Borobudur

Borobudur is designed as a Mandala.

Borobudur is a 9th Century Buddhist structure that is designed to mimic the Buddhist view of life. It is essentially a big stupa made up of many smaller stupas, wherein the central inner/upper area is a laid out as a Mandala, which presumably was circled by the faithful. There are tons of articles and books written about it, so we won't attempt to cover its significance further. We just want to share pictures and a few of our thoughts.

A common way to see Borobudur is sunrise. Although this requires that the intrepid traveler arise at the ungodly (unbuddhaly?) hour of 4AM, it does provide for spectacular visuals and helps reduce the crush of eager Indonesian students encountered later in the day. If you look closely you will see the gigantic, and very active, volcano Merapi in the horizon, just below the glow. In the foreground are some of the 72 small bell-shaped stupas, each with a Buddha inside. The one in the center has the top removed to make the image easier to see.

Here's a better look.

Here's a peek at one, serenely contemplating his 438,000th sunrise.

The next level down contains hundreds of Buddhas, each in their niches. We suspect the face above the opening is Kala, who often appears above doorways to represent the impermanence of the material world.

But probably the best part of Borobudur is its incredible array of bas reliefs. Below the top "stupafied" level the walls are covered with sculptures such as the one above. This is perhaps where Borobudur is most comparable to the Hindu complexes known as Angkor Wat.

A gargoyle.

A serene Buddha amidst numerous others missing heads and hands. We imagined the severed body parts now reside in the living rooms of fatcat culture-vultures in Beverly Hills or the Hamptons.

A 9th Century wagon.

A scene of reverence, which appears to include apsaras.

We were fascinated with the unique quality of almost every face - there are thousands of them.

The interesting feature of this relief is the 9th Century ship in the lower right. We have hundreds of these pictures and wish we could share them all, but fear boring our gentle viewers.

We know this tells a story, but we're not quite sure what it is.

Monkeys are frequently depicted behaving like humans.

One thing we have forgotten to mention is the fact that none of the structure was built with mortar, i.e. all the blocks were shaped to fit precisely, then sculpted.

Here's our humble attempt to show a mosaic of one side of the complex, complete with antlike students climbing the stairs. The shrine is difficult to photograph in its entirety owing to many trees surrounding it. Bear in mind almost all the walls contain the almost 1,500 reliefs shown above.

Here's just one corner, complete with students. Every one of them wants to practice their English, while a colleague films the interview on a cell phone. We are now famous across southern Java.

This shows the tree problem as well as the main stupa in the center.

There are many other temples near Borobudur, built by the Sailendras. This is Pawon.

The Buddha inside. As best we can tell he has a vitarka mudra hand sign, meaning he's preaching.

Here we see the admiral posing beneath a giant banyan tree. We wondered if it might be a Bodhi tree, but though they are both figs, we haven't seen a Bodhi tree with prop roots.

Here we see genuine Bodhi trees for sale. The tree is famous because it's where the Buddha achieved enlightenment, or bodhi. Too bad stuff like this never passes quarantine...

OK, we're sure you're Buddhaed out. So, let's move on to Prambanan!

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