arrived at the base of the spectacular temple of Borobudor. I had traveled there from the city of Yogyakarta in the center of the Indonesian island of Java along with a few other tourists. Dozens of other travelers were mingling around a staircase that led up to the top of the temple complex.
All of us had paid several times more than the standard ticket price for the privilege of entering this UNESCO World Heritage site hours before the official opening time. This gave us the opportunity to both watch the sunrise over the monument and skip the throngs that would soon crowd into the site.
Few people spoke as we began to ascend to the top of the temple and those that did murmured in hushed tones. We all seemed to sense the same air of majesty and veneration that places such as Borobudor can inspire in us. The enveloping darkness of night contributed an extra element of mystery to the scene. There was just enough electric lighting along the stairway to guide our way.
It’s interesting to note that Indonesia, the largest Muslim country on the planet, is home to Borobudor, the largest Buddhist temple on Earth.
Basic Facts About Borobudor
Borobudor was built in the 8th and 9th century long before Java adopted Islam as its chief religion. It’s believed that this conversion led to Borobudor being abandoned around the 14th century. Over many years the site was covered by volcanic ash and concealed in dense jungle.
Between the years 1811 and 1816 the British briefly colonized Java. The British Governor-General Thomas Stamford Raffles took a keen interest in Javan culture and history. During a tour of Java Raffles heard reports of the existence of a large derelict temple complex deep in the jungle near a village called Bumisegoro. Raffles dispatched a Dutch engineer named Hermann Cornelius to find this temple and Cornelius succeeded. However it wouldn’t be until the 1970’s that Borobudor would be fully restored.
Today Borobudor is the most popular tourist site in all of Indonesia. It ranks with Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Bagan in Myanmar as the most impressive archeological sites in South East Asia.
The overall design of Borobudor takes the shape of a large step pyramid. Seen from above it looks like a giant tantric Buddhist mandala. The stone bas-relief carvings at Borobudor depict scenes from everyday life in Java during the 8th century from the royal court to the lives of commoners as well as local flora and fauna. The whole temple contains 2,670 of these carvings which cover 2,500 square meters (27,000 square feet) of surface area.
The Rising Of The Sun
At the very top of the complex is the largest stupa at Borobudor. A stupa is a dome-like structure commonly found in traditional Buddhist religious sites. It was near this stupa that I sat and waited for the sun to rise. I had visions of yellowish solar rays peeking over the horizon and shedding a golden hue over the temple. Actually the sky was too cloudy for that to happen. When sunrise did arrive the sun’s light was diffused by the clouds. I was taken aback by the deep purple – eventually turning to magenta – colour that the sky and clouds assumed. Perhaps smoke from forest fires caused such brilliant and unexpected colours in the sky. Regardless, the first light of day gave my photos an almost surreal quality which I found quite appealing.
In the end I was glad that I had missed out on hours of sleep and paid extra to visit Borobudor before dawn. The smaller number of fellow visitors left me able to be alone with my thoughts and impressions of the wonder of Borobudor. The dim light of daybreak allowed me to capture more alluring photos and I didn’t have to wait for other people to move on before being able to frame a shot.