How world’s largest Buddhist temple in Indonesia has been reborn – new rules free Borobudur from curses of vandalism, graffiti, bottles of urine
- A visit to Borobudur is a very different experience after new rules were imposed to preserve its ‘historic and cultural wealth’
- While some approve of the regulations, others lament simpler times, when they could spend an entire day roaming the complex
I’m tiptoeing reverentially around the Borobudur temple, stopping to take in ancient stone panels and beautiful bell-shaped stupas, and to ponder the Buddha statues sitting in meditative repose.
As I peer into their closed stone eyes I find myself half willing them to open, to look meaningfully in my direction so I can acknowledge the privilege and occasion of being here.
But as I will soon discover, Borobudur has not been treated with all due respect by everyone who has passed its stupas and Buddhas.
This exquisite Mahayana Buddhist temple near the central Javanese city of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, is the biggest in the world, and dates to the eighth and ninth centuries. In its aesthetic, architecture, wisdom and history it is as superlatively astounding as those in Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple complex.
The three-tiered hilltop structure takes the shape of a mandala from above and its upper stupa can be seen poking up from the horizon from the circumference of hilly countryside around it.
From a pyramidal base rise four graduating galleries with 2,670 stone bas reliefs depicting a unique tableaux of society as it was 1,200 years ago. The people are drinking, gambling, cooking and hunting; grandparents are tending gardens; children are playing. It’s like an ancient Instagram feed.