Monumental Java
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Title: Monumental Java
Author: J. F. Scheltema
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONUMENTAL JAVA ***
MONUMENTAL JAVA
[Illustration]
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
[Illustration: I. THE BORO BUDOOR
(Cephas Sr.)]
MONUMENTAL
JAVA
BY
J. F. SCHELTEMA, M.A.
Unde etiam nunc est mortalibus insitus horror,
Qui delubra deûm nova toto suscitat orbi
Terrarum, et festis cogit celebrare diebus:
LUCRETIUS, _De Rerum Natura_, Lib. v.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, AND VIGNETTES AFTER
DRAWINGS OF JAVANESE CHANDI ORNAMENT
BY THE AUTHOR
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1912
COPYRIGHT
TO
MY DEAR COUSIN AND FRIEND
PROFESSOR AUGUST ALLEBÉ
DIRECTOR EMERITUS OF THE NETHERLANDS STATE ACADEMY
OF THE FINE ARTS AT AMSTERDAM
[Illustration]
If this book needs an apology, it is one to myself for taking the public
at large into the confidence of cherished recollections. The writing
was a diversion from studies in a quite different direction and letting
my pen go, while living again the happy hours I spent, between arduous
duties, with the beautiful monuments of Java’s past, I did nothing but
seek my own pleasure. Should it turn out that my personal impressions,
given in black and white, please others too--so much the better. In any
case they must be taken for what they are: a beguilement of lone moments
of leisure.
Whoever find them readable, they will not satisfy, I hope, a certain
class of critics; those, I mean, who extend the paltry rule of mutual
admiration, _nul n’aura de l’esprit que nous et nos amis_, to any
field they claim their own and “of whom to be dispraised were no small
praise.” Desirous, I must confess, to stimulate their flattering
disapproval, I hasten to admit in advance my many shortcomings, a full
list of which they will doubtless oblige me with in due process of
censorious comment. My work sets up no pretence to completeness: there
is no full enumeration of all the Hindu and Buddhist temples known by
their remains; there are no measurements, no technical details, no
statistics--a great recommendation to my mind, as Dutch East Indian
statistics go. I am not guilty of an ambitious attempt to enrich the
world with an exhaustive treatise on ancient Javanese architecture and
sculpture--far be it from me to harbour such an audacious design! I
disclaim even the presumption to aspire at being classed as a useful
companion on a visit to the island; I deny most emphatically that I
intend to swell the disquieting number of tourists’ vade-mecums already
up for sale, clamouring for recognition, and, _horribile dictu_, scores
more coming! Be they sufficient or insufficient, qualitatively speaking,
I am not going to increase their quantity.
So much for what this book is not. What it is, I could not help making
it, choosing from the material stored in my memory; reliving, as fancy
dictated in long northern winter evenings, the sunny spells between
1874 and 1903 when I might call Java my home; resuming my walks in the
charming island pleasance of the East, fain to leave the congested main
roads and disport myself along by-paths and unfrequented lanes where
solace and repose await the weary wanderer. The undertaking, somewhat
too confidently indicated by the title, tempted to excursions off the
beaten historical, geographical and archaeological tracks, which
perhaps will contribute to a better understanding of the monuments
described in their proper setting, their relations to natural scenery
and native civilisation, but certainly do not tend to conformity with
the regulation style of compositions of the kind. Invoking the aid of
Ganesa, the sagacious guide, countenancer of poor mortals in creative
throes--for, thank Heaven! the fever of production is indissolubly one
with the anguish that heightens its delights,--I never hesitated in
letting the idea of self-gratification prevail, even when the question
of illustration arose after the plan had ripened of inviting indulgent
readers to partake. In this respect too I struggled free from anxious
deliberation: _Wer gar zu viel bedenkt, wird wenig leisten_. And, Ganesa
aiding, the following kaleidoscopic view of the land I love so well, was
the result of my delicious travail.
Looking for the flowers in the ill-kept garden of Java, the
delinquencies of the gardeners could not be ignored and here I touch
the unpleasant side of the recreation I sought, especially disagreeable
when proposing to strangers that they should share; but a picture needs
shade as well as light to become intelligible. And to paint true to life
the picture of Dutch East Indian passivity (activity only in vandalism!)
regarding treasures of art inconvertible into cash, shade ought to be
preponderant and light relegated to the subordinate place of a little
star glimmering dimly in the darkness, a little star of hope for the
future. Disinclined, however, to spoil my pleasure by dwelling on the
tenebrous general aspect of governmental archaeology in the past, I
have no more than mentioned such disgraceful incidents as the Mendoot
squabbles, and omitted, _e.g._, all reference to such ludicrously heated
controversies as that about the _kala-makara_ versus the _garuda-naga_
ornament, exhaustive of the energy which the officially learned might
have employed to so much greater advantage by rescuing the venerable
temples they fought over, from decay and willful demolition.
The neglect of the ancient monuments of Java has been nothing short
of scandalous, the evil effects of the habitual languid detachment of
the colonial authorities from the business they are supposed to look
after, being, in their case, intensified by acts of dilapidation which
even a Government centuries back on the road of enlightenment would
have checked,[1] not to speak of downright plunder and theft. The more
honour deserve men like Junghuhn among the dead and Rouffaer among the
still living, who lifted their voice against the intolerable negligence
which hastened the ruin of some of the finest existing specimens of
Hindu and Buddhist architecture. At last, in 1901, an Archaeological
Commission was appointed, whose labours were directed by Dr. J. L.
A. Brandes, their head and soul. After his regretted death in 1905,
he was succeeded by Dr. N. J. Krom, who has no easy task in fanning
the spark, struck by his predecessor from the hard flint of official
_laisser-aller_ into a steady, bright flame of real, continuous
solicitude for the country’s antiquities.
Antiquities, except when sold, do not bring money to the exchequer, and
the Dutch Government’s most holy colonial traditions are diametrically
opposed to expenses without promise of immediate pecuniary profit. If
sympathies in matters alien to that prime purpose are miraculously
aroused, such interest, revealing itself at the very best by fits and
starts to serve ambitious schemes, soon flags and dies. Especially in
Dutch East Indian enthusiasm for enterprises financially uncommendable,
the adage holds good that _tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe_. The
efforts of the Archaeological Commission can be traced only at the
respectful distance of at least a couple of years, the drowsy dignity
of red-tapeism putting as long a space as possible between the vulgar
gaze of the unofficially curious and the official accounts of things
accomplished, meetly compiled, arranged, amended, corrected, revised,
purged, padded and bolstered up by the editing experts of successively
the circumlocution offices at Batavia, Buitenzorg and the Hague. The
reports, published in this manner, whatever they represent as having
been done, lay no stress, of course, upon what has been left undone,
upon the architectural marvels unprovided for, still suffered to
crumble away, to be stripped and demolished, the valuable statuary
and ornaments to be carried off piecemeal by unscrupulous collectors,
the lower priced stones they left, sculptured or not, by the builders
of private dwellings and factories, of Government bridges, dams and
embankments.
The illustrations, inserted to explain, imperfect though it be,
the charm of the temple ruins I treated of, are reproductions of
photographs, taken for the Dutch East Indian Archaeological Service,
I obtained from Messrs. Charls and van Es at Weltevreden, by courtesy
of Dr. N. J. Krom, and of photographs taken for the Centrum Company
at Batavia, and by Mr. C. Nieuwenhuis and the late Cephas Sr. at
Jogjakarta. The work of restoration can be appreciated from the
photo-prints of the _chandi_ Pawon and, with respect to the _chandis_
Mendoot and Boro Budoor, from those facing pp. 215 and 280; they are
the numbers 24 and 40 on the list of the illustrations, and I owe
them to Major T. van Erp, also through the intermediary of Dr. Krom.
My indebtedness for the text so far as it does not rest on personal
observation and information obtained in the localities referred to, is
a very large one to many authors on many subjects separately specified
in the notes. Concerning the historical parts, I beg leave to state
that my readings on controversial points have been determined by a
careful sifting of the most acceptable theories advanced, at the risk of
critics of the stamp alluded to, proving my preferred records absolutely
inadmissible. If so, I having pulled the long bow _à l’instar_ of the
annalists and chroniclers of ancient Java, and consequently being shown
up for indicating the way in which things did not happen and could not
have happened, instead of sticking to the historical truth agreed upon
until one of the hall-marked omniscient makes a name for himself by
inducing the others to agree upon something else, my sin falls back on
the shoulders of the _savants_ prone to lead their admirers astray by
their occasional imitation of the eminent historian at whose inborn
disrespect for facts Professor Freeman used to poke fun. I am afraid
that the system of transliteration I adopted, will also meet with scant
recognition in the same quarter, but finding none that, strictly carried
through, adjusts itself equally well to the exigencies both of Javanese
and Malay names and expressions, I shall adhere to this one until taught
better.
This must suffice for a preface if, indeed, it does not exceed the
measure allowed by my readers’ patience. Knowing Java, they will,
however, excuse my fervour in introducing reminiscences of beauty
breathing scenes which, once enjoyed, linger like delights in memory
... _the memory of a dream,
Which now is sad because it hath been sweet_.
Not knowing Java yet, they will forgive later, when they have visited
the matchless old shrines, images of her past and symbolic of her hopes
for blessings hidden in the womb of time, when they have tried to read
the riddle of her children’s destiny in the Boro Budoor
... _seated in an island strong,
Abounding all with delices most rare._
J. F. S.
EDINBURGH.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See, _e.g._, the edict, issued more than thirteen centuries ago by
the Emperor Majorian, as quoted by Gibbon: Antiquarum aedium dissipatur
speciosa constructio; et ut aliquid reparetur, magna diruuntur. Hinc iam
occasio nascitur, etc.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
THE COUNTRY, THE PEOPLE AND THEIR WORK 1
CHAPTER II
WEST JAVA 23
CHAPTER III
THE DIËNG 40
CHAPTER IV
PRAMBANAN 69
CHAPTER V
MORE OF CENTRAL JAVA 99
CHAPTER VI
EAST JAVA 140
CHAPTER VII
BUDDHIST JAVA 177
CHAPTER VIII
THE APPROACH TO THE BORO BUDOOR 207
CHAPTER IX
THE STONES OF THE BORO BUDOOR 233
CHAPTER X
THE SOUL OF THE BORO BUDOOR 266
BIBLIOGRAPHY 285
GLOSSARY 289
INDEX 295
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACE PAGE
1. The Boro Budoor (Cephas Sr.) _Frontispiece_
2. _Chandi_ Pringapoos (Archaeological Service through
Charls and van Es) 43
3. _Chandi_ Arjuno on the Diëng Plateau (Archaeological Service
through Charls and van Es) 57
4. _Chandi_ Bimo or Wergodoro on the Diëng Plateau
(Archaeological Service through Charls and van Es) 60
5. East Front of the Siva (Loro Jonggrang) Temple of the
Prambanan Group in 1895 (Cephas Sr.) 70
6. Siva (Loro Jonggrang) Temple of the Prambanan Group in
1901 (Cephas Sr.) 78
7. Prambanan Reliefs (C. Nieuwenhuis) 81
8. Prambanan Reliefs (Cephas Sr.) 84
9. Prambanan Reliefs (Centrum) 87
10. Prambanan Reliefs (Centrum) 90
11. Prambanan Reliefs (Centrum) 93
12. Prambanan Reliefs (Centrum) 96
13. Water-Castle at Jogjakarta (Centrum) 131
14. Water-Castle at Jogjakarta (Centrum) 135
15. _Chandi_ Papoh (Archaeological Service through Charls
and van Es) 151
16. _Chandi_ Singosari (Archaeological Service through Charls
and van Es) 157
17. _Chandi_ Toompang (Archaeological Service through Charls
and van Es) 159
18. _Chandi_ Panataran (Archaeological Service through Charls
and van Es) 164
19. _Chandi_ Kalasan (C. Nieuwenhuis) 181
20. _Chandi_ Sari (C. Nieuwenhuis) 185
21. _Raksasa_ of the _Chandi_ Sewu (Centrum) 191
22. Detail of the _Chandi_ Sewu (Archaeological Service
through Charls and van Es) 199
23. _Chandi_ Mendoot before its Restoration (Cephas Sr.) 211
24. _Chandi_ Mendoot after its Restoration (Archaeological
Service) 215
25. Interior of the _Chandi_ Mendoot (Cephas Sr.) 223
26. The _Chandi_ Pawon and the Randu Alas (C. Nieuwenhuis) 229
27. The _Chandi_ Pawon divorced and restored (Centrum) 230
28. Base of the Boro Budoor showing the (filled up) lowest
Gallery (C. Nieuwenhuis) 242
29. Detail of the Boro Budoor (C. Nieuwenhuis) 244
30. Detail of the Boro Budoor (C. Nieuwenhuis) 247
31. Detail of the Boro Budoor (Centrum) 249
32. Detail of the Boro Budoor (C. Nieuwenhuis) 252
33. Detail of the Boro Budoor (C. Nieuwenhuis) 254
34. A Dhyani Buddha of the Boro Budoor (Cephas Sr.) 256
35. Reliefs of the Boro Budoor (C. Nieuwenhuis) 259
36. Ascending the Boro Budoor (Cephas Sr.) 261
37. Reaching the Circular Terraces of the Boro Budoor
(Cephas Sr.) 264
38. Ascending to the Dagob of the Boro Budoor (Cephas Sr.) 270
39. The Dagob of the Boro Budoor before its Restoration
(C. Nieuwenhuis) 276
40. The Dagob of the Boro Budoor after its Restoration
(Archaeological Service) 280
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
THE COUNTRY, THE PEOPLE AND THEIR WORK
It is the crowning virtue of all great Art that, however little
is left of it by the injuries of time, that little will be lovely.
JOHN RUSKIN, _Mornings in Florence (Santa Croce)_.
Java’s ancient monuments are eloquent evidence of that innate
consciousness of something beyond earthly existence which moves men to
propitiate the principle of life by sacrifice in temples as gloriously
divine as mortal hand can raise. Fear, however, especially where
Buddhism moulded their thought by contemplation intent upon absorption
of self, entered little into the religion of the children of this pearl
of islands. Nature, beautiful, almighty nature, guided them and their
work; even the terror inspired by the cosmic energy throbbing under
their feet, by frequent volcanic upheavals dealing destruction and
death, flowered into promise of new joy, thanks to the consummate art of
their builders and sculptors, whose master minds, conceiving grandly,
devising boldly and finishing with elaborate ornament, emphasised most
cunningly the lofty yet lovely majesty of their natural surroundings.
They made them images of the Supreme Being in his different aspects and
symbolised attributes, free from the abject dread which dominated his
worship by other earthlings of his fashioning in other climes, whose
notion of All-Power was more one of Vengeance than of All-Sufficiency.
They lived and meditated and wrought, impressing their mentality upon
the material world given for their use; and so they created marvels of
beauty, developed an architecture which belongs pre-eminently to their
luxuriant soil under the clear blue of their sky, in the brilliant light
of their sun.
Truly high art ever shows a natural fitness, as we can observe in our
gothic cathedrals, in the classic remains of Hellas, including those
of Magna Graecia, the temples of Poseidonia, Egesta and Acragas, the
theatres of Syracuse and Tauromenium, gates opened to the splendour
of heaven and earth by the undying virtue of mortal endeavour. Other
countries, other revelations of the divine essence in human effort, but
not even the shrines of India as I came to know them, born of a common
origin with Javanese religious structures in almost similar conditions
of climate, physical needs, moral aspirations, can equal their stately
grandeur balanced by exquisite elegance, calm yet passionate, always in
keeping with the dignified repose of landscapes which at any moment may
have their charms dissolved in earthquakes, fire and ashes. Angkor-Vat,
turned from the service of four-faced Brahma to Buddhist self-negation,
stands perhaps nearest in the happy effect produced, if not in outline.
And what is the secret of that quiet, subtle magic exercised by the
builders of Java? Nothing but a matter of technical skill, of such a
control over the practical details of their craft as, for instance, made
them scorn metal bindings, while using mortar only to a very limited
extent? Or was it their faith, leavening design and execution, attaching
the master’s seal to general plan and minutest ornamental scroll? In
this connection it seems worthy of remark that architect and sculptor,
though independent in their labours (with the exception of one or two
edifices of a late date), achieved invariably, in the distribution of
surfaces and decoration, both as to front and side elevations, complete
unity of expression of the fundamental idea.
Geographically, the ancient monuments of Java may be divided into
three main groups: a western one, rather scanty and confined to a
comparatively small area; a central one, rich both in Sivaïte and
Buddhist temples of the highest excellence; an eastern one, including
Madura and Bali, illustrative of the island’s Hindu art in its
decadence. Taking it roughly, the order is also chronologically from
West to East, and to a certain extent we can trace the history of the
remarkable people who improved so nobly upon the ideas they received
from India, in the ruins they left to our wondering gaze. There has
been a good deal of controversy respecting the date up to which the
inhabitants of Java developed themselves on lines of aboriginal thought
before the advent of the Hindus or, more correctly speaking, before
Hindu influences became prevalent. In fact, there is hardly any question
regarding the history of the island and its civilisation before the
white conquerors carried everything before them, which has not given
rise to controversy, and many important points are still very far
from being settled--perhaps they never will be. In the face of such
disagreement it behoves us to go warily and what follows hereafter rests
but on arguments _pro_ and _contra_ deemed most plausible and founded
principally on the accounts of the _babads_ or Javanese chronicles,[2]
always liable to correction when new discoveries with new wordy battles
in their wake bring new light--if they do! Rude attempts at rock carving
near Karang Bolong, Sukabumi, and Chitapen, Cheribon, are ascribed by
some to artists of the pre-Hindu period. Professor J. H. C. Kern’s
reading of inscriptions on four monoliths in Batavia, glorifications
of a certain king Purnavarman, proves that the first Hindus of whom we
have knowledge in Java, were Vaishnavas. Then comes a blank of several
centuries while they made their way to Central and East Java where,
however, when the veil is partly lifted, the Saivas predominate, almost
swamping the rival sect. Fa Hien, the Chinese pilgrim who visited the
island in 412 or 413, having suffered shipwreck on its coast, speaks of
Brahmanism being _in floribus_ and making converts, but complains of
Buddhism as still of small account among the natives.
The strangers arrived in increasing numbers on the hospitable shores
of the good and generous _negri jawa_, whose kindly reception of those
adventurers is marvellously well represented on two of the sculptured
slabs of the Boro Budoor, a tale of rescue from the dangers of the sea,
a picture of the past and a prophetic vision of the welcome extended in
later days also to Muhammadans and Christians--to be how repaid! The
Hindus acquitted their debt of gratitude by building and carving with
an energy, to quote James Fergusson, and to an extent nowhere surpassed
in their native lands, dignifying their new home with imperishable
records of their art and civilisation.... The Venggi inscriptions of
the Diëng and the Kadu leave no doubt that the oldest manifestations
of Hinduïsm in Central and West Java were intimately related
and that the first strong infusion of the imported creed must
have operated until 850 Saka (A.D. 928). In 654 Saka (A.D. 732),
according to an inscription found at Changgal, Kadu, the ruler of
the land bore a Sanskrit name and sacrificed to Siva, erecting a
_linga_.[3] An inscription of 700 Saka (A.D. 778), found at Kalasan,
Jogjakarta, is Buddhistic and confirms the evidence of many other
records carved in stone and copper, of the oldest Javanese literature,
last but not least of the temple ruins, all concurring in this that the
two religions flourished side by side, the adoration of the Brahman
triad, led by Siva, acquiring a tinge of the beatitude derived from
emancipation through annihilation of self; Buddhism, in its younger
_mahayana_ form, becoming strongly impregnated with Sivaïsm, to the
point even of endowing the Adi-Buddha in his five more tangible
personifications with spouses and sons. Between two currents of faith,
each imbued with the male and female principle in a country where the
problem of sex will not be hid, it depended often upon a trifle what
kind of emblematic shape the sculptor was going to give to his block of
stone, whether he would carve a _linga_ or a _yoni_,[4] a Dhyani Buddha,
a Bodhisatva, a Tara or one of her Hindu peers.
Subsequent waves of immigration, the Muhammadan invasion, the Christian
conquests, did little to nourish the artistic flame; on the contrary,
they damped artistic ardour. Hereanent our historical data are somewhat
more precise. The Islām takes its way to Sumatra in the wake of trade;
conversions _en masse_ seem to have first occurred in Pasei and Acheh,
while merchants of Arabian and Persian nationality prepared its advent
also in other regions of the north and later of the west coast. Marco
Polo speaks of a Muhammadan principality in the North at the end of the
thirteenth century; Ibn Batutah of several more in 1345; Acheh is fully
islāmised under Sooltan Ali Moghayat Shah, 1507-1522; about the same
time Menangkabau, ruled by maharajahs proud of their descent in the
right line from Alexander the Great, Iskander Dzu’l Karnein, reaches
its apogee as a formidable Moslim state and remains the stronghold of
Malayan true believers until the fanaticism of the _padris_, stirred
by the Wahabite movement, ends, in 1837, in the submission of the last
Prince of Pagar Rujoong to the Dutch Government, which annexes his
already much diminished empire. About 1400 the Islām had been introduced
into Java, Zabej, as the Arabs called it, probably via Malacca and
Sumatra, more especially Palembang. The oldest effort recorded was that
of a certain Haji Poorwa in Pajajaran, but it appears not to have met
with great success. Gresik in East Java, a port of call frequented by
many oriental skippers, offered a better field for the religious zeal
of Arab sailing-masters, supercargoes and tradesmen, every one of them
a missionary too. Maulana Malik Ibrahim secured the largest following
and was succeeded in his apostolic work by Raden Paku, who settled at
Giri, not far from Gresik, whence his title of Susuhunan Giri, and by
Raden Rahmat, who married a daughter of Angka Wijaya, King of Mojopahit,
and founded a Muhammadan school at Ngampel, Surabaya. Their teachings
resulted soon in the conversion of the population of the northeast coast
of the island, where Demak, Drajat, Tuban, Kalinjamat and a few smaller
vassal states of Mojopahit made themselves independent under Moslim
princes or _walis_, who at last combined for a holy war against Hindu
supremacy. They wiped Mojopahit in her idolatrous wickedness from the
face of the earth and the leadership went to Demak, from which Pajang
derived its political ascendency to merge later in Mataram. While the
Islām spread from Giri in East and Central Java, even to Mataram and,
crossing the water, to Madura, by the exertions of saintly men who
“knew the future,” an Arab sheik, arriving at Cheribon, directly from
foreign parts, at some time between 1445 and 1490, Noor ad-Din Ibrahim
bin Maulana Israïl, better known as Sunan Gunoong Jati, undertook
the conversion of West Java. And of Cheribon in her relation to the
Pasoondan may be repeated what a Javanese historian said of Demak, where
the Evil One was outwitted by the building of a _mesdjid_, a Muhammadan
house of prayer, the oldest in the island: two human virtues remained;
so many as embraced the true religion went after them.
The two remaining virtues got hard pressed when Christian strangers
came to explore and exploit: Portuguese, English and Dutch, the latter
dominant up to this day. Viewed from the standpoint of the dominated,
their god was a god of plunder; their emblem, to suit the symbolism
of the Hindu Pantheon, was a _maryam_, a heavy piece of ordnance;
their _vahana_, the animal representative of their most characteristic
qualities, was the tiger, _machan_ still being synonymous with _orang
wolanda_ (Hollander) in confidential, figurative speech. How Skanda,
the deity of war, incited and Kuwera, the corpulent bestower of riches,
directed their warriors and negotiators after the appearance of Cornelis
Houtman’s ships in the Bay of Bantam, need not detain us. That story of
the past, with a hint at the possible future, is told in the legend of
the legitimately wedded but for the time cruelly separated _maryams_
of which one, very appropriately, awaits the fulfilment of a prophecy
at the capital of the intruders, and the other where they first put
foot on land, both being objects of veneration and granters of desires,
especially kind to barren women who come, in a spirit of humiliation, to
pray for the blessing of motherhood. A visit to Batavia is not complete
without a pilgrimage to the Pinang gate, once an approach to the East
India Company’s castle, now in its supernatural cleanness, with its
hideously black funeral urns and statues of Mars and Mercury or whoever
they may be, giving access to the old town, the first public monument
which attracted the attention of young Verdant Green in the age of
sailing vessels after he had paid his due to the customs at the _boom_.
Not far from that Pinang gate, symbolic of a colonial system under
which short weight flourished with forced labour and trade carried on at
the edge of the sword, lies the man-cannon, Kiahi Satomo, whose pommel
presents a hand, closed so as to make the gesture of contempt, _la
fica_, which Vanni Fucci of Pistoja permitted himself when interrogated
in the abode of despair by the poet, _quem genuit parvi Florentia mater
amoris_, and which accounts for the peculiar forms sacrifice assumes at
this altar. His favourite spouse, discovered floating on the sea near
old Bantam, an extraordinary thing to do for such a big heavy piece of
metal, was given a temporary home on the spot where finally she lay
down to rest from her travels: a certain Haji Bool built her a bambu
house after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, her presence having saved
Karang Antu from the fate of Anyer and Cheringin. Waiting for the great
consummation, when her reunion with her lord at Batavia will announce
the hour of the oppressors’ defeat and their expulsion from Java, she
is not less honoured than he. Dressed in a white cloth, which covers
the circular inscription in Arabic characters on breech and cascabel,
while the priming hole is decorated in square ornament, with five solid
rings to facilitate conveyance if she prefers being carried to moving
by her own exertion as of yore, anointed and salved with _boreh_,[5]
the spouse, expecting the summons in the fragrance of incense and
flowers, _kananga_ and _champaka_, is often surrounded by fervent
devotees, muttering their _dzikr_ on their prayer-mats, grateful for
bounty received or hopeful of future delivery from bondage. Husband and
wife will meet and then a third cannon, far away in Central Java, in the
_aloon aloon_[6] before the _kraton_[6] of the Susuhunan of Surakarta,
inhabited by a ghost, dispenser of dreams, the _sapu jagad_, will
vindicate that name, “broom of the world”, by sweeping all infidels into
the sea. Though the scoffing unbeliever counts this a dream of dreams,
to the confiding children of the land it is a disclosure of things
hidden in the womb of time, not the less true because Kiahi Satomo has
an older mate, Niahi Satomi, the wife of his youth, the robed in red of
the Susuhunan’s artillery park, which glories in many _maryams_ renowned
in myth and history, among them another married couple, Koomba-rawa
and Koomba-rawi, who shielded the ancient Sooltans of Pajang, being
the official defenders of their palace. But Kiahi Satomo’s heart is in
Bantam, at Karang Antu, as Niahi Satomi has reason to suspect since
she, the more legitimate and more advanced in age, cannot keep him at
her side. It avails nothing that the Susuhunan’s retainers chain the
reluctant head of the family to the Bangsal Pangrawit, the imperial
audience-chamber constructed after a heavenly model in gold; always and
always he flies back to Batavia, anxious to be ready where the beloved
_bini muda_ (lit. young wife) has trysted him for sweet dalliance, from
which victory will be born and release.
While predictions of the kind may be laughed at, the native belief in
them and the foundations on which that belief rests, are no laughable
matter by any means. Stories of mythical beings like Kiahi Satomo
and Niahi Satomi, transformed into pieces of ordnance connected with
the legendary lore of Trunajaya on one side and Moslim fanaticism
personified in the cannon of Karang Antu on the other, prove that the
native mind is still strongly imbued with pre-Muhammadan and even
pre-Hindu ideas and modes of thought. Its imagination is fed by the
fortunes (and misfortunes!) of an island which may be compared in the
heterogeneous factors of its culture with Sicily, where Greek colonists
built their temples in the high places of aboriginal idolatry; and
the Saracens constructed their qubbehs overtopping the churches and
cloisters into which the Christians had transformed the cellae and
colonnades consecrated to Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Pallas
Athene, Artemis, the Dioscuri; and the Normans added their arched
doorways and massive masonry to perplex posterity entirely. In Java
the Hindu element, with a strong Buddhist admixture, predominates; it
prevails wholly in ancient architectural activity, not to speak of
Soondanese and Javanese folklore and literature, while later Christian
influence is negligible if not negative. Everywhere in the island we
find under the Muhammadan coating the old conceptions of life from
which the Loro Jonggrang group and the Boro Budoor sprang: scratch the
_orang slam_ and the Saiva or Buddhist will immediately appear. As the
Padang Highlands, which preserve the traditions of Menangkabau, still
ring with the fame of the Buddhist King Adityawarman, and scrupulously
Moslim Palembang still cherishes the memory of Buddhist San-bo-tsaï,
while South Sumatra clings to Hindu customs and habits for all its
submission to Islām, so Java reveres whatever has been handed down from
her pantheistic _tempo dahulu_ (time of yore), however attached to the
law of the Prophet. Sivaïsm and Buddhism were deeply rooted in the
island; if the political power of its old creeds was broken in 1767 with
the taking of Balambangan, Hinduïsm nevertheless lingering among the
Tenggerese and in Bali, their spirit goes on leavening the new doctrine
and we meet with their symbolism at every turn. Not to mention Central
Java, where especially in Surakarta and Jogjakarta their tenacious
sway strikes the most casual observer, the great staircase of the
Muhammadan sanctum at Giri is adorned with a huge _naga_, the worshipful
rain-cloud descending in the likeness of a serpent, despite the Qorānic
injunction to abstain from the representation of animate creation. The
pillars of reception-halls and audience-chambers in the houses of the
high and mighty, East and West, bear a remarkable resemblance to the
_linga_, witness, _e.g._, the _kedaton_[7] built by the Sooltan Sepooh
Martawijaya of Cheribon, a Moslim prince who ought to have evinced the
strongest repugnance to Siva’s prime attribute.
Under the circumstances we need not wonder that the Islām did so little
to stimulate art in Java. Christianity did still less, rather clogged
it in its application to native industries, which suffered from the
country being flooded with stuff as cheap as possible in every respect,
but sold at the highest possible prices to benefit manufacturers in
Europe. This is not the place to expatiate on this subject nor to
discuss present efforts (in which alas! personal ambitions play first
fiddle and jeopardise results) to revive what lies at the point of
death after centuries of culpable discouragement, the professional
secrets and peculiar devices of native arts and crafts, requiring
hereditary skill and the delicate touch of experienced fingers to attain
former perfection, being now already half forgotten or altogether
lost. Concerning the ancient monuments of Java, it is to the British
Interregnum, to Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles that we owe the first
measures for their preservation and the first systematic survey of
specimens of Hindu workmanship as beautiful as any in the world, more
in particular of the Prambanan temples, and also of the Boro Budoor, by
common consent the masterpiece of Buddhist architecture. Marshalling
his assistants in the archaeological field, especially Cornelius and
Wardenaar (whose fruitful explorations and excavations deserved fuller
acknowledgment than they received from him), a diligent student besides
of the history and literature of the island, doing for Java in that
respect what Marsden had done for Sumatra, he inspired Dr. Leyden,
Colonel Mackenzie and his rival John Crawfurd among his contemporaries,
and of younger generations now equally gone, Wilsen, Leemans, Brumund,
Friederich, Junghuhn, Cohen Stuart, Holle,--_j’en passe et des
meilleurs_! The value of their labours must be recognised and it is
the fault of the Dutch Government’s apathetic attitude that with such
forces at its disposal, so little has been achieved. Each of them, with
few exceptions, worked independently of the other and blazed his own
personal path in the wilderness of Dutch East Indian antiquities. There
was, as Fergusson complained, no system, no leading spirit to give
unity to the whole. Disconnected, sometimes misdirected investigation
did not result in more than an accumulation of fragmentary material
for possible future use, _rudis indigestaque moles_. And meanwhile the
glorious remains of a lost civilisation went more and more to ruin. They
were drawn upon for purposes of public and private building; statues
and ornament disappeared, not only in consequence of the unchecked,
persistent nibbling of the tooth of time, and it seemed almost so much
gained if Doorga or Ganesa reappeared occasionally in the function of
domestic goddess or god to some Resident or Assistant Resident who
demonstrated his devotion to ancient art and care for the preservation
of its masterpieces by a periodical process of whitewashing or tarring.
Worse than that: dilettantism began to tamper with the finest temples
and the miserable bungling of mischievous, quasi-scientific enthusiasts
reached its climax in the sorry spectacle prepared for the visitors of
the last international exhibition in Paris (1900). There was to be seen
in the Dutch East Indian section, a mean, ridiculous imitation of one
of the Buddhist jewels of Central Java, a caricature of the _chandi_[8]
Sari, the exterior in nondescript confectioner’s style, daubed dirty
white, the interior made hideous by a purple awning, abomination heaped
on abomination. And that piteous botch, in fact an unconscious avowal of
Dutch colonial shortcomings, did service as a sample of _la magnificence
d’une religion prodigue en ornaments, en feuillages et en voluptés_!
After an era of dabbling by pseudo-Winckelmanns and Schliemanns,
spicing their pretences with mutual admiration, the Government decided
finally to appoint a permanent Archaeological Commission. Things,
indeed, had come to such a pass that there was danger in delay: the
island is becoming more and more accessible to globe-trotters of all
nationalities, not a few of whom publish their impressions, and if
erring authority wields a vigorous Press Law to silence criticism at
home, against foreign criticism it has no weapon of the kind, however
touchy it may be. So it began to move and the Archaeological Commission
(short for Commission for Archaeological Research in Java and Madura),
though without a single trained archaeologist among its members,
displayed at once a good deal of activity under its first President,
Dr. J. L. A. Brandes, exploring in East Java, restoring the _chandi_
Toompang, attending to the Mendoot and Boro Budoor in Central Java, in
order that, acting upon King Pururava’s injunction, at last understood
and accepted, after a fashion, by Batavia and the Hague, no monument
shall be lost which has been wrought in the right spirit. It can be
imagined that subordinate officials, eager to follow their superiors’
lead, now revel daily in numberless finds, reported not only from
districts, near and remote, in the star island, but from the exterior
possessions, from Soombawa, from Jambi in Sumatra, from Kutei in East,
from Sanggau and Sakadan in West Borneo, etc. etc. Like the encouraging
of native art applied to weaving, wood-carving, the manufacture of
pottery, of household utensils of copper and bronze, and so on, the
ferreting out of sculptural and architectural ties with the past is
quite the latest craze, a stepping-stone to preferment or at least a
means of ingratiation with those who set the pace. There would be no
harm in this if obsequious ambition did not burgeon here and there into
an excess of zeal which makes one tremble, pregnant as it proves to be
with dangers well defined by Ruskin: Of all destructive manias that of
restoration is the frightfullest and foolishest.
Curiosity being excited, there is the impulse to satisfy vulgar demands,
to cater to coarse appetites when admitting every one who knocks at the
door of the treasure-house however unworthy. Trippers from the trading
centres on the coast swarm round as their fancies guide; tourists from
distant climes scour the land, either single spies or driven in noisy
battalions of “conducted parties”. Travel in Java is already assuming
the character of holiday excursions pressed upon the public in bombastic
handbills and posters of transportation companies. Revenue being the
principal objective of Dutch colonial solicitude, the opportunity
they create is gladly seized to levy gate-money from visitors to the
_chandi_ Mendoot.[9] And since the Philistines, who do not appreciate
the beauties of a building they cannot comprehend, expect something
in exchange for their contribution to the upkeep, visible tokens of
their really having been there, we shall soon hear of photographers
established in the temple to perpetuate the memory of spoony couples,
giggling and offensive, magnesium flashed at the feet of the Most
Venerable, or of the Boro Budoor in a blaze of Bengal fire to please
mediocrity, which wants barbarous stimulants. And apart from such
concessions to the exigencies of inane modern travel, how distressing
the plain tokens of neglect and spoliation! As Psyche began to mourn
Love after she had come to grasp his excellence, so the discerning
one, advancing to the apprehension of eternal truth there enshrined in
beauty, a call to heaven in stone, laments less what is gone of material
substance by the ravages of time, than what is taken from the spiritual
essence by willful mutilation; by methods of repair embodied in iron
scrapers to remove moss and weeds, incidentally spoiling the delicate
lines of reliefs and decoration; by filling gaps with any rubbish
lying about, mending and patching _à la grosse morbleu_; by additions
for the convenience of sightseers, like the unsightly staircase askew
near one of the original, dilapidated approaches. It is devoutly to be
hoped that the overhauling now in progress will, at least, remove such
incongruities and avoid new horrors of so-called restoration.[10]
Dr. Brandes, whose learning and good sense led the Archaeological
Commission in a track of sound activity, died, unfortunately, in
1905. Though the theft of antiquities has been discontinued on paper,
impudent souvenir hunting is still winked at by authorities fawning
on distinguished guests. Untitled and unofficial collectors will have
some trouble perhaps, at any rate incur a good deal more expense than
formerly, in filling their private art galleries, but for officials
of the type of Nicolaus Engelhard[11] no difficulties seem to exist
and even the Boro Budoor was very recently despoiled to please a
royal personage. So much for Java; as to the exterior possessions,
the Minahassa was plundered, even more recently, for the benefit of
foreign explorers of name and fame. Since the respective Government
edicts[12] multiplied, fixing responsibility at random, cases of
strange disappearance multiplied too, on the principle, it seems, of
making hay while the sun shines; the pen-driving departments, issuing
circulars on everything, for everything, against everything, about
everything, effect absolutely nothing unless their insistence be
taken, often rightly by him who reads between the lines, for a covert
invitation to do precisely the contrary, considering friendships, family
relations, party obligations, etc. etc., of powers and dominions.
The force of regulations and rescripts in the Dutch East Indies is
notoriously short-lived in the best of circumstances, and we have it on
the authority of Hans Sachs, _Je mehr Hürten, je übler Hut_. The very
scrupulous and wise, moreover, drag off whatever is loose or can be
detached, separating details of ornament, reliefs and statues from their
surroundings, which are indispensable to their proper understanding, to
hide and forget them in cellars and lofts of museums until, the stars
being favourable, accidentally rediscovered after years and years, and
ticketed and huddled together with other ticketed objects in long,
dreary rows of forbidding, bewildering aspect. That is, _if_ they are
rescued and classified and ticketed _tant bien que mal_: the colonial
section in the Museum of Antiquities at Leyden, a byword among the
lovers of Dutch East Indian architecture, shows clearly the obstruction
caused by hopeless negligence in the past and lack of backbone in
the present zeal, energy, ardour, nay, frenzy of investigation.
Everything in Dutch colonial affairs goes by fits and starts with long
blanks of indifference between. To give but one instance: the _Corpus
Inscriptionum Javanarum_, planned with flourish of trumpets in 1843,
still awaits the preliminaries of a beginning of execution. Concerning
the fever of restoration which has broken out, one feels inclined, in
support of Ruskin’s opinion quoted above, to sound the note of warning
engraved on the signet ring of Prosper Mérimée, Inspector of the
Historical Monuments of France almost a century ago: μέμνασ’ ἀπιστεῖν,
lest the last state become worse than the first, and excess of zeal
deface what time and the hand of man, even the Department of Public
Works itself, quarrying its material for bridges, dams, embankments
and the shapeless Government buildings of which it possesses the
monopoly, have left standing. Without, however, insisting on the
dark aspect of the situation, let us trust that a sense of shame, if
not of duty, will sustain the interest in the old monuments of Java
now in vogue, and may then the faddish, pompous display, turned into
channels of quiet, responsible, persistent endeavour, herald a brighter
day!
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Strictly speaking, says Dr. BRANDES in his notes to his
translation of the _Pararaton_, or the Book of the Kings of Tumapel and
Mojopahit (p. 178), there is only one _babad tanah jawi_, which received
its final redaction about 1700. The other _babads_, though they may
contain recapitulations of the general history of Java, treat of local
affairs or of certain selected periods, as the _babads_ Surakarta,
Diponegoro, Mangkunegoro, Paku Alaman, etc.
[3] Emblem of Siva’s fructifying virility.
[4] Emblem of the fecundity of Siva’s _sakti_ or female complement,
Parvati or Uma, Doorga, Kali or whatever other name she goes by
according to the nature of her manifestations.
[5] Generic name for ointments and salves, used specifically for a
preparation of turmeric and coco-nut oil, which is smeared over the body
on gala occasions and applied to objects held in veneration.
[6] An _aloon aloon_ is an open square before the dwelling of a
native chief; the _kratons_ or palaces with their dependencies of the
semi-independent princes in Central Java have two _aloon aloons_, one to
the north and one to the south, on which no grass is allowed to grow.
[7] _Kedaton_ has the same meaning as _kraton_, but is generally used
for that part of a princely residence occupied by the owner himself with
his wives, concubines and children, as distinct from the quarters of his
retinue.
[8] _Chandi_ means in its correct, restricted sense: “the stones between
and under which in olden times the ashes of a burnt corpse were put,” or
“a mausoleum built over the ashes of one departed” (ROORDA and
GERICKE); by extension, in native speech, any monument of the
Hindu period. The _chandi_ Sari is supposed to have been a _vihara_ or
Buddhist monastery.
[9] A tax of f. 50 (ten pence), the payment of which secures also
admission to the _chandis_ Pawon and Boro Budoor.
[10] Thanks to Major T. van Erp of the Engineers, who conducted the work
of restoration, this pious wish has been granted.
[11] Governor of Java’s northeast coast from 1801 to 1808, in
whose garden at Samarang “several very beautiful subjects in stone
were arranged, brought in from different parts of the country.”
RAFFLES, _History of Java_, vol. ii., P. 55.
[12] Paraphrases of a fossil statute, periodically paraded and then
returned to its pigeon-hole, like a relic carried round in procession on
the day of the particular saint it belongs to and then shut away in its
repository for the rest of the year. Of what avail are enactments and
ordinances persistently ignored and never enforced?
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II
WEST JAVA
Quedaron mudos los cuerpos,
Solas las almas se hablan,
Que en las luces de los ojos
Iban y venian las almas.[13]
_Romancero Morisco (Celin de Escariche)._
The Batu Tulis, lit. “the inscribed stone”, near Bogor, commemorates the
feats of a certain prince, Parabu Raja Purana, otherwise Ratu Dewata,
and calls him the founder of Pakuan, ruler, _maharajah ratu aji_, of
Pakuan Pajajaran. That kingdom is the centre of everything tradition has
transmitted regarding the Hindus in West Java. Its origin, according to
native belief, goes back to a settlement of princely adventurers from
Tumapel in East Java, and when Mojopahit flourished after the fall of
that mighty empire, it rose to equal eminence at the other end of the
island, only to be destroyed by the same agency, the growing power of
Islām. The subjection of the mountain tribes of the Priangan by the
settlers from the East proceeded in the beginning but slowly and the
children of the land, even after they had yielded to the inevitable,
must have retained a share in the management of their affairs, for
Soondanese _pantoons_[14] mention separately, as two factors of
government, the _ratu_, king of Pakuan, and the _menak_, nobility of
Pajajaran. However this may be, from about 1100 until the beginning of
the sixteenth century, Pajajaran was a political unity that counted. She
could send an army of a hundred thousand warriors into the field. Her
kings disposed at will of large territories, gained by conquest; one of
them conferred upon his brother Kalayalang the dominion of Jayakarta,
in later years better known under the name of Yacatra, and on his
brother Barudin the dominion of Bantam, principalities destined to play
an important part in the overthrow of the sovereign state. Nothing,
save the meagre accounts of the _babads_ and the scanty remains to be
referred to at the end of this chapter, reminds now of Pajajaran, except
the Badooy in South Bantam, who constitute a community apart, entirely
isolated from the rest of the population and whose peculiar customs and
religious observances so far as known, make it probable that they are
the descendants of fugitives before the Muhammadan inroad.
When Noor ad-Din Ibrahim bin Maulana Israïl had established in Cheribon
not only his religion but also his political power, he began, under
the name and title of Sunan Gunoong Jati, to propagate the faith by
force of arms in the whole of West Java. First he cast his eyes on
Bantam, then a mighty realm, the possession or at least the control
of which, leaving spiritual motives alone, would materially benefit
Moslim trade by securing a free passage through the Straits of Soonda
whenever trouble with the Portuguese made the Straits of Malacca unsafe.
The Sivaïte Prince of Bantam, trying to preserve his independence by
fostering the commercial rivalry between his Muhammadan and Christian
friends, received the latter with open arms and besought their
assistance against Cheribon and Demak, but Maulana Hasan ad-Din, a
son of Sunan Gunoong Jati, defeated him none the less and introduced
the Islām among his people both in Bantam proper and in the Lampongs.
Another son of Sunan Gunoong Jati founded the Muhammadan principality
of Soonda Kalapa, notwithstanding the fortifications erected there
by the Portuguese, at the instance of their Bantamese ally, to stem
the tide of Muhammadan conquest. After subjugating the vassal state,
Maulana Hasan ad-Din attacked, about 1526, the troops of Pajajaran
under the King’s son Sili Wangi, and routed them, taking the capital
and proselytising by the sword wherever he went, following the example
set by Raden Patah of Demak in East Java. It is probable that Bantam,
once islāmised and consequently turning against the Portuguese, took the
side of Cheribon in these wars. At any rate, we find Bantam and Cheribon
together acknowledging the suzerainty of Demak, like the more eastern
principalities of the north coast, and when that central Muhammadan
state of Java lost the hegemony in consequence of its breaking up
after the death of Pangeran Tranggana, and at last the Sooltan of
Pajang,[15] into which it dissolved, had to humble himself with his
allies, the Adipati of Surabaya and the Sunan of Giri, before the
Senapati of Mataram, his former regent in that territory, this valiant
and clever potentate claimed the lordship over the island. These were
the beginnings of a glorious new Mataram, perhaps identical with Mendang
Kamulan.
Cheribon, which had conquered Bantam and Pajajaran, lost gradually her
strength, became tributary to Mataram in 1625 and wholly dependent in
1632. She declined still more after the death of Panambahan Girilaya,
who divided his succession between his sons Pangeran Martawijaya (later
Sooltan Sepooh) and Pangeran Kartawijaya (later Sooltan Anom), on
condition of their providing for a third son, Pangeran Wangsakarta
of Godong (later Panambahan). Embroiled in the rebellion of Trunajaya
against the authority of Mataram and captured, Martawijaya and
Kartawijaya were kept as hostages at its capital, Karta. Released
through the intervention of Sooltan Tirtayasa of Bantam, more commonly
known as Abu’l-Fatah, they returned home only to get again mixed up
in hostilities against Mataram and the Dutch East India Company,
which overran Cheribon with its soldiers and improved the opportunity
by regulating the affairs of Girilaya’s three sons to its own best
advantage. The foundation of Batavia on the site of old Yacatra, taken
by Jan Pietersz Coen, May 30, 1619, had meant, among other things,
an always keener competition in trade with Bantam or, rather, the
“establishment of a free rendezvous”, _i.e._ free of bickerings with
native princes and princelings, for the fleets of the Company on their
long voyage to the Moluccos. Bantam having outstripped Cheribon by the
importance she derived from English and Dutch shipping, resented the
blow which threatened to relegate her to a second or third place, and
this resulted in frequent conflicts with the intruders, though the
boundary line of their settlement and their mutual relationship had been
carefully defined in the treaty of 1659. On the other side in occasional
difficulties with Mataram, the Company, acting on the _divide et impera_
principle, encouraged the rivalry between the middle and western
empires, which both strove for supremacy in the Priangan. How the
Company accomplished its purpose and triumphed, needs here no detailed
examination. Its objects and the considerations which moved it, are
wittily discussed in a Javanese mock-epic, the _Serat Baron Sakendher_,
a satire on the rise of Dutch power at Batavia, the foundation of Moor
Yang Koong (Jan Pietersz Coen). If that pattern of regents _outre
mer_, the first Dutch Governor-General in Java, whose motto was “never
despair”, whose grip like the grip of the tiger, has invited comparison
with Ganesa (firstborn of Siva and Parvati) for wisdom and cautious
statecraft, with Skanda (also sprung from the Mahadeva’s loins but
without the Devi’s collaboration) for resolution and mettle, here we
find him as the son of Baron Sookmool, Baron Sakendher’s brother,
and Tanaruga,[16] daughter of the Pajajaranese Princess Retna Sakar
Mandhapa, and the poet makes the personification of the Company say
to his twelve hopefuls, the earliest Tuan Tuan Edeleer, or honourable
members of the Governor-General’s Council: Good measures you will
enforce, without quarrelling amongst yourselves, and, even if it were
larceny, the moment you have decided upon it by common consent, I give
my permission,--a speech delightfully in keeping with the tactics of his
father, whose artillery prevailed, not with iron cannon-balls, but with
golden grapeshot of ducats and doubloons.
The ruins of the Fort Speelwijck and the minaret of Pangeran Muhammad’s
_mesdjid_ at Old Bantam are very illustrative of the insinuating way
in which the pioneers of the Company planted their factories; once
admitted on the strength of their promises, they gained a firm footing
by military superiority, driving hard bargains and ousting the Islām
from what it had come to regard as its own. Near by is the neglected,
overgrown Dutch cemetery, where many of those pioneers were laid to
rest, far from home, family and friends, killed in the Company’s battles
or by strenuous obedience to exacting orders, bartering their health in
a murderous climate for a handful of silver, wasting body and soul to
swell the Company’s dividends. A tangle of weeds and briars closes over
their remains; thick moss, covering their broken gravestones, effaces
their forgotten names; even the mausoleums dedicated to the memory of
the leaders among them, commanders and commercial agents-in-chief, are
crumbling away, harbouring hungry guests which leave safe lairs in
the forests, when deer and wild pigs become scarce, to raid at night
the village sheepfolds, while snakes may dart forth from the cracks
and fissures at any moment and mosquitoes swarm round in myriads, the
worst plague of all to him who seeks communion with the dead in that
jungle. The burial-ground of the Sooltans of Bantam, gathered round
Hasan ad-Din, the first preacher of the true faith in this region, is
in better condition. Though Shafei, to whose _madsheb_ or school the
Moslemin of the Dutch East Indies belong, disapproved of elaborate tombs
and prescribed that sepulchral cavities, after the deposition of the
bodies, should be filled up and made level with the ground, memorial
tokens to mark the graves of Muhammadan saints, famous princes and
heroes, often venerated as _kramats_, are a familiar sight in Java;
they consist generally of pieces of wood or stone, _tengger_, standing
upright at both ends, at the head and at the feet, differently shaped
for men and for women. Many such are found where Pangeran Muhammad
raised his _mesdjid_ with the minaret detached like the campanile of
some mediaeval Italian church. Tombs all round, tombs of Sooltans,
their brothers and sons and cousins, their great councillors and
generals, a Bantamese Aliscamps with Hasan ad-Din occupying the place
of honour under a canopy, prayer-mats and prayer-books lying around,
a benign breeze stirring the muslin hangings and filling the air with
the fragrance of the _kambojas_.[17] Whoever wants to know of the
excellent deeds of the Sooltans of Bantam, their acts of devotion in
peace and their prowess in war, can receive information from Pangeran
Muhammad Ali in _kampong_ Kanari, one of their descendants, keeper
of the archives of the _mesdjid_ and the surrounding garden of the
departed. He will tell furthermore of the well near the north wall
of the new building, which is fed from the well Zemzem at Mecca and,
thanks to the child Ishmaïl, beneath whose feet its water bubbled
forth, possesses the property of curing disease. It is also connected
with the miraculous source at Luar Batang, whose water possesses the
property of detecting perverters of the truth: the man who tries there
to slake his thirst with a falsehood on his conscience, from a downright
lie to a terminological inexactitude, or even a little fib for the
sake of domestic tranquillity, will not be able to swallow a drop, his
throat refusing liquid comfort until expiation of guilt; and so the
devotees who flock to the shrine of the saint of Hadramaut at Pasar
Ikan, Batavia, leave that source prudently alone--one may have sinned
unwittingly or under strong provocation. Such holy places are thickly
strewn and the last habitation of Hasan ad-Din is one of the holiest,
being overshadowed by the venerable minaret of Pangeran Muhammad’s
_mesdjid_, which signified to Bantam what the _mesdjid_ of Ngampel did
to the eastern and the _mesdjid_ of Demak to the middle states of Moslim
Java. The intact preservation of the latter as the oldest existing
edifice erected[18] for Muhammadan worship in the island, is of high
importance _superstitionis causa_, and exceeding care was taken in 1845,
when the danger of its tumbling down became imminent, to rebuild it not
all at once, but one part after the other, round the four principal
supports of the original structure, and to restore the beautifully
carved lintels and posts exactly to their accustomed position. Nothing
is left at Demak of Raden Patah’s princely dwelling, but the graves
are shown of Panambahan Jimboon, Pangeran Sabrang Lor and Pangeran
Tranggana, who was killed by one of his servants on an expedition to
still Sivaïtic Pasuruan.
Pangeran Tranggana had auxiliaries from Bantam among his troops and
this leads us back to West Java after our slight digression in favour
of Demak, the energetic central state which, at the time here spoken
of, ruled the roast in matters of conquest for the propagation of the
faith. The Bantamese, more than their converters, have conserved a
reputation for fanaticism and it is not yet a quarter of a century
since a certain Abool Karim of the district Tanara preached the
holy war, the brotherhood of the Naqshibendyah fanning the flame of
sedition he kindled. His _murids_ (disciples) Tubagoos Ismaïl, Marduki
and Wasid having spread the movement, a mob, led by a certain Haji
Iskak, massacred several Europeans at Chilegon (1888). But for the
Government’s bayonets, rather than a course of conciliation based on a
thorough knowledge of the agrarian causes at the bottom of the unrest
among the population, the whole of Bantam might have blazed up and
Cheribon might have followed. Seeing that they could not prevail, the
dissatisfied betook themselves again to prayer, there at the grave of
Hasan ad-Din, here at the grave of Sheik Noor ad-Din Ibrahim, situated
not far from the capital he founded, on a hill near the sea, the
Gunoong Jati, whence his title. The terraces of the _astana_ so called,
first home of the Islām in this region, much venerated however much
defaced, savour of more ancient heathen monuments in all their odour
of Muhammadan sacredness, not otherwise than the _Kitab Papakam_,
the Cheribon code of laws, savours of Indian maxims and even at this
date betrays its birth from the legislation introduced by the Hindu
immigrants, though in 1768 (and not before that year, more than three
centuries after the introduction of the law of the Prophet!), the
_Kutara Manawa_ has officially been abrogated in the Sooltanate. The
lowest three terraces of the _astana_ serve as a burial-ground for the
descendants of Sunan Gunoong Jati and the men of mark in the annals of
his empire; a road, winding upward, a Moslim Via delle Tombe, conducts
the pilgrim to a _mesdjid_ on the fourth, not to be desecrated by the
feet of unbelievers;[19] above the _mesdjid_, on the fifth, the _sanctum
sanctorum_, rest the mortal remains of the saint himself. Speaking of
Cheribon in its relations to Hinduïsm and the Islām, a reference to
Chinese influences on Javanese architecture cannot be omitted. They
are most evident, of course, where the sons of the Flowery Empire have
settled earliest and in greatest numbers. In several localities Chinese
temples are found for the building and decorating of which renowned
architects, wood-carvers and painters have expressly been summoned to
Java at great expense. Reputedly the finest is the _klenteng_, situated
at a stone’s throw from the shed wherein Sunan Gunoong Jati’s _grobak_
is kept, the vehicle in which he descended from heaven to proclaim the
Word. Transplanting their curved roof-trees and gaudy ornament, the
Chinese brought also a taste for grotto-work, once notably conspicuous
in the _kraton_ of Sooltan Anom. On the road to Tagal, near the
_dessa_ (village) Sunyaragi, lies a rocky labyrinth belonging to the
pleasure-grounds of Sooltan Sepooh’s famous country-seat. Among other
clever devices it contains an artificial cave so constructed that the
_kanjeng goosti_, retiring thither on a hot afternoon for dalliance
with his favourite of the hour, might shut himself completely off from
the world by a discreet artificial waterfall, securing privacy behind
its liquid screen and a refreshing atmosphere stimulative to amorous
exercise. The Chinaman who elaborated the idea, had his eyes gouged out
to prevent his creating another such wonder of architecture adapted to
the diversions of oriental potentates.
It seems fitting that in Java, the sweet island whose air is balm and
where always the delicious sound of running water is heard, where
the cult of bathing is perfected by inclination as well as necessity
of climate, some of the oldest signs of civilisation are found in
sheltered nooks and corners still frequented by those who appreciate
an invigorating plunge. Kota Batu, near Bogor, the supposed site of
the capital of Pajajaran, is an instance in point. Destroyed, says
the Soondanese tradition, because the illustrious King Noro Pati had
lifted up his heart to boast against the message of the Prophet,
his sons completed the calamity by their wrangling for the lordship
over outlying, as yet unsubjugated and unconverted dependencies, and
righteousness left the country. The same reasons which made Pajajaran
slow to accept the Islām, had hindered her acceptance of Hinduïsm. The
mountainous Priangan was sparsely populated and, even if we accept the
statements of native historians who give Hindu civilisation in West Java
a long life by dating the colonisation from India back to the first
century of the Christian era,[20] confined to a limited area, as the
antiquities discovered make clear, it remained far behind that which
reared the superb temples of Central Java. To the best of our knowledge
there were never any Hindu temples at all in West Java, where the people
seem to have contented themselves with prayer and sacrifice in the
open. While Central Java attained to the loftiest and noblest in art,
West Java vegetated until improved communication, stimulated by war and
trade, brought about a dissemination of more eastern artistic notions,
discernible in raised levels and terraces as those of Gunoong Jati,
which remind one faintly of the Boro Budoor; in earthen walls as those
on the Bukit Tronggool, which are arranged after a plan somewhat like
that of the squares enclosing the principal temple and the surrounding
smaller ones of the _chandi_ Sewu. Even then Polynesian clumsiness was
not shaken off. At Batu Tulis, a _kampong_ in the outskirts of Bogor,
where the hosts of two religions fought the battle which decided the
fate of Pajajaran, are several ungainly images and impressions of the
feet of Poorwakali, the spouse of one of that realm’s petrified kings,
who mourned him with such copious tears that she softened the very rock
she stood upon, according to one legend; and, according to another
legend, of the feet of a certain Raja Mantri who tarried so long in
contemplation of the inscribed stone already mentioned, pondering over
the meaning of its strange characters, that he sank gradually into the
hard ground. There are more impressions of more feet and a coarsely
carved _linga_, Siva’s fecundating attribute, transformed by Muhammadan
piety into the miracle working staff of a Moslim santon. Hardly greater
interest is awakened by the primitive statues Kota Batu derives its
appellation from, “city of stones”, which form a sort of _Ruhmes Allee_,
lining the path from the main road to the bath-house, with many of the
same pattern scattered to right and left. All of them are petrified
worthies of Pajajaran, which their own mothers would not recognise,
though the natives know each of them by praenomen, nomen, cognomen and
title. King Moonding Wangi, _i.e._ the nice-smelling buffalo, looking
perhaps a trifle more human than the rest. Of a similar nature are the
_archadomas_, a collection of about eight hundred blocks of stone on
the estate Pondok Gedeh, which need a vivid imagination in the beholder
to pass for the figures of men and animals. A good specimen of the
Pajajaran type of sculpture, if it deserves that name, is the lachrymose
Poorwakali already referred to as standing, petrified herself, at a
little distance from the Batu Tulis where she solaces her widowhood by
keeping company with Kidangpenanjong, forgetting her royal husband,
after her paroxysm of grief, in a plebeian flirtation. Such is woman!
From these crude attempts at a representation of animate creation,
sprang nevertheless an art which, in the hands of the master-builders
and sculptors of Central Java, who sought the beauty of truth that
is verily without a rival, flowered out in prayers of stone, visible
tokens of their yearning for heavenly reward, born of communion with
the divine in deep reflection, only to descend again to lower planes,
to the seeking of the praise of man, in the decadent conventionality
of the later eastern Hindu empires. The story of the development of
architecture and sculpture in the island from the immaturity identified
with Pajajaran to the luxurious grandeur of the temples of Prambanan,
the Mendoot and the Boro Budoor, hides a riddle no less strange
than that of the bursting forth of Arabic poetry, full-blown in all
its subtleness of thought, exuberance of imagination, perfection
of language. The story of decline is written in the evolution of
decorative design: the significance of motives based on the observation
of the earth and her precious gifts, evaporates gradually in nicely
waving lines, elaborate scrolls, insipid fineries. The _kala_-head
changes into the roots of a tree, figurative of the forest; the trunk
of Ganapati into its bole; at last the tree, roots, trunk, branches,
foliage and all, with the sun rising over the forest, with mountains
touching the sky, with rivers flowing to the sea, into conventional
ornament. Islāmic ideals were not conducive to a revival of artistic
conceptions fading into nothingness; neither was, to repeat that too,
the painful contact with Christian civilisation. When the natives were
made to toil and moil for alien masters, their virtues and energies
blighted into the defects and failings of apathy. How could it be
otherwise where an inefficient, venal police and a slow, defective
administration of justice did (and does) not protect property against
depredation; where exertion beyond what is strictly necessary for
bare subsistence, meant (and means) not prosperity but increased
taxation. With all its pretensions to superiority and display of
ethical sentiment, the Dutch Government can scarcely be said to differ
much from Baron Sookmool, the personified East India Company of more
than three centuries ago. Holland’s wards in her rich colonies may be
moulded into men, angels or devils, like the Triloka, the triple people
of the Hindus, according to the treatment meted out to them and the
education they receive. As far as Java is concerned, hoping in heaven’s
mercy, they live in their old traditions, the light of the past and
the shadow of the present. What will the future bring in advance of
the day on which mankind shall be scattered abroad like moths? There
is no knowledge of it but with God and the secret lies behind the
Banaspati,[21] in the hand of him of the budding lotus-flower, the
Deliverer from Evil.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[13]
The bodies remained silent,
Only the souls did commune,
For in the light of the eyes
Came and departed the souls.
[14] The oldest, perhaps the only original form of native poetry,
happily compared, by Professor R. BRANDSTETTER, with the Italian
_stornelli_. In contradistinction to the _sha’ir_, the charm of the
_pantoon_ lies, or should lie, in its being improvised. It consists of
four lines, of which the third rimes with the first and the fourth with
the second; the first two contain some statement generally but loosely
connected with the meaning of the last couplet, except, to quote Dr. J.
J. DE HOLLANDER, that they determine the correspondence of sound. Here
is one in translation:
Whence come the leeches?
From the watered ricefield they go straight to the river.
Whence comes love?
From the eyes it goes straight to the heart.
[15] The title of Sooltan was assumed, probably for the first time in
the history of Java, by the ruler of Pajang when, in 1568, he added
Jipang to his domains.
[16] This lady was a prisoner of the Pangeran of Jakarta (Yacatra) from
whom Baron Sookmool, charmed by her beauty when he arrived in Java to
trade for his father, the wealthy merchant Kawit Paru, bought her for
three big guns, whose history, in the legendary lore of the island, is
inextricably mixed up with the _mariage à trois_ of Kiahi Satomo (for
the nonce taking domicile at Cheribon), Niahi Satomi and the _maryam_ of
Karang Antu referred to in the preceding chapter.
[17] _Plumeria acutifolia Poir._, fam. _Apocynaceae_, planted
extensively in cemeteries; its flowers, for this reason called _boonga
kuboor_ (grave-flowers), have a very pleasant odour and are used to
scent clothes, etc.
[18] About 1468, by Raden Patah.
[19] It is told that the intrepid Governor-General Daendels once tried
to invade the sanctity of this house of prayer, but even he had hastily
to retire.
[20] Venggi inscriptions, brought to light in West Java, go back to the
sixth and fifth centuries of the Christian era and name Kalinga in India
as the region from which the Hindu colonists emigrated.
[21] Banaspati or Wanaspati is the conventional lion’s (or tiger’s)
head, a frequent motive in the ornament of Javanese temples, especially
of common use over their porches and gateways.
CHAPTER III
THE DIËNG
Where Silence undisturbed might watch alone,
So cold, so bright, so still.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, _Queen Mab_.
Where five residencies--Samarang, Pekalongan, Banyumas, the Bagelen
and the Kadu--meet between two seas, the wonderland of the Diëng links
the eastern and western chain of volcanoes which are the vertebrae of
Java’s spine. The Diëng plateau, the first part created, as tradition
goes, and destined to remain longest above water in the island’s final
destruction and submersion, is nothing but a huge crater. Nature, in her
most mysterious mood, exercises here a charm of a peculiar character,
well expressed by the name, according to the Javanese derivation from
_adi aëng_, _i.e._ marvellously beautiful.[22] The temples in this
region belong to the oldest and finest if by no means the largest of
Java. The discovery of a stone with a Venggi inscription has led to the
conjecture that the Hindu settlement to which we owe them, originated
from the Priangan; other indications point to immigration directly
from Southern India. However this may be, the dates ascertained (one
in an inscription reproduced by me in 1885 for further examination at
Batavia, leaving the stone in the place where I had found it) from 731
Saka (A.D. 809) on, witness to the lost civilisation of the Diëng having
reached its apogee at the time the Abbassides flourished in Baghdad and
the Omayyads in Cordova. How it rose, declined and fell, we do not know.
For four centuries its memory lived only as a fantastic tale, the Diëng
remaining utterly deserted, a wilderness of mountain and forest,
inhabited by devils and demons of the Khara and Dushana type.
Resettled since about 1800, its villages increase in number and size,
and its wild animals, big and small, disappear gradually, though the
tigers are still troublesome, evincing a growing disposition to vary
their accustomed fare with domestic kine and sheep. The sombre woods are
gone and efforts at reafforestation gave so far no perceptible results.
The ground yields abundant crops of cabbage, onions and tobacco, in
which a lively trade is done with Chinese middlemen, who buy for the
merchants at Pekalongan, whence the product is shipped to larger centres
of trade. These middlemen congregate principally at Batoor, a prosperous
village, where travellers to the Diëng, arriving from that side, will
appreciate the hospitable disposition of the _wedono_, the native chief
of the district. Many a one has been entertained under his roof, looked
down upon from the _palupooh_ (split bambu) walls by the Royal Family of
Great Britain and Kaiser Wilhelm in chromolithographic splendour, while
discussing a substantial lunch or arranging for sleeping accommodation
if too tired to push on, or desirous of visiting the Pakaraman, the
valley of death, at break of day when the uncanny manifestations of
that place of horror are strongest. Another source of income for
some of the Chinamen of Batoor and their henchmen of the Diëng is
opium smuggling. The geographical position, commanding access to five
administrative divisions of the island at once, lends itself admirably
to that lucrative business. And if the smugglers cater to a low vice,
they can advance an excuse logically unanswerable by those in authority
who punish them when caught: they satisfy but a demand, in competition
with the Government that created it, introduced the drug and encourages
its use, artificially whetting a depraved appetite and demoralising the
children of the land for the sake of more revenue.
Often though I went up to forget the cares of exacting duties in happy
holidays on the Diëng, trying the different approaches, the impressions
of my first ascent in October 1885 are freshest in my memory. Starting
from Wonosobo, I preferred to a more direct route the roundabout way via
Temanggoong, spending a day on the road between the twin volcanoes
Soombing and Sindoro, enjoying the views to right and left, every new
turn disclosing new wonders: mountain slopes basking in the warmth which
radiated triumphantly from a sky of dazzling brightness, valleys of
perfect loveliness losing their brilliant hues in the shades of evening
as if a curtain fell between the world left and the world entered. The
following morning early I rode from Temanggoong in a thick mist which,
rolling away before the sun, uncovered a landscape more and more rugged
as I passed Parakan and Ngadirejo, but always more charming, a feast
to the eye. Near Ngadirejo the _chandis_ Perot and Pringapoos claimed
my attention. Built for the worship of Siva, his _sakti_ Doorga and
their eldest son, they offered a sad spectacle of decay, the former
crumbling away in the baneful embrace of a gigantic tamarind, one of
whose branches rose from the midst of the ruin straight up to heaven,
overshadowing Ganesa, the conqueror of obstacles, in his meditations;
the latter holding an image of Siva’s _vahana_ or _nandi_, the bull,
symbol of his creative power, still an object of veneration as the
_boreh_ indicated, the walls of the temple being decorated with splendid
bas-reliefs representing a scene from Javanese history or mythology,
analogous to the rape of the Sabine women.[23] Farther on, surprise
succeeding surprise, lies Joomprit, another delicious spot, sanctified
by a holy grave, at the source of the Progo. The water, gushing forth
from the mouth of a cavern and trickling down its sides, is immediately
lost to sight in a declivity among the ferns. Curious monkeys herd
round, led by their brawny chief, imperious like Hanoman, born from the
wind, swinging through space, commanding the simian army of Sugriva:
they constitute one of the few colonies of sacred apes which form a
living link with the Hindu epoch; that of Gaja Moongkoor on the Diëng
has ceased to exist.
[Illustration: II. _CHANDI_ PRINGAPOOS
(Archaeological Service through Charls and van Es.)]
From Joomprit on, it was pretty steep climbing to a point where, at a
sudden turn, I beheld the lowlands, far beneath the clouds gathering
round me, fair plains resting under their hazy veil of midday repose,
calm and undisturbed. Drinking deep of the invigorating mountain air, I
noticed the red cheeks of the women and girls who returned from market
in little groups. After descending to the tea-plantations of Tambi,
the clambering up began again, pretty hard for my pony, to which I
gave an occasional rest, looking back over hills and valleys as they
dissolved in soft-melting tints, impressing the beholder with a sense
of eternal light in limitless space. Wonder akin to awe seized me
when, panorama-like, a landscape of silent grandeur, quite different
from the graceful majesty of the rose-gardens of Wonosobo and the
palm-groves of Temanggoong, unfolded itself. I was on the Diëng plateau.
Notwithstanding the late hour, my admiration of the scenery having made
my progress slow, I could not resist the temptation to dismount and
follow the trail which led me down to the source of the Serayu beside
the road, and pay my compliments to the shade of stalwart Bimo by way of
introduction to the regions resounding in its temples with his exploits
and those of other worthies sung in the _Brata Yuda_.[24] Nor indeed
only in its temples: this same delightful retreat commemorates Bimo’s
prowess according to a legend which in its astonishing account of his
supernatural virility cannot be repeated. Enough to say that Arjuno,
making him dig up the _toog_ Bimo, on the advice of Samār, the wily,
was the first, by determining the course of the Serayu, to direct the
water from the mountains of Central Java to the sea, therewith obtaining
the realm of Ngastino. And whoever takes a bath, alone and at night, in
the water springing from mother earth under the _pohoon chemeti_, the
weeping willow of Bimo’s fountain, will have no occasion for certain
elixirs largely advertised in daily and weekly papers, will retain
youthful vigour into hoariest age.
It was dark when I arrived at the _pasangrahan_, the Government
rest-house, received first by a shaggy, plumetailed dog of the Diëng
variety, suspicious of strangers. Her name proved to be Sarama,
suggesting classical associations not sustained, I am sorry to record,
by her master, mine host, a Swiss, retired from service in the Dutch
colonial army and put in charge of the place. Speaking innumerable
languages and every one of them as if it were a _lingua franca_
composed of all the others, he showed me my room, took orders for my
supper and made me comfortable, the broad, perpetual smile on his
honest face illumining our polyglot conversation. Alas! Wielandt is no
more. Indra, who knows men’s hearts, has certainly assigned to this
diamond, more polished, presumably, in its celestial than in its former
terrestrial state, a worthy station among the jewels of the city of
bliss, Amaravati. A man of family instincts, good Wielandt left several
daughters, at the time of my visit of initiation extremely shy little
girls; and a son, then Sinjo Endrik, the obliging and attentive, ever
ready to act as a guide to and otherwise to assist his father’s guests
on their excursions, now Tuan Endrik, his father’s successor in the
_pasangrahan_, while one of his brothers-in-law keeps a small, private
hotel, opened to meet the increasing influx of sightseers and seekers
of health. The Diëng plateau, especially in the dry season, would be an
ideal site for a sanatorium. The sufferer from the debilitating heat on
the coast in the enervating conditions of a continuous struggle for the
next dollar or official preferment with fatter salary, may find there
rest and a cool climate. Going to the bath-room before setting out early
on some expedition, I have often found miniature icicles pendent from
the _panchuran_, the water conduit, and riding off, have often heard,
in crossing a puddle, the thin coating of ice crackle under the hoofs
of my pony. Sometimes, at sunrise, the few remaining temples stand out
white, the whole plateau being covered with frost, which makes a strange
impression on one who but the day before yesterday sweltered in the
fiery furnace of, for instance, the Heerenstraat at Samarang.
Waking up the morning after my first arrival, feeling cold, though
the scene my eyes met was not quite so severely wintry as that just
described, my dreams seemed to continue in reality. I beheld a tranquil
plain different in its bright serenity from everything I had so far seen
anywhere else, the Bimo temple rising to the left and the Arjuno group
to the right, sharply outlined against the hills and the sky, their
dark-gray colour in wonderful harmony with the verdure of earth and
the blue expanse of heaven. One moment they appeared near in the clear
atmosphere as if I could seize them with my hand, and then again very,
very far, never to be approached. A vapour, clinging to the slope of
the Pangonan in the direction of the Kawah Kidang, reminded me of the
tremendous cosmic energy entering into the composition of this soothing
stillness, this tonic for the sick and worried, with the certainty of
annihilation as final pledge of freedom. Once a lake of seething lava,
the plateau lies enclosed by the tops of five mountains, the Prahu,
Sroyo, Bismo, Nogosari and Jimat, 2050 metres above the level of the
sea; the Pangonan and Pagar Kandang are old eruptive cones, formed
of the mud and sand thrown out, which accumulated at their bases and
raised the surrounding ground. The plateau in its narrower sense is
now a flat stretch of turf, in places, especially in the middle, a
morass, called the Rawa Baleh Kambang for its northern, and the Rawa
Glonggong for its southern part. Ruins have been found everywhere in
the plain and up the slopes of the hills, even up to the summit of the
Prahu. Here stand stone posts in a row, used by Arjuno, according to
the legend, to tether his elephants, while his cows, after grazing on
the Pangonan, were corralled for the night in the hollow of the Pagar
Kandang, lit. “fence of the cattle-pen”; there, as in Diëng Kidool,
layers of ashes among the slags and other debris, mark the situation
in the past of the burning-grounds, which yield a steady harvest of
bronze and gold finger-rings, bracelets, anklets and other objects of
personal adornment. Ancient aqueducts, walls, staircases, foundations of
secular buildings, clustered round the temples, remains of an important
religious centre, so various and rich that Junghuhn did not exaggerate
when calling them inexhaustible, suggest the existence, once upon a
time, in those mountain wilds, of a Javanese Benares, minus the Ganges
but plus a setting of unceasing volcanic activity, which demolished it
by a sudden, violent outbreak. Such suggestions need only the seconding
of one of the learned to be utterly ridiculed by his equally learned
brethren of an opposite school.... We will let the matter rest at
that and simply enjoy the actual calm of a landscape evidently exposed
to destruction at the shortest notice, of nature recuperating from
outrageous debauch.
Voices solemn and sweet summon to close communion with the power behind
those manifestations, the universal soul of things human and superhuman,
infernal and divine. One look more at the strip of turf which clasps
the mysteries as a girdle embossed with gems, the Arjuno and Bimo
shrines, shining in the splendour of early morning,--we shall return
to them after our stroll of orientation. In the _dessa_ Diëng Wetan,
close to the _pasangrahan_, is, or rather was, the _watu rawit_, a wall
constructed of big blocks of stone, two portions of which still exist
with a narrow staircase, hewn on a smaller scale, leading to the coping.
The structure, largely drawn upon for building material, goes also by
the name of _benteng_ (fort of) Buddha, an appellation incompatible
with the Sivaïte origin of Diëng architecture and a contradiction in
terms besides, considering the character of Gautama’s teaching; but in
native parlance everything connected with the Hindu period is referred
to as belonging to the _jaman buda_, while the expression _agama
buda_ includes every pre-Muhammadan ancestral religion. Via Patak
Banteng, Jojogan and Parikesit the _dessa_ Simboongan may be reached,
until recently the highest in Java (2078 metres). Founded in 1815 by
the grandfather of the present _lurah_, or chief of the village, its
inhabitants, on whose stature and colour of skin the cool climate has
had a visible influence, are very prosperous, their principal occupation
being the preparation of a hair-oil from the seeds of the _gandapura_
(_Hibiscus Abelmoschus_). Simboongan lies on the west bank of Telaga
Chebong, one of the many lakes which add to the indescribable charm
of the Diëng, some possessing uncanny echoes, some being yellow and
sulphurous, some of ever changing hue, some of crystalline clearness
and stocked with goldfish, while the marshy shores are a favourite
haunt of _meliwis_, a kind of duck much prized as food and becoming
correspondingly scarce. Proceeding to Sikunang we get beautiful views in
the direction of Batoor, hidden among its Chinese graves and orchards
as in an airy robe of white and green; along the mountain rills which
hasten impetuously to the valley of Banjarnegara, meeting in the
radiance of the sun’s promise for union with the sea; down to the
ricefields of Temanggoong, resplendent at the feet of the high mountains
which keep guard over the Kadu, a paradise dominated by the sister
volcanoes Soombing and Sindoro, a joy to behold.
Passing Sikunang and turning round the Gunoong Teroos, a spur of the
Pakuojo, we notice some trachyte steps, the head of a staircase made
for the convenience of pilgrims from what is now the residency Bagelen,
to the city of temples, an ascent of five thousand feet. Over a long
distance, following the course of the river Lawang, that gigantic
roadway can be traced far below Telaga Menjer by stones left in holes
from which it was not easy to remove them for building purposes.
Another of these _ondo buda_ on the north side of the plateau, served
the pilgrims coming from what is now the residency Pekalongan, via Deles
and Sigamploong, and disappeared in the same manner. Descending, a smell
of sulphur announces a lion of the Diëng of a less innocent, in fact of
a decidedly satanic aspect: on this soil always the unsuspected turns
up, the remains of an ancient civilisation forcing themselves upon our
attention together with impressive reminders of the subterranean forces
which extinguished it. From a number of cavities on the slope of the
Pangonan, bare of vegetation, a picture of desolation, noxious vapours
rise and bubbles of mud are blown forth and burst with a rumbling noise.
High above the rest works the Kawah Kidang, the deer-kettle, spouting
and growling, throwing the hot liquid round with relish, and it is
advisable to keep her well to leeward on her days of gala, for she
changes frequently her aim and her mood, an index of Kala’s disposition
when stirring the bowels of the earth. Being the pulse of the Diëng,
so to speak, she is regularly excited to fiercer exertion by the rainy
season, differing also in this particular from the Chondro di Muka,
her rival near the Pakaraman, with whom she has been confused even by
geographers of name, greatly to her disparagement since she commands
a considerably wider sphere of influence, not scrupling to encroach
upon the domain of her neighbours by moving about. Wherever one pokes
into the ground within her sphere of action, the steam rushes out and
seething puddles are formed; it is wary walking and the wise will take
warning from the foolhardy Contrôleur whose curiosity prompted him a
step too far: sinking through the upper crust into the boiling mud,
he had his legs so badly burnt that he died of the consequences and
was buried at Wonosobo instead of marrying his Resident’s daughter at
Poorworejo.
With its mofettes, solfataras, steam-holes, mud-geysers, sulphurous
lakes, its treacherously opening and closing chasms,[25] last but
not least its notorious valley of death,[26] the Diëng is the region
above all others in volcanic Java, of miracles that expound the
antagonism between fratricide life and death on our turbulent planet,
which continuously prepares for or recovers from spasms of generative
destruction. One of these spasms, on a grander scale than usual in
the short span of human history, was the eruption of Krakatoa in
1883; which raised and submerged islands, shaking and altering the
Straits of Soonda, a resultant tidal wave razing the towns of Anyer
and Cheringin. The Diëng, some three hundred miles off, responded
faithfully, as might have been expected, the Kawah Kidang roaring and
splashing mud furiously, the wall of the crater-lake Chebong cracking
in several places, so that part of its water, instead of flowing
through the old channel, now seeks its way through the fissures thus
created, remunerative tobacco-fields being transformed into swamps. Such
disasters preach an eloquent sermon on the text, hewn in stone by the
builders of the temples here erected to Siva as Kala, the Overthrower,
and, transmitted with the wisdom of ages by a later religion, happily
expressed by the German poet:
_Was hilft es Menschen seyn, was liebe Blumen küssen,
Wann sie sind schöne zwar, doch balde nichts seyn müssen?_[27]
The news that a troop of strolling players had arrived, dispelled,
however, ideas of that sort, unpalatable truth never proving successful
against the pleasurable excitement of the moment. They were going to
perform at the house of the reputedly wealthiest man of the plateau
and not the less highly considered by his neighbours because caught
redhanded, not once but repeatedly, in handling the forbidden, as I
heard afterwards. Living near one of the enclosures traditionally
associated with the pyres which were extinguished when the Hindu
priests deserted their altars, he gave the _ton_ to the upper ten of
Diëng society, “disporting like any other fly” unterrified by daily
manifestations of cosmic potency. Surrounded by his _ganadavatas_,
gods of the second rank, he welcomed me to the show. Mounted on sham
horses, the actors delighted their audience with a sham battle which
soon became a single combat between two valiant knights, encouraged by
masked clowns, funny yet exquisitely graceful in their movements: the
_savoir vivre_ of this people is perfectly matched with their elegance
of carriage and correctness of speech and innate propriety of demeanour.
The comedians’ stage-properties did not amount to much and their
inventive genius shone the more brilliantly: a tiger (for a hunt of his
highness our common uncle[28] followed the joust) was improvised with
jute bagging and two pieces of wood, representing the jaws, snapping
ferociously, perhaps a compliment to the _orang wolanda_ present, his
biped equivalent in native estimation, as already remarked. Or an
allusion may have been intended to local events: not longer than a week
before, Paman had tried to force Wielandt’s stable, cooling his wrath,
when baffled, on Sarama’s pups.
So much for my recollections of the histrionic exercises on the Diëng,
and now about the temples! If Thomas Horsfield, in his narrative of the
tour he made through the island between 1802 and 1807, mentioned the
so-called Buddha-roads, it was Raffles who sent Cornelius, Lieutenant in
the Corps of Engineers, to survey the architectural remains on the Diëng
plateau proper, which the earlier traveller had not visited. According
to the official account of his mission, kept in the library of the
Museum of Antiquities at Leyden and still unpublished, he found whatever
was standing of some forty groups, covered with clay and volcanic ashes
up to nearly a fourth of the original height. Captain Baker, also
commissioned by Raffles, worked three weeks on the Diëng after his
examination of the ruins at Prambanan and the Boro Budoor. Junghuhn,
whose observations date from 1838 to 1845, speaks of more than twenty
temples in a wilderness of marshy woods. The woods have disappeared, the
marshes hold their own and of his twenty temples only eight are left in
a recognisable shape: five of them belong to the Arjuno group, including
the so-called house of Samār; the best preserved is the Wergodoro or
Bimo; the Andorowati and Gatot Kocho crumble away even faster than the
rest. It has already been remarked that the Diëng structures belong
to the oldest in the island, the _hanasima_ inscription, transferred
to Batavia, furnishing a record of the Diëng civilisation which goes
back to 731 Saka (A.D. 809). They are interesting to the Indian
antiquary, wrote Fergusson, “because they are Indian temples pure and
simple, and dedicated to Indian gods ...; what (they) tell us further
is, that if Java got her Buddhism from Gujerat and the mouths of the
Indus, she got her Hinduïsm from Telingana and the mouths of the
Kistnah.... Nor are (they) Dravidian in any sense of the word. They
are in storeys, but not with cells, nor any reminiscences of such;
but they are Chalukyan.” Later learning accepts this statement only
with cautious reserve. Whether Chalukyan or not, though, it is plain
even to the unlearned that, erected to Siva, the Mahadeva worshipped
principally in his character of Bhatara Guru, the divine teacher, to his
_sakti_ Doorga and their first-born Ganesa, these temples, radiating the
all-soul in the fierce glare of the midday sun, unfolding their secrets
in the mellow moonbeams of night, partake fully of their mysterious
surroundings, are integral portions of the ground they occupy, as
may be said of all ancient Javanese buildings. Men of great power of
imagination, deep-reasoning sentiment, the builders of these marvels,
working their thoughts up to the sky, rescued for us the essence of
the Diëng’s past existence. Their apprehension of universal happiness
without beginning or end, sharpened by the desire to enjoy heaven on
earth, lent immortality to the greatness of a people every vestige of
whom would have disappeared but for their creative enthusiasm.
[Illustration: III. _CHANDI_ ARJUNO ON THE DIËNG PLATEAU
(Archaeological Service through Charls and van Es.)]
Prurient prudery, keen on the scent of the nasty, feels shocked at
the _lingas_ and _yonis_ lying round, unable in its fly-blown purity
to grasp the divinity of eternal love in the poem of generation, the
union of the Deva and the Devi in causation and conception of life.
The Philistine sees little more than rubbish, heaps of stone of no
earthly use except as havens of refuge when out shooting _meliwis_
and overtaken by rain. In the Rawa Baleh Gambang we find five such
clustered together, the _chandis_ Arjuno with the house of Samār,
Srikandi (Ongko Wijoyo), Poontadewa (Trumo Kasumo or Sami Aji) and
Sembrada (Sepropo), the chief hero of the _Brata Yuda_ being honoured
in the midst of family and friends, including his funny and faithful
servant. The _kala-makara_[29] ornament of the entrance to the _chandi_
Arjuno tells its tale; so do the empty niches designed for free-standing
statuettes dissolved into space. Like the _chandi_ Srikandi it was once
surrounded by a wall and another point of resemblance is the small
rectangular building called the _chandi_ Samār, probably destined for
secular purposes; of the Srikandi dependency, however, only the base
can be traced. The _chandi_ Sembrada deviates somewhat in architectural
plan and detail, and the ground-idea of the decoration can be studied
to best advantage in the _chandi_ Poontadewa, finest of the group,
exquisitely graceful on its high basement. Here again the _makara_
ornament prevails, budding into leaves and flowers, chiselled with a
chaste appreciation of the esthetic principle of self-control: _In
der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister_. Under the tapering
roofs, fallen or falling in, which give the inner chambers an air of
indescribable elegance, notwithstanding the cramped dimensions, images
of holiness stood on pedestals; the images have been removed, heaven
knows whither, and even the pedestals have fared badly at the hands
of sacrilegious robbers digging for hidden treasure. Trumo Kasumo,
supposed to keep sentinel over his _chandi_ (in bas-relief, north side),
cannot but be scandalised at modern methods of research and modern
behaviour in general.
The morass shows, in the dry season, the foundations of buildings,
regularly arranged, lining streets which intersected at right angles
over a considerable part of the Rawa Baleh Gambang. Their disposition
has been advanced to support the theory that the population of the Diëng
lived in wooden houses, built on those substructures of stone. The
theory that the superstructures of stone have been carried away and the
submerged substructures left because not so easy to get at, is just as
plausible; perhaps a little more so. But whatever they were, temples and
priestly or private dwellings of wood or stone, the officiating clergy,
their assistants and the inhabitants of the city ministering to their
fleshly needs, must have suffered a good deal from the dampness of the
soil, the plateau offering already in those early days a field of rich
promise for the experiments of hydraulic engineers. Among canals and
ditches of less importance, the Guwa Aswotomo, a _cloaca maxima_ some
twelve centuries old, still relieves the plain of its superfluous water.
According to the legend, for nothing in this locality goes without at
least one,--according to the legend then, the subterraneous passage
was dug by Aswotomo on his expedition to the Diëng for the purpose
of smashing the Pandawas, and nearing Arjuno’s residence he pushed
his way up to the surface, from distance to distance, spying how far
he had yet to continue his underground march. Descending into one of
the peep-holes he made, in a season of extreme drought, I was able to
crawl on to the next, through mud and debris which blocked my further
progress and, unable to crawl out on a level fifteen or twenty feet
lower, the watercourse sloping deeper and deeper down, I had to return
to my point of ingress. The glory of this feat diminishes in the light
of my knowledge of the circumstance that the Diëng plateau harbours
no snakes,[30] save the decorative _nagas_ of temple architecture,
and that a companion followed my movements above ground; had we been
provided with ropes, we might have carried our work of exploration
much further--but that must wait for another time. Of the rare plant
which grows nowhere but in Aswotomo’s burrow and owes its growth to
his copious perspiration while at his task, a fern possessing rare
qualities, highly beneficial to him who pulls it out by the roots, I saw
or, rather, felt nothing in groping my way through mire and darkness.
Taking its course in a direction inverse to the mole-man’s initial
tunnel boring, his Guwa begins at the Arjuno temples as an unpretentious
drain and runs, for about half a mile, slanting toward the source of the
river Dolok, where Junghuhn has set up two _lingas_.
[Illustration: IV. _CHANDI_ BIMO OR WERGODORO ON THE DIËNG PLATEAU
(Archaeological Service through Charls and van Es.)]
The largest remaining and most beautiful temple on the Diëng is the
_chandi_ Wergodoro or Bimo,[31] where the Pangonan rises out of
the Rawa Glonggong. Notwithstanding Fergusson’s opinion, competent
critics, deriving their conclusions from the horizontal lines of the
roof-storeys, maintain its Dravidian or Southern Indian instead of
Chalukyan character.[32] The niches with busts, which impress one as
windows with people poking out their heads to see who is disturbing
their quiet, suggest an approach to ideas further developed in the
architecture of the plain of Prambanan. These curious persons look out
only at the back and at the sides; the niches of the roof in front, over
the projecting porch with _kala-makara_ ornament, are all empty. With
its entrance facing east, in contradistinction to those of the other
temples on the plateau, which face west, the _chandi_ Bimo possesses
also notable peculiarities in the details of its sculpture: the double
lotus of the cornice, lotus-buds and diminutive bo-trees of uncommon
shapes, etc., while the upward tapering structural design displays a
tendency to the slightly curved lines so dearly loved by Greek builders
of the best period and adapted by the masters of early Gothic. The
larger, lower niches have been despoiled; architraves and mouldings,
festooned with foliage, flowers and seed-pods, divide the open spaces
round about in a tasteful, sober manner, exciting without fatiguing
the eye. From the fact that the decoration has not been completed, it
is inferred that the sculptors were interrupted like their comrades at
work on other monuments of Central Java, overwhelmed perhaps by the
catastrophe of volcanic or martial nature, which depopulated the Diëng
and coincided with the decline of the ancient empire of Hindu Mataram.
The miraculous voice heard in the _chandi_ Bimo at dead of night, is
silent on this point. All temples have their _shetans_, their bad,
rarely good spirits, but the _genius loci_ of the Bimo excels the whole
Arjuno crowd of them in efficacy and unfailing attention to the business
of the seekers of advice, who arrive from far and wide to consult the
oracle. Entering after dusk the gate of the Dread One, Kala, one with
Rudra, the Roarer (the Kawa Kidang) near by, they have but to wait in
prayer at the altar of the wondrous fane. A strange whisper, mounting
like the odour of _melati_ and _kenanga_, tells them how to avoid the
grim giant Danger if, on leaving, they are firmly determined to pursue
the road of Good Desert.
The _chandis_ Gatot Kocho and Andorowati, falling into hopeless ruin,
will soon be remembered only by their location, like the _chandi_
Parikesit, and it is a pity to think of those which left no trace at
all, whose very names are forgotten. The state of affairs on the Diëng
plateau, said Captain, now Major T. van Erp,[33] commissioned for the
restoration of the Boro Budoor, leaves everything to be desired....
Villages came into existence and expanded. The inhabitants need stone
substructures in building their houses and it is a matter of course that
they use temple stones for that purpose; these are here much smaller
than those of the monuments in the valley of the Progo and the plain of
Prambanan, easily carried off and exactly of the right size.... This is
the case of the spoliation of the temples on the Diëng in a nutshell.
But it should be added that the natives are not the only offenders. So
much, indeed, is implied in Major van Erp’s anecdote of a tourist who,
examining the statuary adorning the grounds of the _pasangrahan_, a
remarkable collection formed from miscellaneous loot, was invited to
make his choice, the selected plunder to be delivered at Wonosobo in
consideration of five guilders (a little over eight shillings). Many
others had the same experience: numberless statues and stones carved
into ornament have been appropriated by official and unofficial visitors
to enrich museums and private collections. The appointment of Wielandt
Sr., later of Wielandt Jr. as keeper of the _pasangrahan_ and of the
antiquities in a region of archaeological interest equal to Pompeii and
Herculaneum, without any funds whatsoever at their disposal, was only
an incident in the continuous farce performed by the Dutch East Indian
Government in all its relations to monumental Java up to the date of its
laborious confinement of the Archaeological Commission--and after, as I
shall have abundant occasion to show: a farce with consequences sad to
contemplate. This applies to antiquities of every description. I turn to
my diary: In different places, when digging, layers of ashes are found
with charred human bones imbedded, and often trinkets. The natives,
however, keep their treasure-troves secret for fear of the Government,
which has decreed, and rightly, reserving its rights, that they may
not sell without asking for and obtaining permission, but appropriates
everything it hears of, at ridiculously low prices; a good deal is
therefore sold and bought privately, notwithstanding the prohibition,
even by officials; a systematic search never having been attempted, none
the less fine trifles are unearthed and not always trifles either; last
night, in the _pasangrahan_, some rings were shown to me; the owner,
acting very mysteriously, produced at last a statuette from under his
_baju_, about six inches of solid gold, beautifully wrought; its mate,
equal in height, material and workmanship, he had been forced to sell,
according to his story, for seventy guilders (less than £6); he wanted
more to part with this one and it is certainly worth many and many times
that sum; a change in the usual sordid Government practice would result
in remarkable discoveries; recently, as Dr. L. told me, an inscribed
stone was laid bare; when trying to have a look at it the same day, his
informant told him that it had already been spirited away to prevent
_susah_ (trouble); not much is necessary to be sentenced to _krakal_
(hard labour in the chain-gang) at Wonosobo.
It is true the Government sent some one to the Diëng, about fifty years
ago, to photograph the temples as they then existed and, fortunately,
the operator chosen was I. van Kinsbergen who, having made his début in
Java as a member of an opera-troupe, developed a rare artistic sense
in portraying the deteriorating outlines of the ancient fanes of the
island. But there the matter rested until the complaints became too loud
and in 1910 hopes were held out that steps would be taken to clear the
ruins of parasitic vegetation, to drain the plateau by repairing the
trenches and conduits still in working order since the Hindu period,
incidentally to consider the possibility of restoring the sanctuaries
not yet tumbled down. Names I heard in connection with this charge,
make me tremble, writes a correspondent from Batavia, for a repetition
of the vandalism committed in the plain of Prambanan, particularly
the criminal assaults on the _chandi_ Plahosan and the _chandi_ Sewu,
where a Government commissioner tried to arrest further decay on the
homoeopathic principle: _similia similibus curantur_. Government
solicitude for conservation proves often more destructive than simple
neglect and, to take an illustration from the Diëng itself (others will
be culled in the course of my observations, from a plentiful supply of
official _bêtises_ and _bévues_, if not worse, in other localities), no
sooner was general attention drawn to the enigmatic sign, described by
Junghuhn and copied in his standard work from a rock between the lakes
Warna and Pengilon, than it began to fade. Still quite clear in 1885
and up to 1895, despite its having been exposed to wind and weather
during ten centuries (as surmised), it became fainter and fainter after
that year, the process of a gradual loss of colour being duly noted at
subsequent visits, until in 1902 I found it hardly distinguishable. To
make up for the injury, a Contrôleur discovered, in 1889, supplementary
tokens, not black but red, on the same Batu Tulis, or Watu Ketèq as
the natives rather call it, “monkey-stone”, because they recognise in
the figure recorded by Junghuhn, a likeness to the animal referred to.
The smaller red letters, or whatever they were intended for, steadily
increasing in number, appearing in places where I had never noticed
anything before, I could not help suspecting the little shepherds who
look so innocent and shy and hardly venture an answer when spoken to, of
knowing more about this miraculous growth of a hieroglyphic inscription
than their artlessness implied. For all their stolid mien, the natives
are exceedingly fond of a joke and what greater sport can be imagined
than to get the wise men of Batavia and of European centres of erudition
by the ears, inciting them to raise always more learned dust in their
efforts to decipher the undecipherable characters of an impossible
language, each being cocksure of the infallibility of his individual
interpretation? If, however, we have not to do with Kromo or Wongso his
mark, the ghost of the Batu Tulis must be held responsible for, among
the incorporeal inhabitants of the many caves in this neighbourhood,
the dweller beneath the monkey-stone is of greatest occult potency and
the good people who come from the adjoining lowland districts, even from
Surakarta and Jogjakarta, to hear and translate the voices of the Diëng,
repair hither, after partaking of good advice in the Bimo temple, to
_sembah_ (make their salutation) before the entrance and ask _slamat_
(blessing and success) on their foreshadowed undertakings. Nocturnal
devotions inside the cave of the Watu Ketèq on a lucky, right lucky,
carefully calculated night, means untold wealth, and whoever dares to
brave the resident sprite of darkness with that desire in his heart, as
very few do, and still remains a poor devil, has doubtless skipped a
word of power in muttering his incantations or disregarded some other
essential observance.
To the lover of mountain scenery it is far more profitable to wait
for dawn near the triangulation pillar and point of junction of four
residencies: Samarang, Pekalongan, Banyumas and the Bagelen, with a
fifth, the Kadu, only a few paces off, when the Eye of Day rises to
divide the waters behind the mountains and the rack of clouds, and,
to the north and the south of the island, the sea begins to glimmer
in the azure and orange tints sent before to meet the melting gray of
vanquished darkness. Following its course in all-compassing space, the
soul enters into silent communion with nature, the divine creation of
the supremely divine which teaches feeble men how to worship. Such
moments bring a wholesome chastening of the flesh and as we descend,
goaded by the fierce darts of the conqueror overhead who makes the
earth wrap herself in her vapoury robe of protection, veiling the
grand vision,--as we descend where the runnels descend that feed the
Serayu and the Tulis winding its way to the Kawah Kidang, we find the
plain with the _chandis_ one immense temple of adoration. The Vedic
subtle body yearns to enter the sheath of prayer, to be moulded by
its creator into the form fit for union with the spirit of the world;
respiration becomes aspiration to the beatitude of manifest truth, of
final rest in extinction of sin and shame and sorrow. So pass the hours
in purification, in desire of a spark of the thought which breathes
life into mortification of self. Then, at the passing of the light
with the last flush from the West, in awe-inspiring stillness, the
quivering stars lift their heads to watch the holy city of the dead; in
clear-toned stillness, the night-wind moaning, the Rawa lamenting the
lost civilisation of a lost religion whose symbols remain but are not
understood, a mourning for humanity labouring in vain. The Diëng has
been repopulated with a race between whose fanciful ideals, rooted in
a forgotten past, and the rapacity of foreign rulers no lasting accord
seems possible. Is it ordained that they, the thralls and the masters,
shall continue in their present relations? Or will they disappear in
their turn and, to quote Junghuhn, this mountain region revert to its
free, natural state? Perhaps in the hour of upheaval native seers
prophesy, when safety shall be found by none except to whom the Just
Reckoner grants it. And mingling in one measure, which comprises the
_jaman buda_, the time of bondage and the future, their dim notions
of Mahadeva, the Beneficent Destroyer, and their conception of the
dispensation of the Book, the leaders of religious exercise in the
villages abide by their advice of submission until the true believers
win the day, a day of glory for Islām, sure to arrive in the circular
course of existence, which is nothing but Sansara, in attainment of
Moslim brotherhood, which is nothing but Brahma Vihara, the sublime
condition of love. Meanwhile, hearing is to be practised; haply it
will lead to the comprehension of a lesson inculcated by each of the
three creeds amalgamated in the Javanese mind and best expressed in the
form borrowed from a fourth: The thing that hath been, is that which
shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done,--or, in
the version of the greatest poet of our own age: _Ciò che fu, torna e
tornerà nei secoli._[34]
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Dr. A. B. COHEN STUART, however, derives Diëng from
_dihyang_, the name found by him in old records.
[23] The remains of both these exquisite little temples suffered
severely from a gale in 1907, which blew some of the surrounding trees
down, their trunks and branches falling heavily and disjoining the
still tolerably erect walls, the _chandi_ Perot, according to latest
intelligence, being wholly destroyed by the toppling of the tamarind it
supported.
[24] The _Brata Yuda Yarwa_ is the Javanese version of the famous Kawi
poem _Bharata Yuddha_ which, in its turn, is founded on the Sanskrit
epos _Mahabharata_. The war for the possession of Hastinapura is
transplanted to Java; the Sanskrit proper names have passed into the
nomenclature of Javanese history and geography; the Indian heroes have
become the founders of Javanese dynasties, the progenitors of Javanese
nobility.
[25] One of those chasms, near the _dessa_ Gaja Moongkoor, swallowed not
merely a dancing-girl, a most common occurrence in Javanese legendary
lore, but a whole village.
[26] A very active mofette which the natives call the Pakaraman, _i.e._
the “selected spot” where King Baladeva had his arms forged in the Brata
Yuda war.
[27]
What is the use of living, of kissing lovely flowers,
If, though they are beautiful, they must soon fade into nothing?
[28] The native’s deferential fear for the animal in question, makes
him reluctant to pronounce its name, a liberty likely to give offence;
referring to the lord of the woods, he speaks rather of his respected
uncle (_paman_) or grandfather (_kakeh_), which satisfies, at the same
time, his lingering belief in the transmigration of the soul.
[29] Siva as Kala, the destroyer with the lion’s or tiger’s head,
Banaspati, devouring the sea-monster Makara: time finishing all
things and alleviating all distress, in respect of which notion
VOLTAIRE’S short but pointed story of _Les Deux Consolés_ may
be profitably read.
[30] Query: Has St. Patrick ever been on the Diëng?
[31] Or Bhimo, one of Arjuno’s four brothers and avenger of the honour
of the family on Kichaka, who had fallen in love with their common wife
Draupadi.
[32] No buildings in the Northern Indian or Indo-Arian style have been
found in Java.
[33] Reporting to the _Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences_, January
11, 1909.
[34] That which has been, returns and will return through all time.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV
PRAMBANAN
_Queen Gertrude...._
..., all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_, I., ii.
The vast plain of Prambanan, which extends southward from the foot of
the Merapi, one of Java’s most active volcanoes,[35] is, or rather was,
studded with Sivaïte and Buddhist temples. Called, in the later days
of ignorance regarding their signification, after some outstanding
feature (Sewu, Loomboong, Asu), after gods, demi-gods and heroes of
romance (as on the Diëng), after the villages near which they were found
(Kalasan or Kali Bening), or after their general position, a good many
might share the appellation Prambanan. In speaking of _the_ Prambanan
temples, however, the group is meant which lies beside the main road
between Surakarta and Jogjakarta, where the two residencies meet, but
still within the boundaries of the latter. Excepting the Boro Budoor
and Mendoot, it comprises the finest and most famous monuments of
Central Java, which from olden times have been held in great veneration
by the population, even in their neglected condition, when reduced to
little more than heaps of overgrown debris, lairs of wild animals. Freed
from their luxurious vegetation and excavated, architectural remains
of the first order came to light with sculptured ornament nowhere
else surpassed in richness of detail and correctness of execution.
Surrounded by ruins of a mainly Buddhist character, these buildings
were consecrated to the Hindu Trinity with Siva leading the Trimoorti
as Bhatara Guru, Master and Teacher of the World. A date recently
discovered, 886 Saka (A.D. 964), or, according to another reading,
996 Saka (A.D. 1074), points to the period when Sivaïsm in Java had
already become strongly impregnated with Buddhism, a circumstance
fully borne out by the external decoration.
[Illustration: IV. EAST FRONT OF THE SIVA (LORO JONGGRANG) TEMPLE OF THE
PRAMBANAN GROUP IN 1895
(Cephas Sr.)]
Among the natives, the Prambanan ruins go by the name of _chandi_
Loro[36] Jonggrang because of the legend connected with their origin.
Once upon a time Prambanan was ruled by a giant-king, Ratu Boko,
possessed of an only daughter, Princess Jonggrang, and an adopted son,
Raden Gupolo, whose father had been killed by command of the King of
Pengging. Having sworn revenge, Raden Gupolo feigned love for the
beautiful daughter of that monarch and asked Ratu Boko to assist him
in making her his wife. Ambassadors were despatched with instructions
to negotiate the marriage. His Majesty of Pengging received them in
a friendly manner and entertained them at his Court but, not wanting
Raden Gupolo for a son-in-law, he sent secret agents in all directions
to seek and bind to his service a hero with power to resist and subdue
the giants, Ratu Boko’s subjects, of whom he was in mortal fear. One
of those emissaries, searching the slopes of the Soombing, met with
the recluse Damar Moyo of the children of Sumendi Petoong, the chief
of the _legèn_-drawers.[37] Damar Moyo’s wife had blessed him with two
sons, Bondowoso, a tall and strong fellow, and Bambang Kandilaras,
less muscular but more favoured in outward appearance and of a gentler
disposition, whom he recommended as just the man needed for the rescue
of the Princess of Pengging and ready for the task, provided her royal
father would consent, in consideration of the defeat of the giants,
to give his daughter to the young man with half his kingdom as dowry
and the other half to follow after his death--which conditions prove
that even in those remote days the saintly did not despise worldly
advantage. The King of Pengging consented and Bambang Kandilaras marched
against Prambanan, but no weapon could harm Ratu Boko, who roared so
dreadfully that the sound and his breath combined were enough to knock
any human foe down at a distance too far to distinguish a man from
a woman or a giant from a _waringin_-tree. Bambang Kandilaras fled,
reporting at Damar Moyo’s cave, and was commanded to try once more with
the assistance of his brother Bondowoso. They accomplished nothing.
Bambang Kandilaras ran away even before the battle commenced, to hide
himself in a ravine where the troops of Prambanan could not follow
him, and Bondowoso, blown off his legs by a puff from Ratu Boko’s
formidable lungs, sought safety in precipitate retreat to the mountain
Soombing. Then Damar Moyo taught him a magical word which, pronounced
twice, would make him big and heavy as an elephant, and give him the
strength of a thousand of those animals. Thus armed, Bondowoso returned
to Prambanan, where he killed half of Ratu Boko’s warriors in their
sleep, while the other half, waking up, concentrated backward, with
the enemy in hot pursuit, to tell their king what had happened. Nobody
shall stir, said he; I myself alone will settle this little business.
Meeting Bondowoso near the village Tangkisan,[38] he began to roar as
loud and fume as hard as he could but, to his astonishment, his breath
lacked the accustomed power and so he had to fight for his life hand to
hand. It was a terrible fight: houses and gardens were trampled down,
forests rooted up and mountains kicked over, while the perspiration
dripping from the bodies of the enraged combatants formed a large pool,
the Telaga Powiniyan.[39] To end the struggle, Bondowoso, in a supreme
effort, seized Ratu Boko round the middle and threw him into that pool,
where he sank and, drowning, made the earth tremble with a last roar
of anger and distress.[40] Raden Gupolo, hearing the noise, hastened
to his assistance with a few drops of the water of life in a cup, an
elixir prepared by Mboq Loro Jonggrang,--only a few drops, but enough to
resuscitate the dead giant-king if put to his lips. Bambang Kandilaras,
however, drew his bow and, from the place where he had watched the
fight, shot the cup out of the hand of Raden Gupolo, who thereupon
attacked Bondowoso. Bambang Kandilaras let more arrows fly at the
giant-warriors of Prambanan, who now rushed up to avenge their king’s
death. In the general _mêlée_ Bondowoso killed also Raden Gupolo and cut
off his head, which he threw away in an easterly direction, changing it
into a mountain, the Gunoong Gampeng; but his brains and heart he threw
away in a southwesterly direction, changing them into another mountain,
the Gunoong Woongkal. Thereupon he defeated the remaining half of the
army of Prambanan and repaired to Pengging, claiming the reward for
his brother. The king of that country, glad to be rid of the giants,
was as good as his word, wedded his beautiful daughter to Bambang
Kandilaras and appointed Bondowoso his viceroy in Prambanan, with the
rank and title of _bupati_. Taking up his abode in the palace of the
late Raden Gupolo, Bondowoso happened to see Mboq Loro Jonggrang, who
continued living in the _kraton_ of Ratu Boko, and fell in love with
her. He asked her hand in marriage and she, abhorring the man who had
killed her father, and one so unprepossessing in countenance too, but
afraid to provoke his displeasure by a blank refusal, answered that she
was willing to become his wife on condition of his providing a suitable
_sasrahan_ or wedding-present, nothing more nor less than six deep wells
in six buildings, the like of which no mortal eye had ever seen, with
a thousand statues of the former kings of Prambanan and their divine
ancestors, the gods in heaven, all to be dug and built and carved in one
night. Bondowoso called in the help of his father, the recluse Damar
Moyo, of the King of Pengging and of his brother Bambang Kandilaras, all
three of whom responded, going to Prambanan and uniting in prayer on the
day before the night agreed upon by the spirits of the lower regions,
who had been commandeered for the task by the saint of the mountain
Soombing. The evening fell and as soon as darkness enveloped the earth
a weird sound was heard of invisible hands busy laying foundations,
erecting walls and sculpturing statuary. By half past three o’clock the
six wells were dug, the six buildings completed and nine hundred and
ninety-nine statues standing in their places. But Mboq Loro Jonggrang,
roused from her slumbers by the hammering and chiselling, and suspecting
what was going on, ordered her handmaidens out to stamp the _padi_[41]
and to strew the ground, where the noise was loudest, with flowers and
to sprinkle perfume. The spirits of the lower regions cannot bear the
odour of flowers and perfumes, as everybody knows; so they had to desist
and deserted their almost finished work in precipitate flight, to the
consternation of Bondowoso, who pronounced this curse: Since the girls
of Prambanan take pleasure in fooling a faithful suitor, may the gods
grant that they shall have to wait long before they become brides![42]
Having said this, yet hoping against hope, he called on his lady, who
asked tauntingly whether the honour of his visit meant the announcement
that the task imposed upon him by way of testing his love, had been
completed. This filled the measure and he answered: No, it is not and
you shall complete it yourself. The threat was immediately realised:
Loro Jonggrang changed into a statue of stone, the thousandth, which
terminated the labour of the spirits and is still to be seen in a niche
on the north side of the principal edifice.
The reader will recognise in this legend the hoary eastern material of
many others current also in western lands. It pervades the legendary
lore connected with the plain of Prambanan in widest sense, and one of
its many variations, to be recorded farther on, applies specially to the
Buddhist _chandi_ Sewu or “thousand temples”, only a little distance
from the Loro Jonggrang group;[43] in fact, originally adapted to
account for the many ruins scattered over a vast area in that region,
it has taken separate forms to meet the requirements of separate
localities. Apart from tradition, we owe the oldest extant description
of the Prambanan antiquities to the East India Company’s servant Lons at
Samarang, who wrote in 1733. The Governor-General van Imhoff referred to
them in 1746 and Raffles, his successor during the British Interregnum,
not satisfied with writing and talking alone, commissioned Cornelius
with Wardenaar to survey them and make plans for reconstruction. After
1816 things returned to the accustomed neglect: A short stay in the
plain of Prambanan, says an authority already quoted,[44] is sufficient
to note that thousands of valuable hewn and sculptured stones have been
and still are used for all sorts of purposes ...; from time immemorial,
great quantities of stone have been (and still are) taken from
Prambanan by his Highness the Sooltan of Jogjakarta, generally once or
twice a year ...; this happens, if I am well informed, in compliance
with a written demand, fiated by the local authorities. The foundation,
in 1885, of the Archaeological Society of Jogjakarta, which undertook
the excavation of the parts of the Loro Jonggrang group covered with
debris and vegetation, and the clearing of the whole, did little to
ameliorate the situation with respect to the carrying away from the
Prambanan temples, speaking collectively, of stones for the building of
houses, factories, etc., and of ornament for the decoration of private
grounds and gardens. Though bills were posted all over the ruins,
including Doorga’s, alias Loro Jonggrang’s sanctum, prohibiting, by
order of that Society, the salving of gods and goddesses with _boreh_
and the defacing of the walls with inscriptions, its members themselves
dragged statues away to fill a so-called museum of their contrivance
at the provincial capital, dislocating things of beauty, ranging the
_disjecta membra_ on scaffoldings in a shed as crockery on the shelves
of a cupboard. The monuments of Prambanan being primarily mausolea,
their first concern was to dig for the _saptaratna_, the seven treasures
buried with the ashes of the dead under the images of the deities
hallowing those perishable remains. The plunder consisted in urns
containing, besides the ashes, coins, rubies and other precious stones,
pieces of gold- and silver-leaf with cut figures (serpents, tortoises,
flowers), strips of gold-foil inscribed with ancient characters,
fragments of copper and glass, etc. The mortuary pits easiest to rifle,
had already been emptied before the semi-official spoilers turned their
attention to them. This chapter is not the most glorious in the history
of the Archaeological Society of Jogjakarta which, on the other hand,
started a work too long neglected by the Dutch Government, even after
Raffles’ vigorous initial effort. Incidentally it promoted the schemes
of the superficial yet very ambitious, pushing to the front on the
strength of what should have been put to the credit of more capable but,
to their detriment, more modest labourers in the archaeological field:
It is not always the most deserving horses that get the oats, says a
Dutch proverb.
[Illustration: VI. SIVA (LORO JONGGRANG) TEMPLE OF THE PRAMBANAN GROUP
IN 1901
(Cephas Sr.)]
The Sivaïte character of the temples of Prambanan would be sufficiently
indicated, if there were no other proofs, by the sepulchral cavities
they inclose and which define them as the monuments of a graveyard
consecrated to the memory of the great and mighty of Hindu Mataram, who
worshipped Siva as Mahadeva, the Supreme God, Paramesvara, the Maker,
the Maintainer, the Marrer to make again. Sepulchral pits or wells are,
indeed, the Sivaïte hall-mark in the architecture of Java and here, at
Prambanan, we find, in so far as preserved, the finest of the edifices
raised to encompass and revet such pits, temple-tombs built for the
glorification of the Creator in creative consciousness, highest boon
granted to humanity, a glimmering of his All-Soul which, leaving
the dust to return to dust, aspires to union with the Uncreated. A
central group of eight shrines, once surrounded by numberless smaller
ones, witnesses, in soberness of well-balanced outline, in precision of
detail, to the exquisite art of those Hindu-Javanese master-builders
who, like the architects of our old cathedrals, were unconcerned as to
the opinion of man, but had the adoration of the godhead in mind and
made the whole world partake of the divine blessing which quickened
heart and hand, whether then descending from Siva’s nature as the
essence of the Trimoorti, or from the sublime truth symbolised in the
Christian Holy Trinity. The marvels of design and execution still
standing at Prambanan in their dilapidated state, on a terrace excavated
in 1893-4, were arranged, with the smaller ones now altogether gone, in
a square whose sides faced the cardinal points. The material used in
their construction was a kind of trachyte which, originally yellowish
and hard to chisel into shape, has assumed a dark gray colour and by the
richness of the sculptured ornament gives an impression as if easily
moulded like wax. The three western temples, of which the one in the
middle, consecrated to Siva or, according to the natives, the _chandi_
Loro Jonggrang proper, is the largest, correspond each with a smaller
structure to the east; still smaller _chandis_ bound the space between
the two rows to the north and south. The buildings dedicated to the
Trimoorti, set squarely with a square projection on each side, rest on
basements of the same polygonous conformation, so much in favour with
the architects of that period; the inner rooms are on an elevated level
because of their position over the vault-like compartments saved out in
the substructures, and can be reached by staircases, once provided with
porches, leading to the storeyed galleries. Vestiges of 157 diminutive
_chandis_ outside the rampart which encircled the central group,
testify to the former existence of many and many more, shut in by a
second and a third demolished wall. A closer inspection of the ruins,
revealing beauties not yet departed, leads to an apprehension of what
has been irrevocably lost. These temples of the three gods who are but
one, always reminded me in their pathetic desolation of the _capellas
imparfeitas_ of Santa Maria da Victoria; what is incomplete, however,
unfinished at Batalha, has run to decay at Prambanan--there the budding
promise and arrested blossoming of an artistic idea, here the scattered
petals of the full-blown flower rudely broken off its stem.
[Illustration: VII. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS
(C. Nieuwenhuis.)]
Siva is the keynote of the Prambanan group, Siva, the Jagad, the Bhatara
Guru, according to his prevalent title in the island. In the temple
which bears his name, he appeared as the leader in the exterior chapel
looking south; his wife, Doorga, looks north; their first-born, Ganesa,
looks west. The latter, sitting on his lotus cushion, is represented as
the Ekadanta, the elephant deprived of one of his tusks when fighting
Parashu Rama; a third eye in his forehead betokens his keenness of
sight; he wears in his crown the emblematic skull and crescent of his
father; one of his left hands brandishes his father’s battle-axe; one
of his right hands holds the string of beads suggesting prayer; his
father’s _upawita_, the hooded snake, is strung round his left shoulder
and breast. Doorga, his mother, born from the flames which proceeded
from the mouths of the gods, stands on the steer she killed when the
terrific animal had stormed Indra’s heaven and humiliated the immortals;
her eight hands[45] wield the weapons and other gifts bestowed upon her
by the deities at their delivery: Vishnu’s discus, Surya’s arrows, etc.
etc., while her nethermost right hand seizes the enemy’s tail and her
nethermost left hand the shaggy locks of the demon Maheso, who tries to
escape with the monster’s life. This magnificent piece of sculpture,
highly dramatic and yet within the limits of plastic art, the unknown
maker having instinctively obeyed the rules formulated in Lessing’s
_Laokoon_, some thousand years after his labours were ended, is the
petrified Lady Jonggrang, victim of Bondowoso’s revengeful love. It
does not matter to the native that Siva has always claimed her as his
consort, if not under the name of Doorga then under that of Kali or Uma,
ever since she, Parvati, the Mother of Nature, divided herself into
three female entities to marry her three sons, who are none but he who
sits enthroned as Mahadeva in the inner chamber, looking east, with his
less placid personifications, the _dvarapalas_ (doorkeepers) Nandisvara
and Mahakala, the wielders of trident and cudgel, guarding the entrance,
supported by demi-gods and heroes. The colossal statue of their heavenly
lord, broken into pieces by the falling roof, has been restored and
replaced on its _padmasana_ (lotus cushion). In this shape the god
wears the _makuta_ (crown) with skull and crescent, has a third eye in
his forehead and a cobra strung round his left shoulder and breast;
his body, decked with a tiger’s skin, rests against the _prabha_, his
aureole; one of his left hands holds his fly-flap, one of his right
hands his string of beads; of his trident only the stick remains.
Siva, the one of dreadful charm, is everywhere, either personified or
in his attributes: he dominates the external decoration of the Vishnu
and the Brahma temples too, in the latter case as _guru_, even to
the exclusion of all other gods; the middle _chandi_ of the eastern
row, facing his principal shrine, has his _vahana_, the bull; the one
to the north his smaller image, while in the third, to the south,
wholly demolished, no statuary can be traced. The inner chambers of
the subordinate buildings show more plainly than that of Siva, which
is adorned with flowery ornament, that the Sivaïte style concentrated
ornamentation rather on the exterior than on the interior. The four
statues of Brahma, the master of the four crowned countenances, who
lies shattered among the debris of his temple, and the four statues
of Vishnu in his (a large one with _makuta_, _prabha_, _chakra_ and
_sanka_, and three smaller ones, representing him in his fourth and
fifth _avatar_ and in his married state with his _sakti_ Lakshmi in
miniature on his left arm), are chastely conceived in the chaste
surroundings of their chapels. In addition to the sorely damaged
_Ramayana_ reliefs, presently to be spoken of, they dwell, however
simple the interior arrangement of their cells may be, among richly
carved images of their peers and followers stationed outside: Vishnu
among his own less famous _avatars_ and supposed Bodhisatvas between
female figures; Brahma, as already remarked, among personifications of
the ubiquitous Siva in his quality of teacher, accompanied by bearded
men of holiness. Siva’s _nandi_, a beautifully moulded humped bull,
emblem of divine virility, watches his master’s abode, attentive to
the word of command,--watches day and night as symbolised by Surya,
the beaming sun, carrying the flowers of life when rising behind her
seven horses, and by Chandra, the three-eyed moon, drawn by ten horses,
waving a banner and also presenting a flower, but one wrapped in a
cloud. The _chandis_ of the eastern row, fortunately not yet despoiled
of these striking specimens of Sivaïte sculpture, the statue of Siva
opposite the Vishnu temple and enough to enable one to recognise that
they too had once a band of ornament in high and low relief, emphasise
even in the ruinous condition of their substructures, polygonous like
those of the larger temples but on square foundations, the mystery
attaching to the fascination exercised by the main building they
supplement, and whose decoration, strictly Sivaïtic on the inside
while partaking of the Buddhistic on the outside, has racked many
brains for an explanation. The bo-trees and prayer-bells, profusely
employed in its external embellishment, together with figures agreeable
to the Bodhisatva theory, have led some to advance the opinion that
it is a purely Buddhist creation, though perhaps tinged with Sivaïte
notions. They were met with the objection that there is no sign of
a dagob as distinguishing Buddhist feature; that the riddle of the
resemblance between the statuary on the outside of the Siva temple
and the conventional representation of Bodhisatvas, could find its
solution in the canonisation or deification of kings and famous chiefs,
a practice as old as ancestor-worship, which held its own in Java from
pre-Hindu days up to our own. However this may be, if the Prambanan
temples, and especially the one particularly dedicated to the great
god of the Trimoorti, preached orthodox Sivaïsm to the elect of its
innermost conviction, while tainted externally with the heresy of the
deniers of the existence of gods, the indubitably Buddhist Mendoot
reverses the process. This and the syncretism discernible in nearly all
the _chandis_ of Java, shows the religious tolerance of the Javanese
in the Hindu period. And religiously tolerant they are still as true
believers in the true faith of Islām; the fanaticism one occasionally
hears of, roots rather in discontent from economic causes than in
bigotry or over-zealous devotion to a creed which declares rebellion for
conscience’ sake against a firmly established rule that recognises it,
to be unlawful.
[Illustration: VIII. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS
(Cephas Sr.)]
The demi-gods and heroes with their followers on the outside of the
Siva temple, occupy, counting from the base upward, the third tier
of ornamentation, also the highest in the roofless condition of the
building: the few niches left above are empty. Beneath, the story of
Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu, is told in bas-reliefs which belong to
the very best Hindu sculpture discovered in Java or anywhere else. The
division of the casements is effected by bo-trees, sitting lions and
standing or dancing women in haut-relief, especially the last being of
exquisite workmanship. In endlessly varying attitudes, embracing one
another or tripping the light fantastic toe, retreating and advancing,
their measured steps being regulated by the musicians on interspersed
panels, they represent the _apsaras_, nymphs of heaven, adorning the
house of prayer to acquaint mortal man with the joys in store for
the doer of good. The human birds and other mythical animals under
the bo-trees, the prayer-bells and flowers in the garlanded foliage,
enhance the charm of this ingenious decoration, the splendidly limbed
virgins disporting themselves in a frame of imposing magnificence, their
graceful movements being worthily seconded by the sumptuous setting.
Nor does this wealth of detail, this marvellous display of artistic
power, of skill perfected by imaginative thought, divert the attention
from the divine idea embodied in Siva or from the introduction to its
understanding provided by the _Ramayana_, initiating the beholder’s
intelligence by degrees. All is so well balanced that the lower guides
to the higher in whetting comprehensive desire. First, on reaching the
terrace, starting from the low level of vulgar interest, curiosity and
sympathy are awakened by the epic which shared popular favour with the
_Brata Yuda_. It is not known who enriched the literature of Java with
a version of the _Ramayana_ adapted to Javanese requirements; as in the
case of the _Mahabharata_ he was probably one of the poets living at the
cultured courts of the eastern part of the island. Whatever his name,
he made a hit with his tale of the god who descended from heaven, bent
on flirting with the daughters of men, and won a wife, the tenderly
loving Sita, by drawing Dhanusha, the mighty bow of Siva. His success
may be appraised by the circumstance that scenes taken from his poem
were deemed suitable to embellish the tombs of sovereign rulers. Can it
be called an improvement after more than a thousand years of progressive
western civilisation that we, to honour the memory of our dead,
make shift with inflated epitaphs advertising virtues in life often
conspicuous by an absence which the maudlin angels of our cemeteries,
rather than shedding undeserved, vicarious tears, perpetually seem to
bemoan on their own account?
[Illustration: IX. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS
(Centrum.)]
The adventures of Vishnu in his Rama guise are told from the moment
of Dasharatha, King of Ayodhya, invoking his aid to make the royal
consorts partake of the blessing of motherhood. Vishnu, resting on the
seven-headed serpent of the sea, Sesha or Ananta, the one without end,
dispenses a potion which makes Kantalya, who drinks half of it, conceive
Rama; Kaykaji, who drinks a fourth part of it, Bharata; and the third
spouse, who drinks the rest, the twins Lakshmana and Shatrughna. We can
follow Vishnu, reborn from mortal woman, on the reliefs of the Siva
temple, which are tolerably preserved, through the first stages of his
earthly career as Rama, but must renounce studying his subsequent story
on the exterior of the temples dedicated to himself and Brahma, where
the third tier of sculpture has altogether disappeared, save a few
mutilated bas-reliefs. That is a great pity, for the illustration of the
_Ramayana_ by the artists entrusted with the decoration of the _chandi_
Prambanan, judging from what we still possess, marks the apogee of
Hindu-Javanese art; revelling in accessory ornament, it never surfeits,
keeping the leading idea well in view, every embellishment adding to its
intrinsic value. The heavy moulding above the lowest band of chiselled
work of the Siva temple has fortunately protected it from being damaged
by falling stones; here we are able to discover the sculptor’s technique
at close quarters and it is worthy of note that some of the curly lions
are wanting in their appointed places. This, coupled with the fact that
a few of the _apsaras_ remained unfinished, while others, like statues
of gods on higher planes, have only been outlined, and spaces, evidently
contrived for ornament, present flat surfaces, has led to the conjecture
of a catastrophe which surprised the builders and made them suspend
their labours as in the case of the Bimo temple of the Diëng plateau.
[Illustration: X. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS
(Centrum.)]
One of the salient features of the decoration at Prambanan, indeed of
all ancient Javanese art, Sivaïte and Buddhist, is the representation
of animal life as an important factor in human destiny. If the Buddha
was called the Sakya Sinha, the Lion of the Sakyas, and his sylvan
embodiment adorns in many reproductions the Boro Budoor, his stateliest
temple, at Sivaïte Prambanan we find the king of the desert extensively
utilised in the general decoration, together with the beasts of the
field under the bo-trees and fanciful combinations of man and his lowly
friends, not dumb but of different speech, like the _kinnaris_, the
bird-people. The _Ramayana_ bas-reliefs echo the kindness[46] shown to
those humble companions in Indian myth, history and present-day asylums
for the aged and infirm among them. Attending the monkey warriors
with whose help the simian deity Hanoman restored King Sugriva to the
throne of his forefathers at Kishkindhya (an allusion, it is thought,
to the doughty deeds of the aborigines of the Deccan), _bajings_[47]
and _bolooks_[47] are gambolling round the house of the Most Awful
and Mysterious, once worshipped here by great nations whose very names
are lost, but whose art, giving a place to all creation in symbolic
expression of the divine, still teaches us the lesson that the animals
are also children of the gods, endowed with life not to be exterminated
to serve our pleasure and our vanity, or to be abused for our profit,
but to enjoy the fullness of the earth and the good gifts of heaven as
we do ourselves, or might do if we were wise. Mother Nature, Siva’s
_sakti_ Doorga, nurses at her bosom all her husband’s offspring, without
distinction, and at Prambanan she superintends the growing world, as the
mistress of his household, in the highly finished form the artist has
given her: Loro Jonggrang, daughter of Ratu Boko of the Javanese legend.
Not in her outward character of the demon-steer subduing virago does she
attract her worshippers here, nor in that of the woman of the golden
skin riding the tiger, full of menace, but in that of Uma, the gentle
goddess who sheds light on perplexing problems of conduct, to whom one
turns in distress. Ideal of high-born loveliness, Loro Jonggrang is
especially venerated by those of her own sex who are in trouble or have
a desire to propound in the fumes of incense they burn: barren matrons
praying for issue from their bodies to their lords and masters, like the
wives of King Dasharatha; virgins anxious to get married; pseudo-virgins
who have trusted too much in the promises of their lovers, following the
_hadat_ established by herself at Prambanan and diligently observed
(not only, it should be noticed, in that neighbourhood, but likewise
where no one ever heard of Loro Jonggrang and her _escapades d’amour_),
insisting that, in the name of the precedent she set, consequences shall
be warded off. When _pasar_, _i.e._ market, falls on a Friday,[48] her
votaries are exceptionally numerous, mostly native women entreating
deliverance from female ills or help in the attainment of feminine
wishes. Chinese, half-caste and occasionally European ladies may,
however, be observed among them: it is said that several happy mothers
of the ruling race at Jogjakarta and Surakarta owe their husbands
and children to Notre Dame de Bon Secours of Prambanan; that brides
having obtained their heart’s desire in union with the beloved, the
bridegrooms in their turn repair to her shrine, after a honeymoon ended
in storm-clouds, with an earnest supplication for means of release. This
explains the sprinkling of males among the fair devotees on Fridays,
dejected looking persons who smear the statue of Doorga with _boreh_,
despite notices to desist, supplicating her to repeal former decrees,
having different objects in view, of course, with their salvings of
Ganesa and Siva’s _nandi_. Favours are requested, pledges are given,
votive sacrifices are performed, the gods and their attributes, Mboq
Loro Jonggrang in the first place, are wreathed and festooned with
flowers in compliance with an old Hindu custom so deeply rooted that
we may notice grave, turbaned _hajis_ yielding to it, unheedful of
the Prophet’s anathemas against those who commit the unpardonable sin
of idolatry, straying more widely from the right path than the brute
cattle, wicked doers, companions of hell-fire whose everlasting couch
shall be on burning coals.
[Illustration: XI. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS
(Centrum.)]
As the exhalations of the incense rise to the dying rays of the sun
and mix with the scent of the _kembangan telon_, the flowers of
sacrifice, _melati_, _kananga_ and _kantil_, the soughing of the
trees in the evening breeze repeats the lessons taught by an ancient
inscription found near the temples of Prambanan, and a summary of which
Hindu-Javanese _Libro del Principe_, taken from a translation by a
Panambahan of Sumanap, may be acceptable: What has been here set down,
was in the beginning an ancestral tradition, very useful if observed,
but, if disregarded, it becomes a curse. This inscription was made in
the year 396 (?), in the third month, on a Friday in the sixth era.
Let it inform you of the most exalted, of the road to enlightenment
and happiness, to attain your country’s progress and prosperity. Proof
thereof will be cheap food and raiment, and universal peace, that those
who honour the gods may lead tranquil lives. Honouring the gods is the
perfection of conduct. Whosoever strives after that will be smiled
upon by them, for the practising of virtue provides access to heaven,
which shines in splendour, and all gods will unite with the supreme
Siva Bathara Indra to assist the practiser of virtue. But whosoever
does wrong will go to perdition and his appearance will be monstrous,
his shape like the shape of a dog; such a one acts unwisely because he
turns away from virtue and obeys his passions, which are his enemies.
It seems good to know this in life, in order to practise virtue and
praise the godhead, believing in Bhatara, who has power over the world,
possessing heaven and earth. The teachers must also be respected,
without exception, because of their venerable charge, and you must
learn of them to honour Bathara above all gods, the Omnipotent, the
Ruler and Maintainer of everything. Praise him in order that you may
gain happiness and bliss even while you live on earth. Honour your
parents and the parents of your parents and their teachings, which are
inviolable, as they before you considered inviolable the teachings which
came to them from their parents and ancestors as received from the god
Bathara, who opened their hearts to probity. Know that they were allowed
to adorn themselves with fragrant flower-buds wherever their influence
penetrated: this will also be your privilege after the purification of
your minds. Conduct yourselves honestly according to divine direction,
acquire discretion and try to resemble the illustrious kings of the
past who compassed the felicity of their subjects. Be no regarders of
persons either among the good or among the bad; all are mortals in a
fleeting world. This consider: Bathara is the King of Kings who ordains
the holy institutions. Fill the place of a father among his children.
If there are any of your subjects who act wickedly, command them to
mend their ways; if they persist in evil, teach them to distinguish
between what is good and what is bad in their souls, to the advantage
of the living. Excellent men must be appointed to manage the affairs of
the people. These three things are of highest importance: that proper
instruction be given; that your subjects become prosperous instead of
poor through oppression; that every one of them know the boundaries of
his fields. Persevere in honouring Bathara! Glorify him and inherit joy!
Dress cleanly and keep your bodies clean. Acknowledge the omnipotence of
Bathara Giri Nata and, protected by him, no one can harm you. May his
superiority be reflected in you to confound the wicked doers. If you
desire a change of station, seek seclusion to do penance in order that
Bathara’s brilliancy may become visible in you. Nothing is so beautiful
and so profitable to you as the conquest of your passions, subduing
them to a pure mind and lofty aspirations, vanquishing the enemies of
virtue who reveal themselves: it will help to proclaim your lustrous
righteousness. Glorify Bathara! He will descend in his beneficence to
show you the way. Reflect seriously: some day you must die; ponder
over the mystery of life and make the ignorant understand for their
own salvation. Behaving in this manner, happiness cannot escape you,
kings of good rule, all of whose prayers will be listened to and with
whom no one can be compared: this is the sign of the eminence of the
sovereign who dominates men as the tiger dominates whatever breathes
in the forest. The gods will protect such kings to the benefit of
their subjects, traders and carriers of merchandise and labourers in
the fields. Nothing is denied to the obedient, for the gods ward off
evil from their thrones; evil is known in heaven before it touches the
mortals on earth. Glorify Bathara! The men of rank and high birth who
serve kings, must be of middle age. In their fiftieth year it behoves
them to retire from the world into prayerful solitude to die as a child
dies; let the body suffer for the soul, crowning the end of life. As
you grow in knowledge your wishes will be fulfilled and your soul will
leave its prison. The token of higher knowledge is evident. Where does
the soul go? It gains in beatitude or, if no progress has been made, it
seeks a refuge in the bodies of animals and people of mean appetites.
Gaining in beatitude, it reaches heaven, the garden of rest, but hell is
the abode of sin. Cleanse, therefore, your thoughts; eschew impurity! Do
not favour the wealthy, nor despise the poor; all are equally confided
to your care. O ye, who are kings and represent the gods in your
kingdoms, listen to this admonition and know your responsibility for the
ultimate lot of your subjects. Bathara, the lord of life and death, will
call you to account. Woman has been created inferior to man; but many
men are enticed to wrong-doing by the smooth speech of their women-folk,
who lack perception by the inscrutable decree of the gods. Woman wishes
to control man, taking her caprice for wisdom, always pressing him
to follow her fancies. The chronicles, however, mention the names of
queens like Sri Chitra Wati, Sinta Devi and Sakjrevati Drupadi. In the
days of Dhipara Jaga, Tirta Jaga, Karta Jaga and Sang Ngara bloody wars
devastated the land; kings were bewitched and changed into dragons and
elephants because they disregarded the ordinances of Bathara and also
because they were weak, not able to restrain their burning passion for
beautiful women, acting differently from that which behoves those in
authority. Possess your souls in continence! Bathara watches and you are
unacquainted with the hour of your death.
[Illustration: XII. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS
(Centrum.)]
The shadows of evening thicken; darkness gathers, darkness in the train
of Rahu, the devourer of sun and moon, robing the temples in gloom.
Fire-flies, darting from between the sculptured bo-trees and festooned
foliage, begin to hold their nocturnal feast but subside before a red
glare, nascent in the holy of holies. They return, as if borne by
strange, wild melodies, and grow into the luxurious forms of luminous
nymphs, the _apsaras_, who leave their stations round the house of fear
to dance their voluptuous dance of death, renouncing their allegiance to
the Mahadeva to court Kama of the flowery bow, consumed by the desire
to enjoy life and life’s best before the approach of the mower cutting
them down. Their mates, the _gandharvas_, excite them in their weird
revelry with songs and the musicians urge them with the clang of tabors
and cymbals. Shaped for the enchanting arts of love, skilled in the
wiles of female magic, they move in a whirl of passion, like flames of
fire, more redoubtable to man than the sword and arrows of his bitterest
foe. Luring the unwary who tarry at Prambanan when the fates, weaving
the web of the world, change the colours of day into night’s blackest
dyes, when the lotus-blossoms hang heavy on their stems and the air
is burdened with the odour of incense and sacrificial wreaths, they
intend his subversion by a mirage of delight, a hallucination of the
senses, and present the gratification of carnal desire as the triumph
of reason. Woe to him if he does not resist in the delirium of his
infatuation! The moment he tries to grasp their flitting forms, they
evade him as a mountain stream in spate, as the spray of its water
dashing down the rocks, as foam on the surging brine. The _apsaras_
mock, the _gandharvas_ hiss him, the musicians howl, all turning again
to stone, having instilled their subtle poison into his heart. He seeks
in vain the joy they held out to him, begs in vain for a draught of the
_soma_, the nectar of the gods. Then, shooting out from the great god’s
abode as a flash of lightning, the red glare takes substance and Siva
appears in his most terrible aspect, Kala, destroying time, waving the
skull which springs from the lotus stem, menacing men and cattle, the
wild beasts of the woods, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea,
with the _trishula_, the trident of desolation. Behind him the Devi, his
spouse, emerges from her niche, riding Vayu, the stormwind, not Doorga
or Uma disguised as Loro Jonggrang, but Kali, the furious, of hideous
countenance, crowned with snakes, dripping with blood. Lifting up her
voice above the roaring of her steed, she joins the Dread One, Rudra,
the Thunderer, and passion and baffled desire become a portion of the
tempest she raises, the odour of the _kembangan telon_ breathing agony.
Mahakala, the Almighty Overthrower, deals death under his veil. But if
the night of terror begins in darkness, it will end in dawn and light
of day: all that lives, is born to die for new life to succeed, and so
teaches Siva himself, the Bhatara Guru. In adoration of Ganesa, the
fruit of his union with Parvati, wisdom will accrue to him who learns
the lesson; enlightenment from the spectacle of time, the demolisher,
fortifying fecund nature, reanimating the universe in anguish of decay.
Wisdom is the great gift, purification of the soul in abstinence from
the pleasures which drag it down, to keep the spark of the divine
undefiled in its earthly sheath with the aid of the father and the
son, whose distinctive qualities merge in Wighnesa, the vanquisher of
obstacles. Drinking their essence, man’s hearing and knowing leads to
affection and commiseration, to the second Brahma Vihara, the sublime
condition of sorrow at the sorrow of others, and when dissolution
arrives as a reward, Yama, the judge of the dead, will find no cause
for reproach. The good will enter the diamond gate, but grievous
torment awaits the foolish who pamper the flesh and are ensnared by the
daughters of lust.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Whence its name, derived from _api_ (fire).
[36] The title Loro designates a lady of very high birth.
[37] _Legèn_ is the liquor prepared by fermentation of the sap drawn
from some trees of the palm family.
[38] From _tangkis_, _tinangkis_, which, derived from _nangkis_, “ward
off”, means “to repel one another.”
[39] _Telaga_ means “lake” and _powiniyan_, derived from _winih_,
“seed”, means a flooded ricefield in which the ears on the stalks, bound
in sheaves, are put to serve for seeding.
[40] Not the last, as this legend has it, for Ratu Boko’s roaring can
yet be heard on still nights, if we may believe the people who dwell on
the banks of the Telaga Powiniyan.
[41] _Padi_ is rice in the hull, shelled by the women and girls, usually
very early in the morning, by stamping it in blocks of wood hollowed out
for the purpose.
[42] Bondowoso’s curse took dire effect and the Javanese lassies of the
neighbourhood, who enter the bonds of matrimony about their fourteenth
year, comment with sarcastic pity on the fact that their sisters of
Prambanan have, as a rule, to wait some ten rainy seasons longer--not
without seeking compensation, it is alleged, after the example set by
their patron saint Loro Jonggrang, whose maidenly life, according to
the _babad chandi Sewu_, of which more later on, was not altogether
blameless.
[43] The very precise ridicule this appellation, which originated in
the childish credulity of the natives, who persist in paying homage to
a statue of Doorga as if it were actually their petrified Mboq Loro
Jonggrang; but the real name of the group being unknown, why should we
reject a distinction not denoted by the less definite term Prambanan?
[44] Major, then still Captain T. VAN ERP in his report to the
_Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences_, January 11, 1909.
[45] The sculptor showed his independence by disregarding the more
canonical number of sixteen or ten.
[46] Stimulated especially by Buddhist and Jaïn influences.
[47] Squirrels: _Sciurus nigrovittatus_ and _Pteromys elegans_ and
_nitidus_.
[48] _Pasar_ is held once every five days and once every thirty-five
days it falls, therefore, on a Friday.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V
MORE OF CENTRAL JAVA
Le bon sens nous dit que les choses de la terre n’existent que
bien peu et que la vraie réalité est dans les rêves. CHARLES
BAUDELAIRE, _Les Paradis Artificiels (Dédication)_.
Except during a period of some four centuries and a half, from about 940
till the palmy days of Mojopahit, when declining Hindu civilisation, for
reasons as yet unexplained, sought a refuge farther east, Central Java
and especially that part of it known in our time as the Principalities,
_i.e._ Surakarta and Jogjakarta, has always been the heart of the
island. There lived and live the true Javanese, the people of heaven’s
mercy, cherishing their old traditions; these and the beautiful scenery
of their fire-mountains and fertile valleys are still theirs, whatever
else may fail: glory, power and freedom. They lived and live in their
world of custom and formality a life unintelligible in its inner
workings to the western brain, impenetrable to the western eye. There
are forces hidden in the Javanese mind, the resultant of a strangely
moved past, which we can never understand, though we may admire their
creative energy, revealed in the now conventional designs guiding the
hand of the potter, the wood-carver, the goldsmith, the armourer, the
_batikker_,[49] hereditary practisers of dying arts and crafts; in the
remains of a marvellous architecture long since altogether dead. No
chapter in the whole history of eastern art, says Fergusson, is so full
of apparent anomalies or upsets so completely our preconceived ideas of
things as they ought to be, as that which treats of the architectural
history of the island of Java ...; the one country to which they (the
Hindus) overflowed, was Java, and there they colonised to such an
extent as for nearly a thousand years to obliterate the native arts
and civilisation and supplant it by their own ...; what is still more
singular is, that it was not from the nearest shores of India that
these emigrants departed but from the western coast.... A _linga_,
erected in the Kadu in the year 654 Saka (A.D. 732), a Sivaïte symbol
of generation, marks the origin of an artistic activity whose most
brilliant period, the classical one of central Javanese architecture,
as G. P. Rouffaer styles it rightly, begins with the construction of
such buildings as the Buddhist _chandi_ Kalasan or Kali Bening. The
inscription of King Sanjaya in Venggi characters, and vestiges of
Vaishnav tendencies in the Suku and Cheto temples of a much later date,
point to the worship of Vishnu, while Brahma’s four sublime conditions
and more subtle transcendentalism do not seem to have attracted the
Javanese converts to Hinduïsm. They could grasp the unity of Siva’s
threefold functions much better and accepted him as Mahadeva at the
head of the Trimoorti. The advent of Buddhism in its _mahayanistic_
form, the creed of the northern church so called, served to emphasise
native tolerance. Sivaïsm and whatever there was of Vishnuïsm,
harmonised with Buddhism to the extent of borrowing and lending symbols,
emblems and divine attributes; Hindu gods played puss in the corner
with Bodhisatvas, as already remarked upon in the preceding chapter;
the _chandi_ Chupuwatu surprises us with a _stupa-linga_;[50] a
Javanese prince of the thirteenth century bears the expressive name of
Siva-Buddha; the old Javanese _Sang Hiang Kamahayanikan_ contains the
dictum: Siva is identical with Buddha.[51] If more inscriptions had been
found, more light might have been thrown on the anomalous ornamentation
of, for instance, the Prambanan temples and the Mendoot; but Sivaïte
records of the kind leaving the matter unexplained, Buddhist information
is still scantier, perhaps a consequence of Baghavat’s followers not
excelling in epigraphy or literary labours of any description.
If the backwash of great political events or religious discussion when
the Islām superseded older creeds, may have aided Kala, the Destroyer,
in demolishing a good many buildings of the classical period, whose
sites even are sought in vain, it is certain that the pioneers of
western civilisation, proud of their superiority, willfully and wantonly
undid in many places work that had been spared by time and earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions and enemies born of the soil, devastating with
fire and sword their brethren’s hearths and houses. Christian zealots
regarded the ancient monuments as assembly-rooms of the Devil where the
benighted heathen used to foregather in idolatry, lodges of abomination
the sooner razed the better, a pious feeling often translated into
action on grounds of utility: the stones offered excellent building
material. Officials and _particulieren_[52] of broader views, besides
acknowledging the serviceableness of _chandis_ in this respect, went
_recho_-hunting[53] for the adornment of their houses and gardens. Quite
a collection has been formed in the residency grounds at Jogjakarta, the
nucleus of which was moved thither from the estate Tanjong Tirta, whose
former occupants, like most of the landed gentry, made exceedingly free
with the temples and monasteries in that neighbourhood. As neither they
nor the others bothered about noting where they got this or that piece
of sculpture, we are entirely at sea concerning the meaning of several
beautiful statues. This is the case, _e.g._, with one of remarkably fine
execution, a crowned goddess, sitting on a lotus cushion and encircled
by a flaming aureole, pressing her hands to her bosom. She has been
fortunate enough to escape the fate of some deities who shared her
sequestration and were left to the care of the convicts detailed to keep
the Resident’s compound in trim, a duty performed by whitewashing or
daubing them with a grayish substance, excepting the hair of the head,
the eyebrows, the eyeballs and the _prabha_, which the gentlemen-artists
of the chain-gang are in the habit of painting black, enhancing the
general effect by “restoring” lost hands and feet and damaged faces
after methods nothing short of barbarous, but therefore the better in
keeping with the traditional attitude of those in authority. For this
infamous disfiguration and desecration, which makes any one unaccustomed
to Dutch East Indian processes shudder with horror, never disturbed the
aesthetic sense or equanimity of the several occupants of the residency
who, during the last thirty-five years, saw it going on under their
very eyes, the eyes of the representatives of a Government lavish in
circulars[54] recommending the country’s antiquities to their care.
Neither are those eyes shocked by the “museum” adjoining the residency,
a jumble of plunder from _chandis_ far and near; nor by the chaotic mass
of torsos, arms and legs, fragmentary evidence of wholesale spoliation
behind that pitiful exhibition of archaeology turned topsyturvy.
So much for the statuary removed from the _chandis_, as far as it can
be traced. Concerning the _chandis_ themselves, it should be remembered
that the greater part has wholly disappeared. Hillocks, overspread
with brushwood, sometimes awaken hopes that by digging foundations
and portions of walls may be discovered; heaps of debris, tenanted
by lizards and snakes, point to structures of which nothing that is
left, indicates the former use; shattered ornamental stones speak of
magnificent buildings fallen or pulled down--glimmerings of splendour
that was. The temples still standing are reduced to ruins and diminish
almost visibly in attractiveness and size. Rouffaer[55] gave an
interesting example of their fate in the story of the spiriting away
of the _chandi_ Darawati: in 1889 tolerably well preserved, though two
large statues of the Buddha had been dragged off to the dwelling of a
European in the _dessa_ Gedaren, it was gone in 1894--vanished into air!
The temples constructed of brick, like the _chandi_ Abang, have suffered
even more, of course, than those of stone, the memory of whose grandeur
is retained in a few ghastly wrecks. Reserving the Buddhist remains
for later treatment and passing by the Sivaïte caves with rectangular
porches in the Bagelen, mentioned by Fergusson, I shall deal here with
the _chandis_ Suku and Cheto, and the most noteworthy ruins in the
southern mountains. The latter comprise the _kraton_ of Ratu Boko, Mboq
Loro Jonggrang’s father, as the natives call it, and the temple group of
the Gunoong Ijo. Of the legendary kingly residence little more is left
than a square terrace with portions of a wall and the sill of a gate.
The _chandi_ Ijo consists of a large temple of the usual polygonal form
with ten smaller ones and a pit which contained two stone receptacles
and strips of gold-leaf with the image of a deity and an inscription;
the buildings are in a sad condition, but decay has not impaired their
beauteous dignity and the landscape alone repays a visit to Soro Gedoog,
an estate whose gradual reclamation of the jungle led to their discovery
in 1886 when ground was cleared for an extension of the plantations.
The _chandis_ Suku and Cheto are situated respectively on the western
and northern slope of the Gunoong Lawu, a volcano on the boundary
between Surakarta and Madioon, not less expressive in its scenery of
what heaven has done for this delicious island. Shortly after the
mysterious pyramids of Suku had drawn the attention of Resident Johnson,
in the British Interregnum, Thomas Horsfield visited them and made some
drawings. The inscriptions and the sculptured ornament of Cheto were
reported upon by C. J. van der Vlis, in 1842. The groups belong to the
latest, most decadent period of Hindu architecture in Java and their
foundation, Suku being a few years older than Cheto, must have coincided
with the introduction of the Islām. Bondowoso, the son of the recluse
Damar Moyo, who assisted the King of Pengging against Ratu Boko and took
such signal revenge upon the latter’s daughter, Loro Jonggrang, for
rejecting him, the uncouth slayer of her father, is supposed to have
erected the buildings at Suku. Those at Cheto owe their origin to a
prince of Mojopahit, who quarrelled with his brother, the ruler of that
empire, or, according to another legend, to a certain Kiahi Patiro, who
refused to become a convert to the new faith and repaired to the Lawu,
where he lived as a hermit and was killed by Pragiwongso, an emissary
of the Moslim King of Demak. _Linga_-worship returned in the temple
groups of the Lawu to its crudest modes of expression, and Fergusson,
who mentions the dates 1435 and 1440, speaks of a degraded form of the
Vishnuïte religion, the _garuda_,[56] the boar, the tortoise, etc.,
being of frequent occurrence in the ornamentation. Junghuhn described
the staircases he found, which connected the terraces, and the statues,
which hardly came up to the artistic standard of Prambanan and the Boro
Budoor, one of them distinguishing itself by a colossal head whose
measurement from chin to crown was three feet, half of the whole height.
Comparing his description with the actual state of things, much must
have been removed, heaven knows whither! Notwithstanding the obvious
truth of Fergusson’s remark that a proper illustration of Suku and
Cheto, and, I may be permitted to add, of the remains on the summit
of the mountain, whether originally tree-temples or consecrated to
devotional exercises in the open, _à l’instar_ of West Java, promises
to be of great importance to the history of architecture in the island,
very little has been done in that direction or even for the conservation
of the ruins where _recho_-hunters and a luxurious vegetation vie in
obliterating the traces of most interesting antiquities. Junghuhn
sounded a note of warning apropos of the falling in of the peculiarly
constructed pyramidal temple, May 1838, but this and the other monuments
have been suffered since, as before, to crumble quietly away and the
easily removable sculpture to be carried off. Ganesa, in his manifold
reproductions, seconds on the Lawu his father Siva, head of the
Trimoorti, continuing the lead obtained seven centuries earlier in the
plain of Prambanan, and a systematic study of the reliefs, now covered
with moss and lichens, might shed a good deal of light on several
unsettled questions. One of those reliefs, blending the human and the
divine in the manner of the allusions to the _Brata Yuda_ on the Diëng
plateau and the Rama legend on the walls of the _chandi_ Loro Jonggrang,
represents a complete armoury, with Ganesa, protector of arts and
crafts, between the armourer himself and his assistant who works the
bellows. If, with Rouffaer, we divide the long era during which the
Hindus, first as immigrants and then as rulers, merged gradually in the
aboriginal population, into a Hindu-Javanese period of Central Java and
a Javanese-Hindu period of East Java, the monuments of Suku and Cheto
belong evidently to the epoch of Javanese-Hindu decline, decadent art
flowing back to its classical source, tarnishing original Hindu-Javanese
conceptions. Leaving Buddhist architecture to be dealt with in the
last chapters, and before turning to the _chandis_ of East Java, a
short historical review may aid in the appreciation of this decline and
subsequent paralysis of the creative faculty. Kartikeya, the god of
war, a younger son of Siva and Parvati, had his strong hand in this,
and how he invested and divested mighty princes, who conquered or were
defeated and finally passed away, causing the rise and fall of glorious
kingdoms, is written in the _babads_, the Javanese chronicles, by no
means such old wives’ tales as Dominee Valentijn tried to make them out,
but containing in their extravagance a kernel of stern reality, not the
less explanatory of the condition of the fairy island Java because the
_magnanimes mensonges_ of a vivid imagination animate the dull facts.
Of the Hindu empire Mataram in Central Java nothing tangible is left
except the ruins referred to, a few objects in metal and stone,
accidentally unearthed or dug up by treasure-seekers, and some
inscriptions, title-deeds, etc., the scanty “genuine charters of Java”
as van Limburg Brouwer defined them. The name Mataram has been preserved
on a copper plate, dating from about 900, which agrees in this respect
with four other records, discovered in East Java; the capital of the
_Maharaja i Mataram_ is called Medang. For two centuries, from the
beginning of the eighth until the beginning of the tenth, Mataram seems
to have flourished as the most powerful state in the island, especially
aggressive towards the east. Native tradition, in fond exaggeration
of her importance, makes her sway the destinies of the world. Her
star waned suddenly; by what cause is unknown; but whether it was the
invasion of a mightier enemy or a natural catastrophe, the same as that
which overtook the builders of the Diëng and the plain of Prambanan,
forcing them to leave their work unfinished, ancient Mataram sank into
insignificance. From the middle of the tenth until the beginning of
the sixteenth century, the successors of her former eastern vassals,
that is whichever of them happened to be on top in the continual
struggle for supremacy, did in East and Central Java as they pleased,
warring, intermarrying, annexing their neighbours’ domains, only to
lose them again and their own kingdoms to boot, to usurpers, ambitious
ministers, popular governors of provinces, enterprising _condottieri_
or mere adventurers favoured by Dame Fortune. In that overflowing
arena of high rivalry, dynasties succeeding one another with amazing
rapidity, Daha, situated in what is now Kediri, secured paramount
influence after Kahuripan, situated in what is now Southern Surabaya;
then Tumapel, situated in what is now Pasuruan, became ascendant; then
Daha once more and, last of the great Hindu empires, Mojopahit, about
1300, to be overthrown, after two centuries of preponderance, by the
sword of Islām. Jayabaya, King of Daha, from about 1130 till about
1160, has been called[57] the Charlemagne of Java, in whose reign
learning and letters were encouraged; or the Javanese King Arthur, whose
life among his heroes, in peace and war, is reflected in the idylls
of the _Panji_-cycle, at whose Court the famous poet Mpu Sedah began
his version of the _Mahabharata_, the _Brata Yuda_, finished by Mpu
Panulooh, author of the _Gatotkachasraya_, while Tanakoong wrote the
_Wretta-Sansaya_, a sort of _Epistola de Arte Poetica_. When Tumapel
expanded, especially under Ken Angrok, troublous times arrived for
Daha, which could hardly hold her own against the encroachments of that
unscrupulous monarch. Ken Angrok or Arok, born in 1182 at Singosari,
had seized the royal power after assassinating the old King in 1222 or
1223. The kris he used, had been ordered expressly for that deed from
the famous armourer Mpu Gandring, who was its first victim because he
tarried in delivering it, the tempering of the steel having taken more
time than suited the usurper’s patience. Dying under the murderous
stroke, Mpu Gandring uttered a prophetic curse: This kris will kill
Ken Angrok; it will kill his children and grandchildren; it will
kill seven kings. The prophecy came true with wonderful exactness.
Ken Angrok having married Dedes, the widow of the old King he had
despatched, was himself killed as the third victim of Mpu Gandring’s
kris in the hand of a bravo commissioned by their son Anusapati, the
Hamlet of Javanese history. And how blood followed blood during the
hundred years of Tumapel’s hegemony, how Ken Angrok’s descendants
harassed their neighbours before the curse took effect upon each of
them, appearing like luminous stars in the sky of politics and war, and
then disappearing behind the shadowy cloud of untimely death, is it not
written in the _Pararaton_ or Book of the Kings of Tumapel and
Mojopahit?
The foundation of Mojopahit has been attributed to scions of several
royal families, among them to Raden Tanduran, a prince of Pajajaran
in West Java which, it will be remembered, owed its origin to princes
of Tumapel. The most widely accepted reading is, however, that a
certain Raden Wijaya, commander of the army of King Kertanegara,
great-grandson of Ken Angrok, profiting from his master’s quarrels with
Jaya Katong, ruler of Daha in those days, carved out a kingdom for
himself, reclaiming, always with that end in view, a large area of wild
land, Mojo Lengko or Mojo Lengu, near Tarik in Wirosobo, the present
Mojokerto. King Kertanegara who, by branding the Chinese envoy Meng Ki,
had stirred up trouble with the Flowery Empire, was unable to punish
this act of arrogance, and his violent death in a battle won by the
legions of Daha, meant the inglorious end of Tumapel. This happened in
1292 and the expeditionary force sent from China to chastise him for his
ungracious treatment of ambassadors to his Court, consequently found
their object accomplished or, more correctly speaking, unaccomplishable
when landing in 1293. But its leader indemnified his martial ardour
by entering the service of Raden Wijaya who, with his assistance,
subjugated Daha, which had tried to reassume her former precedence.
Firmly established on the throne of the realm he had fashioned out of
Daha, Tumapel and his own territory near Tarik, he refused, however,
to pay the price stipulated by his Chinese ally and when the auxiliary
troops asked the fulfilment of his promises, arms in hand, he proved to
them that superior strength is the ultimate arbiter of right and sent
them home much diminished in numbers and pride. The Emperor of China,
wroth that the beautiful princesses of Tumapel, daughters of the late
King Kertanegara, whom he had deigned to accept as concubines, were not
forthcoming, but stayed behind to adorn the harem of the self-made King
of Mojopahit, ordered his unsuccessful generalissimo to be flogged by
way of example to other commanding officers. Raden Wijaya who, with the
kingly title, had assumed the name of Kertarajasa, enjoyed his royal
dignity only until 1295 and his ashes were entombed in two places not
yet located: in the _dalem_ (the inner, private part) of his palace
conformably to the Buddhist, and at Simping conformably to the Sivaïte
ritual, not otherwise than King Kertanegara received last honours in the
guise of Siva-Buddha at Singosari and in the guise of a Dhyani Buddha at
Sakala, and the remains of King Kertarajasa’s successor were interred in
three places according to the Vishnuïte ritual, circumstances from which
we may conclude that in East as in Central Java the different creeds
lived together in most amiable harmony.
The kris of Mpu Gandring might limit the earthly term of the descendants
of Ken Angrok, it could not check their prowess while they were still
up and doing. Overlords of East and Central Java, extending their rule
to Pajajaran, they even looked for conquest to the other islands of
the Malay Archipelago. Under Hayam Wurook or Rajasa Nagara, in the
latter half of the fourteenth century, Mojopahit reached her zenith; a
record of 1389 mentions Bali as being tributary since about 1340; Aru,
Palembang and Menangkabau in Sumatra, Pahang with Tumanik in Malacca,
Tanjong Pura in Borneo, Dompo in Soombawa, Ceram and the Goram islands
acknowledged Nayam Wurook’s suzerainty too. Seeing no more worlds to
subdue, he died and, as in the case of Alexander the Great, his empire
fell to pieces; in East Java itself Balambangan seceded from Mojopahit
proper and the Muhammadan propaganda, fanning discord between the
Hindu princes of old and new dynasties, prepared their common doom.
The beginnings of the Islām in East Java have already been spoken of,
with Gresik as a missionary centre, Maulana Malik Ibrahim as the first
_wali_ in that region and the conversion into Moslim vassal states
of the dependencies of Mojopahit, whose princes, combining under the
auspices of Demak against their liege lord, sealed his fate. Raden
Patah of Demak was a man of war and destiny. The fire of the new faith
burning fiercely within him, he hurled his defiance at the stronghold
of the heathen, speaking to the last King of Mojopahit, his father or
grandfather according to tradition, as Amaziah, King of Juda, spoke
to Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, King of Israël: Come,
let us see one another in the face,--but with a different result: the
challenger from Demak came out victorious and Mojopahit ceased to exist,
an issue fraught with grave consequences. This occurred about the year
1500[58] and Raden Patah, pursuing the royal family on their flight,
defeated the King or one of his sons again at Malang, where a last stand
was made. But Gajah Mada, the Prime Minister of Mojopahit, founded a
new empire, Supit Urang, which comprised much of the territory once
belonging to Singosari. The Saivas also held out at Pasuruan, which
was invested by Pangeran Tranggana, a successor of Raden Patah, but
after his assassination by one of his servants, the troops of Demak
returned home. Pasuruan and Surabaya reverted, later on, to the Regent
of Madura, a son-in-law of Pangeran Tranggana. Yet, Hinduïsm lingered on
in the island; its political power was only broken with the conquest of
Balambangan by the East India Company in 1767, and the population of the
Tengger mountain region did not commence to accept the Islām until very
recently.
In the confusion which resulted after the death of Pangeran Tranggana
from the disruption of his domains into Cheribon, Jayakarta and Bantam
in the western, Gresik and Kediri in the eastern, and Demak proper and
Pajang in the central part of the island, the latter territory absorbed
Jipang and its Prince Tingkir, a scion of the royal family of Mojopahit,
was proclaimed Sooltan by the spiritual authority of Gresik, the first
time we find that title mentioned in the history of Java. Sooltan
Tingkir appointed one of his trusted servants, Kiahi Ageng Pamanahan,
governor of the tract of land which had preserved the name of Mataram.
Kiahi Ageng Pamanahan improved the condition of the people and his son
Suta Wijaya, who had married a daughter of the Sooltan, making himself
independent by rebelling, by poisoning his father-in-law after his
having been captured and pardoned, finally by taking possession of
the regalia in the subsequent war of succession, became master of the
situation and laid in New Mataram the foundation of another state which,
in the reign of his successor Ageng, 1613-1646, gained the ascendency
over the rest of Java with Madura, subjugating even Sukadana in West
Borneo. Not, however, without strenuous exertion for Balambangan gave
a good deal of trouble in the East and the conquest of Sumedang in the
West, in 1626, taxed the military strength of the rising empire to
its utmost. When the East India Company began to make its influence
felt, Moslim solidarity proved a valuable asset as, for instance, in
the relations with Bantam and Cheribon, whose Pangeran proposed the
title of Susuhunan for Ageng (1625) before Mecca promoted him to the
Sooltanate (1630). In 1628 and 1629 he ventured to attack Batavia, the
new settlement of the Dutch, but had to retire and, what was even worse,
by provoking those upstart strangers, he damaged his trade: they closed
the channels of export to Malacca and other foreign ports of rice, the
principal produce of the land. “Mataram must now become our friend,”
wrote the Governor-General to his masters, the Honourable Seventeen,
and, indeed, Mangku Rat I., Ageng’s son, found himself obliged to
sign a treaty of friendship with the Company--a dangerous friendship!
Differences between their “friend” and Bantam with Cheribon were
sedulously fostered by the authorities at Batavia; the Company took a
hand in the putting down of disturbances created in East Java by Taruna
Jaya of Madura and Kraëng Galesoong of Macassar; the Company patronised
and protected the reigning Sooltans, who moved their residence from
Karta to Kartasura, against pretenders and exacted payment in land,
privileges, concessions, monopolies, etc., shamelessly in excess of the
real or pretended assistance afforded in quelling purposely manufactured
anarchy--precisely as we see it happen nowadays wherever western
civilisation offers her “disinterested” services to eastern countries of
promising complexion for exploitation by western greed.
Mataram, trying to escape from the extortionate friendship of the
honey-tongued strangers at Batavia, whose thirst for gold seemed
unquenchable, has its counterparts in benighted regions now being
“civilised” after the time-honoured recipe: interference which upsets
peace and order, more interference to restore peace and order with
the naturally opposite result, occupation until peace and order will
be restored, gradual annexation. The East India Company’s mean spirit
of haggling was held in utter contempt by the native princes, _grands
seigneurs_ in thought and action, too proud to pay the hucksters with
their own coin, though bad forebodings must have filled the mind,
for instance, of Susuhunan Puger, recognised at Batavia as Mataram’s
figurehead under the name of Paku Buwono I.,[59] when near his capital
a Dutch fort was built and garrisoned with Dutch soldiers to back him
in his exactions for the benefit of alien usurers and sharpers. Like
the rat of Ganesa, they penetrated everywhere and the tale of their
relations to the lords of the land is one of tortuous insinuation until
they had firmly established themselves and could give the rein to their
sordid commercialism in always more exorbitant claims. Paku Buwono II.,
feeling his end approach, was prevailed upon, in 1749, to bequeath his
realm to the Company, but one of the most influential members of the
imperial family decided that this was carrying it a little too far:
Mangku Bumi,[60] brother of Paku Buwono II., supported by Mas Saïd, son
of the exiled Mangku Negara,[61] and other _pangerans_ (princes of the
blood), stood up in arms to defend their country’s rights and inflicted
severe losses on the Dutch troops in stubborn guerrilla warfare. This
led to the partition of Mataram between Paku Buwono III. and his uncle
Mangku Bumi, both acknowledging the supremacy of the Company, the latter
settling at Jogjakarta, the old capital Karta, under the title and
name of Sooltan Mangku Buwono,[62] while Mas Saïd, who did not cease
hostilities before 1757, gained also a quasi-independent position as
Pangeran Adipati Mangku Negara, which in 1796 became hereditary. With
three reigning princes for one, the power of Mataram was definitely
broken and Batavia assumed the direction of her affairs quite openly,
the “thundering field-marshal” Daendels emphasising her state of
decline and the British Interregnum bringing no change.
In 1825 the divided remnant of Mataram, viz. Surakarta with the Mangku
Negaran and Jogjakarta with the Paku Alaman,[63] was deeply stirred by
Pangeran Anta Wiria calling upon his compatriots to chase the oppressors
away. Born from a woman of low descent among the wives of Mangku Buwono
III., Sooltan of Jogjakarta, it seems that, nevertheless, hopes of his
succession to the throne had been held out to him when he assisted his
father against the machinations of his grandfather, Sooltan Sepooh
(Mangku Buwono II.), banished by Raffles in 1812. However this may be,
he resented the settlement of the Sooltanate on the death of Mangku
Buwono III. upon Jarot, an infant son, and other circumstances adding
to his dislike of Dutch control, he raised the standard of revolt. The
Javanese responded with alacrity to an appeal which bore good tidings
of delivery as the wind, ridden by the Maroots who make the mountains
to tremble and tear the forest into pieces, bears good tidings of
coming rain to a parched earth. Anta Wiria, under his more popular
name of Dipo Negoro, and his lieutenants Ali Bassa Prawira Dirja, or
Sentot, and Kiahi Maja, gave the Dutch troops plenty of bloody work in
the five years during which the Java war lasted, 1825-1830. It was the
last eruption on a large scale of the fire imprisoned in the native’s
heart, the last sustained effort at regaining his independence, crushed
by the white man’s superiority in military appliances, but occasional
throbbings, ruffling the surface as in Bantam (1888), the Preanger
Regencies (1902), Kediri (1910), etc., show that the volcano is by no
means an extinguished one. Though “kingdoms are shrunk to provinces and
chains clank over sceptred cities,” the love of liberty, laid by as a
sword which eats into itself, does not own foreign dominion, and the
native princes, especially the Susuhunan of Surakarta and the Sooltan
of Jogjakarta, remain objects of worshipful homage. Their genealogy
remounts to the gods whose essence took substance in the illustrious
prophet Adam who begat Abil and Kabil on the goddess Kawa; the history
of their house begins with the arrival in the island, in the Javanese
year 1, of Aji Soko; they are the _panatagama_ and _sayidin_ (_shah
ad-din_), directors and leaders of religion; their Courts set the
fashion in high native society, Solo[64] being more gay and extravagant,
Jogja[64] more sedate and solid, as a writer at the end of the
eighteenth century already remarked.
The Dutch Government recognises the imperial or royal dignity of
Susuhunan and Sooltan by the superior position of its Residents in the
capitals of their Principalities, who, directly responsible to the
Governor-General, correspond in rank to the general officers of the
army, while the administrative heads of the other residencies have
to content themselves with the honours due to a colonel; also by the
institution of dragoon body-guards whose ostensibly ornamental presence
can be and has been turned to good account when the mental intoxication
arising from meditation on gilded disgrace, charged with the lightning
of passion, produces effects irreconcilable with the fiction that all
is for the best in this best of worlds. With the Government steadily
encroaching on the native princes’ ancient rights, bitterness grows
apace and irritation at the recoiling weight of bondage lives on, though
colonial reports represent it as dead. Truly, in the three centuries
during which it pleased Kuwera, the fat god of wealth, to inspire the
strangers from the West, rich in promise but slow in performance,
exacting and pitiless, to deeds of unprincipled rapacity, the people
have learned to hide their thoughts that worse may not follow, hoping
that time will set things right. But as everything points more clearly
to the fixed purpose of the Dutch Government to avail themselves of
every pretext for swallowing the Principalities as all the rest has been
gobbled up, there are those who cherish the memory of Dipo Negoro and
consider the necessity of new man-offerings: the greater the need, the
greater must be the propitiation. On the whole, however, better counsel
prevails, deliverance being sought on planes of mystic exercise, silent
submission being practised in expectation of the consummation of a
higher will, and this is the native’s secret as he repeats the lessons
inculcated in the _Wulang Reh_, the treatise on ethics written by one
of the eminent of the past, Sunan Paku Buwono IV.: May ye imitate our
ancestors, who were endowed with supernatural strength, and may ye
qualify for penitence, heeding closely the perfection of life; this is
my prayer for my children; be it granted! Meanwhile taxation increases,
but who can object to that when in days of old the good people had to
pay for the privilege of looking at the public dancers, whether they
car
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