January 31, 1999

     Their peaks reach up to the heavens like slender mountains.  That was the image that came to my mind the first time I saw the spectacular Hindu shrine at Prambanan in Central Java. Built in the ninth century, it is an architectural wonder.  Though the individual monuments are each much smaller than the pyramids, they are much more complicated and intricate with designs and carvings in stone on all sides.  Each monument has a story that is told in reliefs that encircle the monument.  As the visitor walks around the monument (circumambulates) in a clock-wise direction, she can “read” the story.  Each shrine is also dedicated to a particular Hindu god.  Some of the Hindu gods are Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu and Ganesha.  The god’s statue is placed in the main room at the very top of the shrine.  The statues are very big and the visitor has to climb up very steep, uneven, and well-worn steps to get to them, making it seem like the gods are in the heavens, like superior beings.
     Before Islam became the most widespread religion in Indonesia, most people were Hindus.  As you walk around between the shrines at Prambanan, you can see that the Hindu art looks very Indian.  That’s because Hinduism came to Indonesia from India.  You can also see a lot of Chinese-looking animals like guard dogs, dragons, and lions.  That’s because there was also influence from China.  (In fact, Southeast Asia used to be called Indo-China for this reason.)  There are also Balinese-style monster heads with pop-eyes and long tongues over the doorways that keep evil spirits from entering.  It’s really interesting to see all of the different influences that come together on these magnificent shrines.
     The temple wasn’t always so beautiful.  When the Dutch arrived and colonized Indonesia there wasn’t much more than big piles of rubble on the site.  You can see photos of what it used to look like at the entrance to the temple.  But with a lot of help from different countries like France and the Netherlands and the United States, and without any plans to go by, the Indonesians have managed to rebuild Prambanan slowly but surely, bit by bit.  Now the main structures have been rebuilt, but there are still many more piles of stones waiting to be reassembled sometime in the future.
     The Hindu people believed that the mountains were places where the gods met humans and took on different forms.  That is why most Hindu shrines are supposed to represent mountains.  The mountain shrines made an easy descent for the gods from the heavens. Prambanan’s main shrine is to Shiva, the most powerful of the Hindu Gods.  But Shiva took many forms and the smaller shrines are dedicated to his other manifestations.  My favorite is actually Ganesha, the elephant god, because Ganesha is the god of  learning and he has a pot belly like my brother.