Archeologists unearth 7 menhir at Buddhist temple

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

A group of archeologists from the Bandung Archeologists Council and the Serang Historical Heritage Conservation Office have unearthed seven menhir, which symbolize men, at a temple site in Bojongmenje, Cangkuang Rancaekeke, some 25 kilometers southeast of Bandung, West Java.

Tony Djubiantono, the head of the Bandung Archeologists Council, said on Tuesday that the findings were beneficial to tracing the historical background of a temple found by locals on Aug. 18.

Four archeologists, assisted by 13 diggers from the surrounding area, started the excavation on Monday.

The excavation site has attracted the attention of government officials and locals. Many people consider the site to be a sacred place where they bring empty bottles to be filled with water from the spring at the excavation site.

Tony said that the team would extend the excavation although digging was originally scheduled for 20 days and the team would stop once they excavated a 12-meter-by-14-meter-wide plot of land if they found nothing on the first day.

"We found seven menhir on the first day of excavation, and that is enough to trace the temple's history," Tony said.

Menhir, according to Tony, are single upright monoliths that symbolize men, and are usually found in Hindu temples. "So, it is almost certain that the temple is from the Hindu kingdom," Tony said.

He said the group also found a temple column, which was more primitive than that of other temples in Java.

The discoveries, Tony said, put into question a theory that says Hinduism spread from the eastern part of Java to the west as there were more Hindu temples in East Java than in West Java.

"Based on the temple's column, we estimate that the temple was constructed between the second and seventh centuries so it is older than any other temple in Java. Therefore, we conclude that Hinduism spread from the western part of Java to the east," he said.

Tony said the temple was older than Central Java's Borobudur and Prambanan temples because it did not have relief carvings on the walls depicting life events. Archeologists believe that reliefs are a symbol of advancement or a more modern kingdom.

The archeologists found that the temple's column consists of andesite or volcanic stone, which contains hard and heavy material.

The temple, according to Tony, resembles the Dieng Temple and consists of one main temple and dozens of additional temples.

Tony said the temple might have been built after West Java's Tarumanegara kingdom vanished and could be correlated to a missing part of West Java (Tatar Sunda) history.

Many historians cannot explain the history of Tatar Sunda through a relationship between the Jiwa Temple, which was built in Batujajar, Karawang regency in the second and fourth centuries and the Dieng Temple, which was built in the Dieng Highlands in the seventh and eighth centuries.

"We just have the Kebon Kopi inscription in Bogor, which was written in the ninth century and which says 'Let's revive the glory of Sunda'. We have yet to find proof that there was an enormous Sundanese kingdom before it dissolved into smaller kingdoms like Galuh, Pakuan, and Padjadjaran," Tony said.

He said that many temples were destroyed intentionally when Islam came to Tatar Sunda, because the religion forbids any kind of worship that uses statues or symbols.