Tyanḍi Båråbudur. (continued 2)

And last of all I’ll point to the seventieth sculpture (fifth corner 2), showing us a similar representation, but where the tyakra has been replaced by the disc of the sun.[66]

One can’t possibly wish a more eloquent witness of the harmony of the tyakra and disc of the sun, and of the connection there is between these celestial bodies and the Buddha, between Buddha and Vishnu or, in other words, between the Buddha- and sun-worship.

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For completeness’ sake I further mention that on the back-wall of this gallery are to be found many sculptures upon which more than five till seventeen Buddhas have been hewn in different postures (mudrâs). In my opinion the king of Siam rightly observed that here can’t be meant any Dhyâni-Buddha.

Foucher gave us another reasonable explanation of these sculptures by connecting them with Syrâvastî’s great wonder when the Buddha covered all the heaven with the reflexions of his own body. For the sake of brevity I therefore refer to that which has been mentioned hereabout in my “Oudheidkundige Aanteekeningen” IV, p. 42 and 44.

It only remains for me now to speak a few words about the relievoes major van Erp recognised to be jâtaka-representations guided as he was by the text of the great work of Mr. Cowell’s and contributors.

In the lower series on the front-wall of the first gallery we see, on the second sculpture south of the eastern staircase, the Bodhisattva ploughing his field as a farmer. Performing this task he suddenly finds a treasure the fourth part of which he presents the needy. (W. L., engraving CXXXVI). This is the Kanytyanakhandhajâtaka.

In the upper series on the very same wall van Erp thought the last of the 4 sculptures, after the fourth corner west of the southern staircase, to be another Sigala-jâtaka. In imitation of professor Speyer’s however, I described this as the jâtaka’s conclusion, the starving sparrow asking the lion for a little bit of the prey he killed shortly before. (W. L.’s engraving CLXX).

And in 5 relievoes on the same front-wall, but on the northern side of the ruin (not engraved in L’s) he meant he saw the Mora-jâtaka, where the Bodhisattva, caught as a peacock by the hunter of the king of Bénarès, teaches the doctrine to the prince.

Another jâtaka has been still mentioned in Leemans’ (Engraving CLXXXIII, and CLXXXIV and 3 other ones), where the Bodhisattva died a monkey when he sacrificed his life for the sake of his blind mother. His younger brother did likewise all which can’t prevent the hunter from shooting down even the mother-monkey after having first killed the two others.

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It is the Syula-Nandiya-jâtaka in which the wicked hunter is being severely punished.

According to the pâli-text the Buddha himself related that this former hunter afterwards became his wicked nephew Devadatta; his younger brother-monkey Ananda, and that their blind mother was afterwards reincarnated in his step- and foster-mother Gotamî[67].

Van Erp gives us at last an explanation of another relievo we see on the lower series of the same wall, but this hasn’t been engraved in Leemans’ work either. Consulting the ground-plan we come across number 120 which refers to the panel it has been sculptured upon. Van Erp possesses a photography of this.

It corresponds pretty well to the relievoes I described as 11 and 12 of the upper series behind the second corner south of the eastern staircase, because in the two jâtakas the Bodhisattva represents a hare who flings herself into a fire to feed a hungry traveller; in this Syasya-jâtaka however, the mentioned hungry man does not represent the deity Indra but rather a risyi or anachorete, who rescues the hare out of the flames as well as Indra did.

I further mention that each of the terraces under foot lies about 3 yards higher than the preceding one, and communicates with each other by staircases of about 10 treads on an average.

Further, that each gallery between the walls is about 2 yards wide, and that these walls have a thickness of 1½ yard.

And finally, that there are among the architectural ornaments, I didn’t mention, numerous nâga-heads with opened mules and upward curled trunks which formerly carried off the rain-water (from under all these walls) to outside from terrace to terrace. Nowadays this water permeates through the time-worn stones into the rather loose soil of the hill till under the ruin. Dropping through all lower joints, and between the stones falling asunder more and more upon which the heavy stûpa has been built, it can’t be otherwise or all this is to destroy the ruin more and more, and sooner or later there will come a time when the temple itself shall partly or wholly fall to the ground, ... when the Dutch Government don’t know to prevent this by doing all that will be indisputably necessary.

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And as it is a truth not to be denied that solar heat and rain-water are the two prevailing factors to cause the destruction of these and other ruins the only way to prevent all this must be therefore found by shutting out solar-heat and rain, that is, by means of a protecting cover such as drawn up and offered to the Dutch Government by Mr. van de Kamer. Any other manner of “restoration” will turn out to be a failure even when one may succeed in joining together all loose stones, and in cementing all the gaps. For the stone itself (andesit-lava) is so very porous that is used anywhere in Java for filtering-stones.

However, it doesn’t alter the fact that there will be no much chance that the Dutch Government will do what I also recommended her as the only thing needful.[68] The late Dr. Brandes, the first official president of the “Oudheidkundige Kommissie voor Java en Madoera” had proposed a far less sovereign but cheaper effort to the rectification of this sorrowful state of things, and even the authorities in Netherland concurred with this idea of his, though they would be inclined to think quite otherwise if they could unprejudicedly examine this question in loco. And the newly appointed president, the competent scholar and great authority on Indian matters, shall he think otherwise?[69]. Or will the rain-water continually permeate through and under the invaluable ruin, and carry away its bottom, and assure at last the ruin of the richest and most beautiful Hindu-work of art we possess, which, in all India and even in the mainland, speaks of the Buddha?... Should we then, as a civilised colonising power, not be worthy of such a treasure?

Oh, could I only persuade the Indian and Dutch authorities into willing and acting in quite another and better sense!

The major of the Indian engineer corps, Mr. van Erp, did everything he could, notwithstanding the limited means the Dutch Government 76 allowed him to dispose of, and he consequently co-operated to the preservation of this precious ruin for a longer or shorter period of time. But this is not yet enough. Granting the means of our (Dutch) small empire to be too feeble to such a purpose—why then not try to form a Båråbudur-Society like the French founded a Société d’Angkor in behalf of the ruins of Kamboja, which not only found support from the side of fellow-country-men in Europe and Farther-India or anywhere else, but also from foreigners?

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X.

Finding ourselves on the fourth gallery we see there twelve-treaded staircases leading to the twenty-angled upper plane which had been walled in to its outside only. Successively (concentrically thus) we see there three circular terraces continually rising one yard and a half, declining three yards, and connected with each other by means of seven or eight-treaded staircases.

Along the outer-edge of the first we see stand 32 open worked dagobs or tyaityas; on the second there are 24, and on the third and highest 16, so altogether 72. And within this circle rises the majestic middledagob as the only real dagob or stûpa representing the leading idea, the final purpose of the whole ruin.

When standing on the polygonal upper plane the space between the spires of niches and tyaityas of the highest wall offers a strikingly beautiful aspect deep down and far off on the surrounding mountainous landscapes; a vista we enjoy far better when from the third and highest circular terrace. The whole valley of Prågå lies there westward at the foot of mount Mĕnoreh, a neptunian formation of volcanic materials—and, to the east, of the high twin volcanoes Mĕrbabu and Mĕrapi, and, to the north, of the Sumbing, the highest volcano of this part of Central Java.

All the open worked tyaityas of the round terraces have a round foot modeled like a lotus-cushion doing duty as Padmâsana which carries the sculpture (placed thereupon and inside) with its bell-shaped barrow.

The bell with square openings has a height of 1½ yard carrying a slantingly rising square stone-block crowned with an octangular cone rounded off on its top[70].

The large middle-dagob has the same type, but its wails partly rise in a perpendicular line above the foot nicely framed and hewn in the 78 style of a colossal lotus-cushion in order to finish into a flat cupola rising for at least 8 yards above the highest circular terrace.

It was van Erp who found back some fragments of the large cone, which once crowned this real dagob, so that he was able to finish again this stûpa, now wholly closed again, and crowned once more with the basis of the cone.

The unfinished Buddha image found inside in its bhumi-sparsya-mudrâ had been kept outside, and provisionally deposited on the hill at the north-western foot of the ruin.

Now it will be impossible to reach this dagob’s top because the temple-stone staircase leading to this (it should be understood however, that the staircase itself did not belong there), has been removed, but a walk on the highest terrace situated at the foot some 40 yards above the hill-top is still worth while, and the eyes are pleased then with the very same beautiful vista formerly to be overlooked from a brick bench placed on the damaged cupola, and overburdened as it were with the names of unknown visitors scratched upon it.

Deep, ever greening and blooming, or, in harvest-time, brown-yellow or earth-colored planes, most often cloud-likely bedewed early at morn, breathing life and enjoyment of life, so to say under the powerful ribs of mount Mĕnoreh, badly bursten and highly crowned, and the cloud-like tops of craters of more than three volcanoes, and the active Mĕrapi still vomitting death or destruction in their surroundings, but also producing new life on the soil all covered with time-worn volcanic-ruins.

In face of such a stupendous creation we feel very little—yet, as the children of the very same creation, rich, and as thinking beings happy and great[71].

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XI.

It only remains for me now to add a short description to the Buddha sculptures which made the ruin call: Båra-buddå or Pårå buddå, that is, the many or conjoint Buddhas.[72].

All of them are in a sitting posture with crossed legs, almost in the same posture the Javanese call silå, but upright.

They are dressed in a thin mantle uncovering their right arms and shoulders—such as the monks of the southern church wear their cowls—and have the tiara, the round hair-knot, on their heads all covered with short curls. Even the ûrnâ, the little tuft of hair on their fronts is still to be seen on many a sculpture, and on the other ones, less accurately hewn, they are forgotten[73].

The posture of all of them tells resignation and peace, and may speak of the later final dissolving in the nirvâna, the joy- and painless not-to-be.

But the sculptor didn’t succeed in interpreting all the sculptures in this sense. Not all the sculptors had been equally good artists for they must have had much more work the best of them might have finished alone.

Among the sculptures placed opposite the five zones of heaven, the East, South, West and North and the Zenith, there is to be seen a slight difference in the posture of the right hands, and something more difference in the posture of the two hands with regard to those sculptures we see on the round terraces. All the sculptures on the five encircling walls have been hewn with their left hands in their laps, that is, with the palm on the right foot. Those on the four lower walls have (on the east side) their right hands with their backs, on the south side these very same hands with the palms upwards on the right knees; those of the west (opposite to the setting sun) hold both their hands in their laps, and those of the north rise their right hands a little above the right thigh, palm forward, and the five fingers closed together in a perpendicular line.

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The sculptures of the whole fifth and highest walls dominating all the regions of heaven only distinguish themselves from those on the northern lower walls by means of the bent index of the raised right hand forming a closed circle with the somewhat joined thumb, that is, because of the stone’s brittleness.

The sculptures of the open worked tyaityas on the three round terraces however, raise their two hands before the epigastric region, the left one with the palm and the bent finger-tips in an upward direction, the right one with the palm to the left and the fingers bent over those of the other hand[74]. Moreover, they all miss the glory and have not been placed in open temple-niches above a human and mythical- and animal world represented by many sculptures, but hewn in transparently closed graves, and in higher spheres above this world. There is consequently more difference than between the sculptures of the five encircling walls.

There is still another sculpture unique of its kind.

When, a long time ago, in the beginning of our last century, the middle-dagob was opened a double space was found inside, a smaller above a larger one, and, among others, a Buddha image corresponding in size to all other sculptures, whereas the posture of the hands tallied with those on the eastern lower walls[75].

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This image having been unfinished can’t be ascribed to the merest chance or to an untimely stop of the temple-building, because the dagob itself, where it had been wholly closed in, was finished afterwards.

So it must have been intentionally left in this state, but I can’t possibly accept the supposition that it should refer to the future [fifth] Dhyâni-Buddha in state of being.

A future, not yet existing Buddha can’t be materialized by a half-sculptured image, and the fifth Dhyâni-Buddha is never hewed in the posture of the hands of the second, but always, such as on the northern lower walls, in his own mudrâ whereas the future Buddhas as Bodhisattvas were represented not only in other postures but also in another dress and ornament and with their own attributes.

Besides, the hypothesis challenged by me would not yet solve still existing mysteries, but would only give rise to other enigmas which don’t bring us any farther.

The explanation of the fact may be much simpler.

I think it may have been considered quite unnecessary to finish a sculpture in such an accurate manner like all the other ones, if it should be hidden from sight for ever.

What is the meaning of these different Buddhas?

According to the posture of the hands we may divide them into six—according to other data into three groups. Nothing more and nothing less.

The three groups are:

1. The 432 Buddhas of the open temple-niches on the five richly hewed encircling walls, all of them seated on lotus-thrones and crowned with glories.

2. The 72 Buddhas of the open worked tyaityas on the three round terraces, without any glory or lotus-throne but represented by the padmâsana of the tyaitya-foot. But even the human and animal world hewn under the niche-Buddhas we don’t see there again.

3. The only Buddha of the large dagob entirely sequestered, without glory or throne, but seated above the padmâsana which carries the whole dagob.

The posture of the hands however, ought to refer to six groups, because there are six different mudrâs.

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Wilhelm von Humboldt was the first who considered five of the six Buddhas to be the representations of the five Dhyâni-Buddhas.

Three of them: Vairotyana, Akshobhya and Ratna Sambhava successively redeemed and ruled over three following former worlds; the fourth, Amitâbha—our Gautama or Shakya-muni—ruled over our world these 24 centuries, and is said to be succeeded, after the creation of a new world, by the fifth and last, Amogasiddha, the Buddha of love.

Especially in the posture of the hands there is some conformity between five of the six Båråbudur-images and the five Dhyâni-Buddhas such as we see them hewed in Asia. But there are also some points of difference.

In the Mongol countries, for instance, the two first Dhyâni-Buddhas are throning in the East; the third in the South, the fourth in the West and the fifth in the North[76].

Taking, according to the posture of the hands, the images of our ruins to be Dhyâni-Buddhas the East would then be only occupied by the second and the zenith by the first of them, that is, above the round terraces which don’t dominate any region of heaven. But this happens more elsewhere in Asia.

But which will be the sixth Buddha represented there by all the sculptures of the fifth and highest encircling wall, and dominating all the zones of heaven, but which can’t be a Dhyâni-Buddha?

That’s a new enigma rightly explained by the king of Siam, I suppose,[77] and which I’m going to show directly.

And that the unfinished Buddha of the large dagob can’t represent the fifth Dhyâni-Buddha appears from the posture of the hands which would refer to the second, 92 times hewed on the eastern lower-walls.

Should it represent a Dhyâni-Buddha, it must be this one and for such an idea I can’t find any reason.

Had the Mahâyânists had the intention to place there one of their 83 five Dhyâni-Buddhas, they surely would have rendered homage to their own Redeemer, the fourth. The four other ones may have only had a legendary-historical sense, consequently also the second. In spite of the mudrâ of this second Dhyâni-Buddha the image itself should not be meant as Akshobhya, but simply as the perfect Buddha, the Shakya having taking flesh as Buddha—for this is the meaning of this mudrâ even to the Buddhists of the southern church who don’t know several Dhyânis but the only Buddha.

And as these five Dhyâni-Buddhas don’t wholly explain the images of the Båråbudur, and don’t wholly expound the sixth, I therefore thought it reasonable to take all the Buddhas of the five encircling walls as one separated group, those of the three circular terraces as a second, and the ones of the closed dagob as the only representative of a third, whereas the placing of the sculptures on these five walls should be connected with the five zones of heaven Siddhârta took possession of after his birth[78].

Should this group represent the Buddha perhaps, with reference to the human- and animal world described by the sculptures hewed beneath there, we then may refer to Wilsen’s and Leemans’ and accept the images (taken from the mentioned world) of the upper-terraces to be the Buddha as Arahat in a state of supreme purity or holiness, in the nirvâna, perhaps. The Buddha wholly enclosed by the large dagob, and so positively separated from the world, may refer to the parinirvâna, that is, the wholly dissolving in the infinite not-to-be; death without regeneration, the final purpose of all life[79].

For this dagob is a closed grave in which for about, or at least, eleven centuries ago the Buddhists may have hidden the vase containing some ashes of the really died Buddha; a trace of the remainders of the great wise man, the spotless preacher; a minim quantity of the Master’s ashes, the divine redeemer of all that lives and suffers, that thinks, feels and dies.

Mr. Foucher starts from the principle that he doesn’t like to contradict the explanation as if these Buddha images were to represent 84 Dhyâni-Buddhas, but he means that they should be examined more closely, and completed, and that the different groups ought to be judged again after severe study.

As for the present he discerns:

1, the bhunisparsya mudrâ in the 92 niches on the 4 first walls to the East;

2, to the South the vara-mudrâ;

3, to the West the dhyâni-mudrâ;

4, to the North the abhaya-mudrâ, and

5, in the 64 niches on the fifth and highest wall the vitarka-mudrâ (the gesture of discussion) and higher, among the 72 cupolae of the 3 circular terraces:

6, the dharma-tyakra-mudrâ (mark of distinction), and finally the only sculpture from the wholly closed dagob, hewed in the bhumi-sparsya-mudrâ.

So there is a slight difference between Foucher’s idea about the north-indian Mahâyânists and my defended explanation of the Siam Hînayânists.

“This is Buddha preaching the tyakra” said king Tsyula Longkorn to me, “and this means the tyakra”, joining the tops of the thumb and the index of his right hand so as to form something like a circle.

This seemed convincing to me, and I found this idea confirmed not only on all and still undamaged statues on the highest wall, but also, and especially, on a great many relievoes of the second gallery which represent the Buddha in a preaching posture.

It is true that the exactness of this view of mine had been indirectly denied by my great official antagonist, the late Dr. Brandes, but never did he dispute or refute this scientifically.

Mr. Groeneveldt, formerly the most competent authority on our Hindu sculptures in the Dutch Indies, thought the unfinished image of the middle-dagob to be a representation of the Adi-Buddha, and this would certainly have expounded this statue in it separately placing, if this immaterial primeval Buddha might have been ever represented in a material image. And there are more objections than only this impersonality of the divine primeval being materially revealing himself in the different Buddhas, and consequently not hewed 85 at Nepâl and Tibet but only represented by a symbol, a circle or two eyes[80].

Would the mahâyânistic architects of the Båråbudur have acted in quite a different sense?

I don’t see any Dhyâni-Buddha in this Buddha, but only the perfect preacher having taken flesh as the Buddha, the Master, who, though he did die, continues to live as long as this his world will exist.

Each posture of the hands has its own meaning, and there are much more than five mudrâs even in the hînayânistic countries like Siam where one doesn’t know any Dhyâni-Buddha.

This also refers to the posture of the sixth, for a long time unexplained Buddha on the highest encircling wall whose mudrâ was rightly called dharma tyakra[81]. Thumb and index, circularly joined together, represent the tyakra, god Vishnu’s disc, the sun, the symbol of the dharma, the buddhistic Doctrine.

Buddha has been consequently hewed there as preacher, preaching the doctrine to all people, and consequently towards all the regions of heaven. And this teaching of the king-Buddhist has been perfectly confirmed by the fact that on all the sculptures (especially on those we also see on the backwall of the second gallery) the thumb and the index join each other in the very same manner.

That this preaching preacher has been placed upon the highest wall will be easily understood if we consider the preaching of the doctrine to be the highest vital expression of Buddhism, and possibly referred to both the world of the four zones of heaven and to the one of the celestials in the zenith.

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XII.

A few remarks about the sculptures of the original foot of the outer-wall we didn’t discover before 1886. In 1890 I proposed them to be uncovered and photographed, afterwards they were covered again in the ancient manner, and hidden from sight.

They have been hewed on a projecting wall-foot which goes tolerably deep beneath the heavy ogive, now resting as a socle again on the surrounding outer-terrace that has been afterwards built all round the 36-angled basis of the temple, but only on 24 of the 40 panels. The two sides of each of the double fore-buildings of the four temple-fronts built towards the different zones of heaven, haven’t been adorned with any sculpture, but the staircases divide the four middle fore-buildings into two panels.

Each of the 24 hewed panels contains six or eight imageries one metre long by about 80 inches high. A system of flat frames might have separated the whole series from the mentioned ogive, so to say, a regular combination interrupted by the staircases only.

If the 160 scenes which form this combination are to represent a series of following events or legends we then must try to find the beginning (like on nearly all other hindu temples) to the south of the eastern staircase following it from there through the South, West and North till the starting-point in the East.

This didn’t happen and could not have happened when they were photographed because the temporary uncovering began and was continued at more than one place at the same time without knowing how many sculptures there would be found. They have been marked on the clichés with capital letters for the different panels, and with figures for the scenes of each panel (from 1 till 6 or 1 till 8), but these numbers have been occasionally noticed in a just direction, and from time to time in a reversed successive number. On a few copies we don’t see any letter and number; they may have been cut off with the margin of papier.

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Fortunately, the figures in lead pencil on the back-side could assist me, though they sometimes started from quite a wrong point.

The Dutch Government ordered 15 pair of photos to be taken from these clichés, and presented them to special musea or societies. I, the schemer of the plan, do not belong to the favoured. But the afterwards wrecked Archaeological Society did, notwithstanding I, her president, sent this plan to the Government for about 25 years ago[82].

Those who desire to examine these photos will find here the letters and figures in the just successive number of the sculptures to begin with C 1 south of the eastern staircase.

Six of these 160 sculptures are badly damaged whilst one of them is wholly lost. (R. 5). Seven have less suffered. Twenty 88 representations remained partially unfinished (C 3 and 4, B 7, A 2, U 4, S 1, O 7, N 5, M 2, K 4 and 3, H¹ 2, H 1, G 4 and 8, F 2, 4 and 6, D 3 and C¹ 4). Partly finished but for the rest not yet drawn in the rough are 3 scenes (H¹ 1, F¹, and D 4) whereas one (I 1) has been scarcely sketched.

On the flat frame above the series we see a few short indications engraved in ancient-javanese characters—dating, according to professor Kern, from about the year 800 of the Syaka-era,—roughly hewed and in a perfunctory manner, as if it were scratched in stone with a knife or a chisel, that is, above H 1, 2, 3 and 4 (twice); 5 (bis) and 6 (bis); F 1, 4, and 5; E 6 and 5; D 8, 6 (bis), 5 (bis), 4, 3 and 1 (bis)[83].

Some of these legends are no more or hardly to be read but the other ones read by Dr. J. Brandes don’t teach us any more than that which we may understand by closely examining the representations themselves, for instance, that the sĕmbah of the persons seated around a tomb or sanctuary refers to a reverence to a tyaitya[84].

Some inscriptions may contain the name of the person to be hewed, and to assist the sculptor.

The unfinished and scarcely sketched sculptures prove us that they, such as on other tyanḍis at Parambanan, have been hardly hewed here on the walls of the finished temples.

In these sculptures I could not have recognised any continuous series. Among many a domestic and some rural scenes I saw two or three fowlings with a pea-shooter or bow and arrow (M 5 and 3), and one fishing (I 6); one war-dance (C 5) and some other dancings on the occasion of which a wind-instrument provided with a bagpipe (S 2 and R. 17) was played on. Further there are offerings of food or flowers to Bodhisattvas or other venerable personalities, and once to the Dhyâni-Buddha Amitâbha, the Redeemer of this world 89 (K 3), by six crowned men and to be distinguished by their glories (Bodhisattvas perhaps?)

On one sculpture (K 2) Amitâbha (?) has been four times represented as an ascetic in the wilderness. Sometimes there are hewed demons or raksyasas, most often attacking or killing other people (M 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8); tyaityas are to be seen more than once (U 3, T 6, 4 and 3, K 4, G 6, F 6, E 6, D 8, 6 and 3, and C¹ 6). Bodhi-trees covered by payongs and some gandharvas under their shade, such as to be found more than once in the Parambanan ruins and speaking of Buddhism even there, have been hewed five times (K 6, G 4, F 3 (bis) E 4 and C¹ 6), and once with a payong only (D 1). Vishnu’s tyakra has been once represented on a lotus-cushion in the sky (C 2).

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