BOROBUDUR TEMPLE

            Borobudur is a buddhist temple at magelang, Central Java which was built on 800 masehi by samaratungga (the king of mataram kingdom) and continued by her daughter queen pramuda wardhani for about 150 years in syailendra dynasty.

Firstly, Borobudur was written in “history of java island” book by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, there is no old book which wrote the same name (Borobudur), and in “nagarakretagama” by mpu prapanca on 1365 masehi.

Bore-Budur might be written by Raffless to mention the nearest village (Bore village). Most of temple are usually named on the village where the temple was built. Raffles also counted that budur might have meaning ancient(Javanese language) “ancient boro”. But the other archaeologs considered that budur has meaning “mount”. Many theories tried to explain the meaning of Borobudur. in Sansakerta language bara has meaning “vihara” and budur has meaning “on” it means vihara on the high land.

It was built to become imitation of the universe, used for pligrimage

It has three steps :

1.      Kamadhatu : or the world of desire, it’s the bottom step, the meaning is carnality area, it means the place for human being or the place for people live. The place for human being is placed at the bottom step because it’s the place to carnality be shaped. It’s across from Buddhist ideology. As symbolic it means childhood (easy to be teased, egoistic). At kamadhatu there are 1545 statues (73 big statues and 1472 small statues) and 160 reliefs about “the law of karma”.

2.      Rupadhatu : or the world of forms it’s higher than kamadhatu has meaning the world which is free from carnality but still has shape as human. It’s between kamadhatu and arupadhatu. it tells about Buddha’s life in the past.

3.      Arupadhatu : or the world of formlessness the top area. It’s the smallest step in Borobudur. It means the place for gods (Buddha). It doesn’t have a relief to show the holly of gods (Buddha). It’s across from the real human life which is full of carnality.

Borobudur temple has 1460 narrative relief panels on the walls and the balustrades.

Borobudur was abandoned following the 14^th century decline of hindu kingdoms in java and the Javanese conversion to islam. Worldwide knowledge of its existence was sparked in 1814 by sir Thomas Stamford raffles then the british ruler of java, who was advised of its location by native Indonesians.

Borobudur has since been preserved through several restorations. The largest restoration project was undertaken between 1975-1982 by the Indonesian government and UNESCO. Following which the monument was listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.