The kingdoms of Central Java
A barrage of cultural influences have helped shape Indonesia, and nowhere more so than in Central Java, where untangling these dense threads reveals myriad hidden stories…
O n reaching the top of the Stairway to Nirvana, I came face to face with a smiling Buddha statue. Breathless from the walk up, a feeling of euphoria overtook me as I drank in the paradisiacal views of Central Java, intoxicated by the heat and the effort. Then, just as swiftly, my reverie was broken by an unexpected sound: the adhan – Islamic call to prayer – was blasting from the loudspeakers of mosques camouflaged by the jungle below, the muezzin’s sonorous invitation rippling through the canopies.
From my viewpoint atop Borobudur – the so-called ‘largest Buddhist temple in the world’ – the interruption was a reminder that Indonesia is also home to the planet’s biggest Muslim population too. At that moment my guide, Naroni, also pointed to a gloriously ornate series of reliefs depicting scenes from Hindu mythology. My head was spinning not just from the climb and the noise, but the cultural overload. Yet, as I’d soon learn, the mixing of influences is a key part of life in a region that is Indonesia’s spiritual heart.
My journey through Central Java took me from polytheistic kingdoms to batik villages, but there was only one place to begin: Borobudur, one of the ancient world’s most spectacular architectural achievements, albeit one that is often misunderstood.
“You need to stop calling it a temple,” Naroni corrected me. “It is not, as it lacks a hall of prayer.” Instead, he informed me, it is classified as a monumental shrine to the Buddha – though I preferred his more figurative description: “A Buddhist bible in stone.”
The design of Borobudur is a physical representation of the stages for attaining nirvana, a state of transcendence, symbolised here by a terraced mountain. It is the perfect embodiment of the universe according to Buddhist cosmology, and as I looked down on the ninth-century edifice below, its cosmic proportions – all 2,500 sqm – seemed fittingly vast…