Borobudur temple: what it is
Borobudur is a stepped Buddhist monument on the island of Java. Guinness World Records lists it as the largest Buddhist temple in the world.
It was not built on flat ground. UNESCO describes it as a monument raised around a natural hill, with a large stupa crowning the summit. The hill is part of the structure.
The upper part has three circular platforms. The lower part rises in stepped terraces. You walk upward through the whole design, level by level.
Think of climbing the stairwell of an apartment block. Each floor changes what you see. Borobudur works the same way, except that the climb itself carries meaning, as the next sections explain.
Where is Borobudur located?
Borobudur stands on Java Island, in the Magelang area of Central Java province, according to the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism. English Wikipedia places it about 40 kilometres northwest of the city of Yogyakarta.
So if you search “Borobudur Indonesia” or “Borobudur dimana” (Indonesian for “where is Borobudur”), the answer is the same. It is in the heart of Java, in Central Java, not on the coast and not on a separate island.
Two more temples stand to its east, Pawon and Mendut. UNESCO treats the three as one group. They are lined up on the same straight axis. You can read more about that below.
Who built Borobudur, and why?
UNESCO dates the construction to the Shailendra Dynasty, in the 8th and 9th centuries CE.
The next part is less tidy. No known record directly explains how Borobudur was built or what it was originally used for. The Turkish Wikipedia entry says so plainly.
What we do have is the monument itself. Its layout, reliefs and statues carry a clear design, and UNESCO reads that design through Buddhist ideas.
The Borobudur stupa and its terraces
The summit stupa is the most recognisable part of Borobudur. It is not the only one.
On the circular platforms, stupas with 72 openings surround Buddha statues placed inside them. The sculpture programme of the whole monument adds up to 504 Buddha statues, according to the Borobudur Conservation Office.
The vertical plan has three zones. UNESCO links them to the realms of desire, form and formlessness in Buddhist cosmology.
There is a second reading of the same climb. UNESCO says the ten rising terraces correspond to the stages a Bodhisattva must pass through before reaching Buddhahood.
In other words, the walk up is a model of a spiritual path. You start at the broad base. You end at the great stupa on top.
What the reliefs show
Borobudur is also a picture book in stone. The Indonesian Ministry of Tourism gives the number of relief panels as 2,672.
One narrative on them is the Gandavyuha. It tells of Sudhana and his search for wisdom.
The point is the scale. The reliefs are not scattered decoration. They run along the monument and tell stories to anyone who walks past.
Why was Borobudur abandoned?
UNESCO does not tie the abandonment to a single year. It places it between the 10th and 15th centuries. That is a gap of up to five hundred years.
The cause is also unsettled. English Wikipedia lists several proposals:
- volcanic events and a move of the political centre to East Java;
- Islamisation in the 15th century.
None of these is proven, and the exact cause is not known.
There is also a scientific argument about the temple’s setting. Murwanto and colleagues argued in a 2004 paper that sediment records show Borobudur was built beside a natural lake. G. Thanikaimoni’s 1983 study went the other way. It reported that an earlier pollen analysis found no traces of water or marsh plants, though he noted the results should be treated with caution.
Both views are published. Neither is settled.
Was Borobudur really forgotten?
The title of this article says “forgotten.” That is only partly true.
Borobudur was not erased from memory. Javanese chronicles linked it to stories of ill omen connected with the events of 1709 and 1757. So local tradition kept some memory of the place, even if it was not a memory of a working temple.
This fits what happened next. In 1814, Stamford Raffles, the British administrator, learned about Borobudur from local people. He then assigned the Dutch engineer Hermann Cornelius to investigate.
Clearing the jungle: 1814 to 1835
Cornelius and a team of 200 people spent two months in 1814 clearing trees and soil. That work exposed the monument.
The job did not end there. Christiaan Lodewijk Hartmann, the administrator of Kedu, continued the work. By 1835 the whole complex had been uncovered.
That is why the popular picture of a temple swallowed by jungle has a basis. Trees and earth did cover the monument, and people had to remove them by hand.
Borobudur temple photos: the hidden base
In 1885 a hidden base of Borobudur was discovered. It had been concealed under the outer casing of the monument.
The Javanese photographer Kassian Céphas documented all 160 Karmawibhangga relief panels on that covered base, according to the Borobudur Conservation Office. The Getty Research Institute holds his Views of Java.
There is a twist. The base was opened for the 1890–1891 photographing work and then covered again.
So if you search for old Borobudur photos, these images matter. They record panels that visitors could not see on the finished monument.
Restoration and World Heritage status
The monument has been restored twice on a large scale.
The first major restoration ran from 1907 to 1911 under Theodoor van Erp. The second was a UNESCO-supported restoration carried out between 1973 and 1983.
In 1991, Borobudur was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List together with Pawon and Mendut.
The story did not stop there. In the 2010 eruption of Mount Merapi, acidic ash reached Borobudur. UNESCO’s conservation assessment lists it among the threats to the monument.
Timeline
- 8th–9th centuries CE: Borobudur is built under the Shailendra Dynasty.
- 10th–15th centuries the temple is abandoned within the broad date range UNESCO gives.
- 1814 Cornelius and his team, sent by Raffles, begin clearing the monument.
- 1835 under Hartmann, the whole complex is uncovered.
- 1882 a proposal to dismantle the monument and move its reliefs to museums is rejected in favour of keeping it in place.
- 1885 the hidden base is discovered.
- 1890–1891 the hidden base is photographed and covered again.
- 1907–1911 the first major restoration, led by Van Erp.
- 1973–1983 the major UNESCO-supported restoration.
- 1991 Borobudur, Pawon and Mendut join the UNESCO World Heritage List.
- 2010 acidic ash from the Merapi eruption reaches the monument.
Details you won’t find in guidebooks
Museums almost got the reliefs. In 1882, a proposal suggested taking the monument apart and moving its reliefs to museums. Willem Pieter Groeneveldt’s study argued for protecting the structure where it stood. His view won. That is why you can still walk the original terraces today.
The base was photographed, then hidden again. The covered base was opened for the 1890–1891 photographing work and then covered once more. Céphas documented all 160 panels on it.
Three temples, one line. Borobudur, Pawon and Mendut are lined up on the same straight axis. UNESCO lists them as a single property.
Local memory never fully went out. Javanese chronicles connected Borobudur with stories of bad luck tied to the events of 1709 and 1757. The monument was lost to official attention for a time, but not to every storyteller.
FAQ
Where is Borobudur located?
Borobudur is on Java Island in Indonesia, in the Magelang area of Central Java province. It lies about 40 kilometres northwest of the city of Yogyakarta.
Who built Borobudur and when?
UNESCO dates its construction to the Shailendra Dynasty, in the 8th and 9th centuries CE. No known record directly explains who ordered it or what its original purpose was.
How many Buddha statues and relief panels does Borobudur have?
Its sculpture programme includes 504 Buddha statues. The Indonesian Ministry of Tourism gives the number of relief panels as 2,672.
Why was Borobudur abandoned?
Nobody knows for certain. UNESCO places the abandonment between the 10th and 15th centuries. Proposed explanations include volcanic events, a move of the political centre to East Java, and Islamisation in the 15th century.
When did Borobudur become a UNESCO World Heritage Site?
In 1991, together with the Pawon and Mendut temples to its east. A major UNESCO-supported restoration had been carried out between 1973 and 1983.
Sources
- Indonesian Ministry of Tourism, Borobudur indonesia.travel
- English Wikipedia, Borobudur en.wikipedia.org
- Guinness World Records, Largest Buddhist temple guinnessworldrecords.com
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Borobudur Temple Compounds whc.unesco.org
- Turkish Wikipedia (Vikipedi), Borobudur tr.wikipedia.org
- Balai Konservasi Borobudur, Internalisasi Pelestarian Candi Borobudur kebudayaan.kemdikbud.go.id
- Getty Research Institute, Kassian Cephas Views of Java getty.edu
- Balai Konservasi Borobudur, Kassian Céphas, Fotografer Relief Karmawibhangga kebudayaan.kemdikbud.go.id
- G. Thanikaimoni, Palynological investigation on the Borobudur monument persee.fr
- Murwanto et al., The Holocene, 2004 researchgate.net
Image: Borobudur-Nothwest-view.jpg — Gunawan Kartapranata, Public domain