Our Trip to Borobudur and Jog Jakarta.

In the year 2011 November We visited Indonesia again,   this time to see Borobudur and Jog Jakarta.
We wanted to see the Hindu and Buddhist temples there.
We started on 26th November early morning,  Saturday by AirAsia  to Jog Jakarta.

We were met by the guide, at the Airport  and we proceeded directly to sight seeing places.

 We were taken to some local palace and also  a park like place called water castle which were not that impressive.
After lunch we were taken  to 'Parambanan'  temple.   This whole complex was completely covered by Volcanic Ash as there  is a an active Volcano Merapi nearby.   Now the ash has been cleared and  the temple is being  restored . It is a  World Heritage Site.
   It was built as a temple  for  Siva Vishnu and Brahma,  with separate 'Girba Griha for their Vahanas also .
 The  structure is  built with cut rock blocks joined by groves and not by any form of glueor mortar,   just each rock block nicely fitting the other.   Only the Brhama Statue and the Nandi statue is still standing and all the other statues are not there.

 This main temple has some two hundred odd temples surrounding it.  may be smaller Shrines built for different  Gods , but all  these are crumbled now.  Only two are three of these outer Shrines are restored to its original shape which is tough task
.  When I learn that this is a 7th Century temple my mind immediately rushes to think about how the technology, mythology, religion , transferred from India to such a far off place,  when Transportation, Communication etc were so primitive.    Hats off to those great people from India who did this and the feeling of elation I get when I visit such places like Bali, Ankhor Wat etc can not be expressed in words.

We climbed the steep steps into the huge main  Shrines and   looked at  magnificent Brhama Statue.  We do not have any temple back home for Brahma .

We could see the beautiful Nandi statue.  Many scenes from the epics  depicted on the rocks.  There were varieties of pairs of animals and birds carved in the stone like the peacock  picture I have posted, there were pairs of monkeys, rabbits,  swans, crows, lambs, goats, deer and many more animals showing the skills of the artists who did this.

That evening we attended a dinner followed by a Ramanyana Ballet. Lots of European tourists could be seen here and the Ballet was a slow moving dance from Seeta Apaharan to Seeta's Agni Pravesh.  They call Sita as Sinta and with mild variation it was our own Ramayana.  Kumbakarna is supposed to meditate and not sleep all the time,  as we ascribe to his  character and he is considered a hero more than Vibeeshana the other brother of Ravana who joins Rama. 

 Finally Rama and Sita are united  after a lot of acrobatics from Hanuman daring with fire in the

Lanka  Dahana  scene and acrobatics from little monkeys enacted by small kids.

Next Morning (27th Sunday) we got up at 3 a.m. as we wanted to see the Borobudur Buddha temple to see the sun rise from the top of the temple. The Sun played with us and  hid behind clouds.  It was hazy.  But the Buddhist structure was too good even in  that dim light.  

The temple complex  has ten levels each level has a Pradaksina place (yes they have aso written it as Pradakshina) around  a narrow corridor.   Both sides of  the corridor are filled with  Relief Panels  of different Hindu Gods and lots of Buddha statues in each level.

 When we reached the 10th level there were  many Buddha Stupas, conical structure which has Buddha Statue inside .(Many of them are broken now.)  These Stupas have Diamond /Square Lattice  pattern like we have the Bamboo Lattice .  In the centre of the topmost level is a   Big Stupa over which there used to be a Chatra (Umbrella) which  broke  and was  taken away.

 It was marvelous in the early morning to sit on the top  Prahara  with  three layers of Stupas below you  each containing 24, 32 and 48 Stupas.   The Big Structure  has four entrance one for each direction.  We could see the ' Merapi'   the live volcano from here.  This temple has also  been restored very well with proper underground drainage built in each level  to protect the structure and the silt cleared  quite often.  They do not want to repair the broken pieces with cement as it will add to the weight of the structure and damage the whole structure.  For a 7th Century structure this is also well preserved and the Relief Panels on the walls have distinct Indian influence.  I just sat there closing my eyes and  felt very peaceful.

There were many more smaller temples, Hindu temples not in use, Buddhist temple in use.   Near by there was  active Buddha Vihara (monastery).   This temple has a Buddha statue inside the Girba Griha but outside wall is full of Statues of Hindu Gods , Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Kalpavriksa and what not.

We were very curious to go near the Merapi Volcano.  On our way there we could see the destruction caused by the eruptions.  But I was disappointed that  we were not allowed to go very near and just had to see the volcano from  a far off place.

We returned to KL the next day morning.