Prambanan face-lift: A long, winding road

Prambanan face-lift: A long, winding road

Bambang Tiong, Contributor, Yogyakarta

The glorious appearance of the three main temples in the
Prambanan Temple compound will prompt people to think of the
past. Many have no idea that it took more than 100 years to make
the temples look as they do today.

A book published by the Ministry of Education and Culture in
1991 points out that Dutchman C.A. Lons first reported the
discovery of Prambanan (also known as Roro Jonggrang) Temple in
1733. The temple was in ruins, abandoned amid grass and trees.

An epigraph found at the site revealed that the Sanjaya
Dynasty, the biggest Hindu kingdom in Java, built the temples
around the middle of the ninth century.

It was discovered later that the compound consisted of three
main temples devoted to Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma. They lie from
south to north. There were three smaller wahana (transportation)
temples for Garuda (a mythical bird mounted by the god Vishnu),
Nandi (cow) and Angsa (goose) and hundreds of perwara
(accompanying) temples. There were also two apit (flanking)
temples, four kelir (color) temples and four corner temples. The
site has 240 temples in total.

Shiva is the tallest main temple, standing at 47 meters. The
other two are only some 30-meters high. The wahana temples are
the same size, measuring 13 by 13 square meters with a height of
some 22 meters. The perwara temples - there are some 224 of them
- are arranged in such a way that the shorter temples lie on the
outside and become taller toward the center.

The first attempts to reveal the temple's presence were made
in 1885 by clearing the site of grass and shrubs followed by
grouping the stones, under the supervision of J.W. Inzerman,
Groneman and Th. van Erp.

The work, focusing on the restructuring of the Shiva temple,
was continued 33 years later by the local archeological office
under the supervision of P.J. Perquin. Due to the political
situation at that time, the project was halted for some years and
was only restarted in 1937. World War Two then caused another
delay in the restoration work.

In 1951, the work began again and was completed on Dec. 20,
1953, before former president Sukarno publicly opened the Shiva
Temple the same year.

Another restoration project, for the Brahma Temple, began in
1977 supported by the government's five-year development budget
of some Rp 740 million (US$70,500). It finished in 1987. As for
the Vishnu Temple, a nine-year restoration project began in 1982,
with a budget of Rp 1.1 billion.

Even the wahana temples underwent restoration, just a month
after the completion of the Vishnu Temple project. The complete
restoration project finished in 1993.

The Yogyakarta Historical and Archeological Heritage Reserve
(SPSP) office chairman, Wahyu Indrasana, said that so far only 18
of the 240 temples at the Prambanan Temple compound had been
successfully restored. "It's mainly due to the lack of funds," he
said.

The complexity of the work played a major role in the long-
term nature of the restoration project, apart from the financial
problems.

"The temple stones have different sizes and forms. Besides, we
are only allowed to replace 25 percent of them with new stones.
Otherwise, we could be accused of faking the history and
archeology," Wahyu said.

Bambang Prasetya, Chairman of the Restoration Working Group of
Yogyakarta SPSP Office, agreed with Wahyu's opinion, saying that
restoring a temple should be conducted by following a number of
steps including searching for the original stones,
deconstructing, conserving, making replacement stones and
reconstructing.

He said that the restoration work would not return the temple
to its original state.

"It has involved engineering, the main objective of which is
to preserve the durability and wholeness of the temple," Bambang
said. He also said that construction of the foundations had
reached a depth of between 11 and 15 meters in order to reach the
stable land layer.

This had forced the restorers to use steel, which was not
found in the original structures. "We use brass construction for
the temples, as it is more resistant to corrosion than iron,"
said Bambang.

The current structures of Prambanan Temple, especially the
Brahma and Vishnu temples, will be able to survive for another
1,000 years.

"It will survive if nature is stable, even with earthquakes of
five to six on the Richter scale and no human interference is
involved," Bambang said.