Missing pieces at Indonesia's famous temples

Missing pieces at Indonesia's famous temples

Peter Janssen, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Yogyakarta

Restoration work on Central Java's world-famous Buddhist/Hindu temples -- Borobudur and Prambanan -- was theoretically completed in 1990, just in time for the 1991 Visit Indonesia Year.

In fact, much remains to be done on the two spectacular monuments which may take decades to finish given Indonesia's continuing economic crisis, experts say.

The restoration of Borobudur, the world's largest Buddhist temple in the world's largest Muslim nation, was completed in 1982 after attracting US$30 million from the international community to finance the project, which began in 1974.

Work on the nearby Hindu temple Prambanan, 33 kilometers east of Borobudur, was completed in 1990 with a smaller dollop of international largesse combined with Indonesian government funding.

In 1991 both temples were declared World Heritage Sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Hinduism and Buddhism were the first world religions to hold sway in Java, where they became the court religions of Javanese dynasties between the third and 15th centuries, before Islam started to gain in popularity on the island.

While Borobudur and Prambanan are dramatic reminders of Java's Hindu-Buddhist heritage, they are certainly not the only ones, nor are they even completed.

The unfinished work is particularly obvious at Prambanan, Indonesia's largest intact Hindu temple, which was first discovered by Dutchman C.A. Lons in 1733.

The Dutch colonial government began renovation work on Prambanan in 1885, which was thereafter interrupted by World War II and the independence struggle, and only really resumed in earnest in 1977.

The reconstructed portion of Prambanan, an 18-temple compound with three looming enclosed alters dedicated to the Hindu triumvirate -- Brahma, Visnu and Shiva (creator, maintainer and destroyer) -- was only the innermost courtyard of a sprawling a complex of 152,100 square meters with some 246 unfinished smaller temples.

Although the innermost sanctuary was the most awe-inspiring, it only represents 5 percent of what needs to be done to restore the temple to its former grandeur, claimed Indonesian archaeologist Bambang Prasetya, chairman of the restoration group of the Yogyakarta Historical and Archeological Heritage Reserve (SPSP) office.

"We're still doing some work on Prambanan, but very slowly," said Prasetya. "At this rate it will take another 30 years."

Since 1997, when the Asian economic crisis struck, the government budget for restoration work has dried up, as have grants from UNESCO, and former donor nations such as Japan and the Netherlands.

UNESCO's withdrawal had nothing to do with the crisis.

"We need to make choices," said Philippe Delanghe, UNESCO's program specialist for culture in Jakarta. "The central part of Prambanan was finished and we thought the government was doing a good job with the remainder. And they were until 1997."

For Prasetya the incomplete work at Prambanan is just the tip of the iceberg.

Three kilometers away from Prambanan lie the still largely buried ruins of Boko palace.

Prambanan was built between the eighth and 10th century when Java was ruled by the Buddhist Sailendras monarchy and the Hindu Sanjayas.

The temple, also called Lara Jonggrang, was supposedly built to mark a marriage between the two dynasties, which explains the combination of Buddhist and Hindu architecture it is unique for.

Remarkably little is known about the period. For instance, it is still unclear whether the nearby Boko ruins are those of a palace or of another Hindu temple.

Other Hindu-Buddhist sites in the Central Java neighborhood that have yet to be excavated include Kedulan, Sambibari, Payak, Gampingan, Senden, Pajanggan and Kadi Soka, according to Prasetya.

He warned that many of these sites are in danger of being pilfered away forever if they are ignored much longer.

Even the spectacular ninth century Borobudur, a hilltop Buddhist temple measuring 60,000 cubic meters, has not been immune to missing pieces.

Several of the original temple's 400 plus Buddha statues were allegedly sent as a gift to Thai King Chulalongkorn by either the Dutch colonial government or the famed British administrator Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, who first found the Borobudur site in 1815, said Prasetya.

King Chulalongkorn reportedly reciprocated by sending an elephant statue to the Dutch administration in Batavia, now Jakarta, which now stands outside the capital's National Museum.

The stupa on the top of the Borobudur temple is also missing. An Islamic extremist group blew the stupa up in 1987, and it was never properly restored.

"It shows what people can do to heritage," said UNESCO's Delanghe.