Finding of temple ruins changes lives in Karawang

By K. Basrie

KARAWANG, West Java (JP): "Before newspapers and TV stations reported the finding of the temple ruins, I had never seen any cute city boys with fine clothes up close," said 15-year-old Nawiyah.

While her dark, strong hands kept pumping water, the local teenager continued: "Everyday there are many handsome boys from other towns passing down the muddy road in front of my house. This town used to be dead."

Like many other girls in her village of Segaran, Nawiyah said she was ecstatic over the rapid turn of events, even though most of the boys had girls by their side.

"You see, many of the local girls have started imitating city people. They put color on their lips, faces and eyes. So life has become more colorful here than before," she said.

Nawiyah is right.

Daily life in Segaran and the surrounding area of Telaga Jaya, where under 30 mounds of earth are believed to be a complex of ancient temples, has changed.

Visitors are first welcomed by parking attendants. The yards of a number of houses have been changed into parking lots.

On the way to the ruins, which can only be reached by foot, visitors are welcomed by the alluring eyes and smiles of local girls.

The booming voices of traders offering goods, such as food, birds, fish and crabs as well as photos and copies of newspaper articles on the ruins, greet visitors.

Housewives strive not to be left out. They have set up small shops on their terraces and sell homemade cakes and drinks.

Changing mood

"Business is good but the atmosphere is crowded," said Erika Ahmad Yani, a young farmer who worked temporarily as a Polaroid photographer at one of the excavated sites.

"We used to only hear the sound of the wind, birds chirping and the paddy swaying," Yani said.

But since last month's wide media coverage, the atmosphere in the two villages has changed drastically as about 2,000 curious people visit the area every working day and some 10,000 on weekends.

Although some farmers have complained about the destruction of the embankments of their rice fields due to the great number of passersby, most locals claim to enjoy the new mood as it means increased business.

The land on which the ruins stand was bought by the government at a fair rate, according to local farmers.

In order to attract more visitors, a pendopo (an open veranda) has been built near one of the temple ruins at Telaga Jaya village.

The government is also collecting a lot of money in entrance and parking fees.

"We are using the money to repair the nonasphalted roads damaged mostly because of the increasing number of visitors," said the Telaga Jaya village head, M. Ichsan S.

Visitors have different reasons to visit the ruins.

Nina from Rengkasdengklok, 23 kilometers from the site, for example, said her father had suffered back pain for many years and was cured after drinking a glass of water taken from a well located at one of the ruins.

"You can believe it or not, but I was one of the eyewitnesses," she said.

The well, according to archeologist Hasan Djafar from the University of Indonesia, was actually used as a pit where peripih (a Hindu box containing ritual trinkets) was buried.

"When we excavated the site years ago, the pit was filled with water from the surrounding paddy fields," he said.

Some outsiders are excited over rumors that many visitors returned bricks they had stolen from the ruins because after stealing them they had been mysteriously disturbed by "unknown creatures".

But Namid, an elderly resident, objected to the tales.

"I have many of the bricks at home and I've never been disturbed by any creatures," he said.

At candi (temple) Jiwa, the remains of one of the two temples still open to the public, some visitors throw coins on it. The coins are usually gone the next day even though the site is surrounded by a bamboo fence and barbed wire.

According to Namid, who also acts as a guide at the Segaran temples, most of the visitors are from towns in West Java.

"Only a few of them come from Jakarta and Central Java," he said.

Beginning

The site is about 30 kilometers to the east of Jakarta but it takes at least two hours to drive there on the Cikampek tollway.

According to archeologist Hasan, the remains at the two villages in Batujaya district were first excavated in 1984 after some locals gave information to a group of archeology students from the University of Indonesia. At the time the students were studying excavations at an ancient Hindu temple in Cibuaya in the eastern part of Karawang.

Batujaya and Cibuaya are only about 20 kilometers away.

There are three temples, all of which are Hindu, in Cibuaya. The first was discovered in 1952, the second in 1957 and the third in 1975. They were excavated following the findings of two Vishnu statues near the site.

Similar to the remains in Batujaya, the Cibuaya temples were in bad shape and one reason why archeologists decided to rebury the remains for safekeeping.

According to Hari Untoro Dradjat of the Directorate of the Protection and Development of Cultural Heritage, there is a limited information about the temples.

The Batujaya district is only mentioned in a book titled De Haan, which describes the place as a swampy area used for fishing ponds in 1684. The ponds were rented by tumenggung (regent) Panata Juda to Chinese people.

In 1691, the area was occupied by tumenggung Wirabaya. Fifteen years later, Wirabaya was ordered by a Dutch commander to clean up the area for paddy fields.

Based on tips from local people, 279 years later archeologists found dozens of earth mounds in the middle of paddy fields at Batujaya.

Archeologists have yet to conclude whether the remains at Batujaya have any connection to the three temples found in the neighboring district of Cibuaya.

Nawiyah, who attends the Segaran village junior high school, said: "I still don't know what the people (archeologists) are digging for and why the city boys are here, but it would surprise me if there were dead monks buried under my house."