Archeologists differ on ancient buildings in Karawang<\/p>\n
By K. Basrie<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): While many archeologists remain in the dark
\nabout the history of the remains of ancient buildings at the
\nBatujaya district in Karawang, West Java, Hasan Djafar from the
\nUniversity of Indonesia has developed his own views.<\/p>\n
Hasan believes the buildings were a complex of temples, mostly
\nof Buddhist styles, built during the last ruling period of King
\nPurnawarman of Tarumanegara, who -- according to a stone
\ninscription found in the 1870s at Tugu village in North Jakarta
\n-- ruled in the fifth century.<\/p>\n
\"The temples, constructed with bricks -- instead of stones --
\nmade of clay and paddy husks, were built separately adjacent to
\nthe curves of a stream where water flowed from the unpolluted and
\nbeautiful Citarum River to the Java Sea,\" Hasan, who has led
\nseveral teams of archeologists to the sites, told The Jakarta
\nPost last week.<\/p>\n
Today the Citarum River is narrow and the stream, once called
\nthe Asin River, has gone away. The temples and other ritual
\nfacilities are buried beneath the muddy soil now used for farming
\nand housing, Hasan said.<\/p>\n
\"Based on the characteristics and the limited traces
\navailable, I would like to say the buildings in Batujaya were
\nonce a vast ritual complex similar to the site of ruined temples
\ndiscovered near the Batang Hari River in Jambi, Sumatra,\" said
\nHasan, a senior lecturer at the School of Archeology at the
\nUniversity of Indonesia.<\/p>\n
According to a study made by the National Center for
\nArcheology Research (Puslitkernas), the ancient remains of
\ntemples at Batujaya consist of around 30 unur (earth piles)
\nlocated separately in areas of about five square kilometers at
\nthe Segaran and Telaga Jaya villages in the western part of
\nKarawang.<\/p>\n
Hasan said the Batujaya remains were discovered in 1984,
\nthanks to a tip from the locals given to a group of archeology
\nstudents from the University of Indonesia studying excavations at
\none of three ancient Hindu temples in Cibuaya, in eastern
\nKarawang.<\/p>\n
Hasan said the structures at the two spots almost certainly
\nhad important historical significance: \"Perhaps they were part of
\na vast religious complex.\"<\/p>\n
No support<\/p>\n
Hasan's depiction receives no support from other
\narcheologists.<\/p>\n
Professor Hasan Muarif Ambary, head of Puslitkernas, said any
\ntheory on the history of the structures was no more than
\nspeculative.<\/p>\n
\"We have yet to make any historical presumption, because the
\nremains have not been examined chemically to tell us their
\ncorrect age,\" said Muarif.<\/p>\n
\"We'll perform carbon dating works in our next research and
\nexcavations, which should be conducted on the upcoming dry
\nseason,\" he added.<\/p>\n
Hari Untoro Dradjat, Director of Protection and Development of
\nCultural Heritage at the Ministry of Education and Culture, said
\nHasan's theory had been made too early.<\/p>\n
\"Based on the traces available, so far, I'd only like to say
\nsome of the buildings were previously used as worship places but
\nI have no evidence to explain further,\" said Hari.<\/p>\n
Defending his theory, Hasan referred to the Tugu inscription:
\n\"The inscription reads that in the 22nd year of his ruling, King
\nPurnnawarmman ordered his people to make a water drain flowing in
\nthe middle of the residential area of his grandfather, who was a
\npriest,\" Hasan said.<\/p>\n
According to the inscription, the excavated drain was
\ncompleted in 21 days with 6,122 tombak (a linear measure of
\naround 3.6 meters), equivalent to 22 kilometers long.<\/p>\n
Hasan presumed the drain was the stream -- which could still
\nbe seen in a geological map -- flowing from the Citarum River to
\nthe Java Sea.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, he said, an ancient newsletter once described a
\nChinese merchant named Fa-Hien who cast ashore in the western
\npart of Java in the fifth century A.D., the ruling period of
\nTarumanegara kingdom.<\/p>\n
\"The newsletter said Fa-Hien did not see many Buddhists in the
\narea even though there was a vast religious center,\" Hasan said.<\/p>\n
Stupa alike<\/p>\n
Although there were few indications that some of the temples
\nbelonged to Hindus, such as a pit where Peripih (the Hindus'
\nritual deposit box) was buried, Hasan said most of the
\nsanctuaries were Buddhist temples.<\/p>\n
\"On the top of each of the buildings, bricks were piled up in
\na circle, indicating there was a stupa (a dome enclosing an
\neffigy of Buddha) on it,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Since the 1984 excavations, archeologists only found 28 broken
\npieces of ceramics at Batujaya, a broken piece of relief
\nillustrating three sitting Buddha Amitabha and a brick sealed
\nwith the soles of children's feet.<\/p>\n
At Cibuaya, two Vishnu statues of stone were found in the
\n1950s. They are now kept at Jakarta's National Museum.<\/p>\n
Both temples at Batujaya and Cibuaya were made of bricks from
\nlocal clay and paddy husks. The size of the bricks was almost two
\ntimes bigger than the current bricks but their weight was
\nlighter.<\/p>\n
All but two of the temples located beneath the huge green
\npaddy fields have been buried again by the archeologists.<\/p>\n
The \"open\" temples have apparently attracted at least 2,000
\nvisitors on weekdays and 10,000 on weekends.<\/p>\n
Some of the visitors said they came to the area after being
\ninformed about the tales of the structures while others said it
\nwas just a matter of curiosity.<\/p>\n
\"I have no idea about what these temples were all about but
\nlooking from their construction materials I'd like to say that
\nthese structures were something like the RSS (a local acronym for
\nlow-cost houses) nowadays,\" a visitor from Jakarta said. \"The
\nBorobudur temple in Central Java, made of stones, was an
\nexclusive building.\"<\/p>\n
The site remains cloaked in mystery, and promises to do so for
\nmany years to come.<\/p>",
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