Borobudur temple, the biggest Buddhist temple and one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is full of story of life, built with great effort in fifty years.
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.