The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-08-29
JAVA'S OLD TEMPLES.
THE SPLENDID RUINS THAT MARK THE CENTER OF ISLAND.

They Date Back to the Eighth or Ninth
 Century and Show That Their Build 1 CTS Were Far Advanced in the Art of i Architecture
 i If most people were asked to name i those countries of the world in which are still to be found splendid archi-
 tectural remains of bygone civiliza- tions, the names of Egypt India, Syria ! and Mexico would at once be forth coming, but few would place the island i of Java on the list. Yet not one of these could show ruins more numerous or 1 more splendid, says the London Globe | This may seem an exaggeration, but ] the same opinion has been universally expressed by the most eminent writ CTS on the subject As to the date and 1 rise and fall of a civilization which has left behind it with splendid memorials authorities are much at variance, but for the most part they are placed be- 1 tween the beginning and the eighth or ninth century of our era. Certain it is, i however, that at one time the island must have been ruled by a Hindoo i or Buddhist people far advanced in the arts of architecture and sculpture. l Among the finest and best preserved of those ruins is the great temple known as the Tyandi Barabudur, situ- ated near the center of Java. in the Isultanate of Djokakarta- Originally designed probably as dagaba or rest ! ing place for portion of the ashes of | Buddha, this building rises in the form of terraced pyramid, the part at pres ent above the ground being about $50 feet square by about 12O feet high. The l terraces at present visible are seven in number, the whole being surmounted | by dome thirty feet in height.
 I Each of these terraces is covered on the inner wall formed by the terrace above, and in the lower terrace also on outer walls running round them, by a series of bas-reliefs which for extent, variety and artistic merit have proba- l bly, not their equals in the world. Run- ming in a double tier round the lower 1 galleries and in a single tier round the lupper ones they are estimated to have a total length of over three miles and represent by a continuous series of 1 pictures not only the birth and life of 1 the Lord Buddha in his final incarna- tion, but also a large number of the 'jatakas" or previous lives of the master in the gradually ascending forms of animals and of men in various positions in life, and record his good deeds in each of those lives.
 Thus we have the story of the Bodhi- satva when on earth in the forms of a. hare. Indra the lord of heaven. in the form of a traveller weary and hungry, comes down to test the virtues of the various beasts. He receives fish from pan otter. a dish of curds from a jackaI and fruit from monkey, but the poor hare, having else to offer, presents his own body to the hungry traveller and 1 throws himself on to a fire to De roasted. Interrupted now in many \ places by the work of a thousand years ] of earthquakes, tropical storms and fanatical Mochammedan destroyers. this wonderful picture story runs up through gallery after gallery to where, in the central dome, entirely closed in and hidden, stood the final image of the master. free from any ornament, crown or aureole, the BuddhR raised above all earthly desires or passions.
 In the whole Of the series at present above ground there were originally no
 fewer than 2.2141 complete basrelief pictures, of which 98S are still in a fair state of preservation. There were, | in addition, in inches round the terrace walls, Al statues of Buddha larger than life, besides smaller ones past counting. The whole of this work is done not in soft stone, easy to manipu- late, but in the hardest and most in- tractable kinds of lava and trachyte.
 Alfred Russel Wallace in his classical work on the Malay archipelago re- marks. "The amount of human labor and skill expended on the great pyra-
 mid of Egypt sinks into insignificance
 when compared with that required to lcomplete this sculptured hill temple in
 the interior of Java"
 There is, however, one peculiar point
 in the construction which tends to show
 that the builders were not as good en- lgineers as they were sculptors and IS1A GiACCSto' INOullu lHe G1Llr6 DaSe
 there runs what looks like a broad
 pavement of cubes of stone laid but not
 cemented together. This broad pave
 ment has been removed in sections,
 each section being replaced in turn. and underneath was found another terrace. larger than any of those now visible
 and having its walls partly, but not en-
 tirely, covered with 160 more bag relief
 pictures in fine preservation. These
 were photographed and covered in
 again. The total mass a square blocks
 of stone covering this hidden terrace lamounts to 1000 cubic yards.
 The conclusion is inevitable that this
 hidden terrace was meant for the Ioriginal lower terrace, but that with Ithe building partly completed and the first set of sculptures still unfinished the builders found that their founda-
 tions were too week for the huge struc-
 ture and were obliged to sacrifice one terrace to strengthen them.
 Had not this been necessary the
 building would have stood up even
 more colossal than it is. The temple of Barabudor is orffy one among many in Java. At the village of Prambanam.
 also near Djokjakarta, are the ruins !