The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-09-07
A GREAT BUDDHIST RUIN IN
 JAVA THAT RIVALS THE PYRA-

| JAVA THAT RIVALS THE PYRA- | MIDS.
 | Miss E. R. Scidmore has written for the Century an account of visit to the Buddhist ruins in Java She says of the great temple:
 | A gray ruin showed indistinctly on a hilltop, and after run through a long, arched avenue, we came out suddenly at the base of the hill temple. Instead ot mad triumphant sweep around the great pyramid, the ponies baked, | rooted themselves past any flashing or "Gr-r-ee-ing." and we got out and | walked under the monday sun, around | the hoary high altar of Buddha, down | an avenue of tall kanari-trees, lined With statues, gargoyles, and other such rccha, or remains of ancient art, to the l passagran, or government rest-house. l The deep portico of the passagran | commands an angle and two sides of | the square temple and from the mass | of blackened and bleached stones the ] eye finally arranges and follow out the | broken lines of the terraced pyramid, covered with such a wealth of orna- ment as no other one structure in the world presents. The first near view Is almost disappointing. In the blur of details it is difficult to realize the vast proportions of this twelve-c century old structure-a pyramid the base platform of which is five hundred feet square, | the first terrace walls are three hun dred feet square, and the final dome to | height of one hundred feet. Stripped of every kindly relief of vine and moss, every gap and ruined an gle visible, there was something garish raw and almost disor- dered at the first glance almost as jarring as newness, and the hard black-and-w white effect of the dark lich- ems on the gray trachyte made it look like bad photograph of the pile.
 The temple stands on broad plat form, and rises first in five square ter races, enclosing galleries, or process sional paths, between their walls which are covered on each side with bas-re- lief sculptures. IT placed in single line these bas-reliefs would extend for three miles. The terrace walls hold four hundred and thirty-six niches or all cove chapels, where life-size Buddhas sit serene upon lotus cushions. Stair cases ascend In straight lines from each of the four sides, passing under stepped or pointed arches, the keystones of which are elaborately carved masks, and rows of sockets in the jambs show where wood or metal doors once swung
 Above the square terraces are three circular terraces, where seventy-two latticed dagobas (reliquaries in the shape of the calyx or bud of the lotus) enclose each seated image, seventy two more Buddhas sitting in these in- ner, upper circles of Nirvana, facing a great dagoba, or final cupola, the exact function or purpose of which as key to the whole structure is still the puzzle of archaeologists. This final shrine is fif- ty feet in diameter, and either covered a relic of Buddha, or a central well where the ashes of priests and princes were deposited, or is a form surviving from the tree-temples of the earliest primitive east when nature-w worship prevailed The English engineers made an opening in the solid exterior and found an unfinished statue of Buddha on platform over a deep well-hole, and it's head, half buried in debris, still smiles upon one from the deep cavern. A staircase has been constructed to the summit of this dagoba, and from 1t one looks down upon the whole, structure as on a ground-plan drawing, and out over finely cultivated fields and thick palm-groves to the matchless peaks and the nearer hills that enclose this fertile valley of the Boro Boedor-"the very finest view I ever saw" wrote Ma rianne North
 Three-fourths of the terrace chapels and the upper ragobas have crumbled; i; hundreds of statues are headless, arm less, overturned, missing; tees, or fin ials, are gone from the bell-roofs; ter race walls bulge, lean outward and have fallen in long stretches; and the circular platforms and the processional paths undulate as if earthquake-wa were at the moment rocking the mass. No cement was used to hold the fitted stones together, and other Hindu pecu- liarities of construction are the entire absence of column, a pillar or an arch. Vegetation wrought great ruin during it's buried centuries, but earth quakes and tropical rains are working now a slow but surer ruin that will leave little of Boro Boedor for the next century's wonder-seekers, unless the walls are soon strengthened and strong ly braced.