Borobudur: Building Java's Great Buddhist Monument

Borobudur is a vast Buddhist monument on the Kedu Plain of Central Java, Indonesia, built in stages between about 780 and 825 under the Sailendra dynasty. Shaped as a stepped stone mountain crowned by a great stupa, it guides pilgrims through more than 2,600 carved relief panels on a symbolic journey towards enlightenment. Abandoned for centuries and restored in the twentieth century, it is today the largest Buddhist monument in the world.

Background: Java in the eighth century

In the eighth century Central Java was one of the most fertile and densely settled parts of maritime Southeast Asia. Rice grown on the volcanic soils of the Kedu and Kewu plains supported kings who expressed their power through stone temples, inspired by Indian religion and art but built in a distinctly Javanese style.

Two royal traditions are visible in the inscriptions of this period. One, often linked with the Sanjaya line, patronised Hindu temples to Shiva. The other, the Sailendra dynasty (“lords of the mountain”), followed Mahayana Buddhism and had close ties with the Sumatran trading kingdom of Srivijaya. How the two related to each other, whether as rival houses or branches of one royal family, is still debated by historians.

The Sailendras built several Buddhist monuments in Central Java, including Kalasan, Sewu, Mendut and Pawon. Borobudur was the largest and most ambitious of them all.

How Borobudur was built

Borobudur was not raised from flat ground. Its builders shaped a natural hill and then encased it in stone, so that the monument has no interior rooms: it is a solid structure meant to be walked around and climbed rather than entered. The site lies in a landscape of volcanoes, with Merapi, Merbabu, Sumbing and Sindoro on the horizon, near the meeting of the Progo and Elo rivers.

The stone is andesite, a grey volcanic rock taken from local rivers and quarries. Estimates of the total volume are usually given at around 55,000 cubic metres. Blocks were cut to fit together with interlocking notches and knobs, without mortar, and drainage was provided by about 100 spouts carved as mythical creatures.

Construction took several decades and was carried out in phases. Archaeologists studying the structure have found evidence of changes in plan, including an enlarged base and alterations to the upper levels. Most dates come from the style of the carving and from short inscriptions on the stones, which suggest work from about 780 until around 825, when the reign of King Samaratungga is usually associated with completion.

No inscription refers to Borobudur by its present name, and the origin of that name is uncertain. An inscription of 842 records a grant of land to support a sacred foundation called Bhumisambhara; some scholars, following the Dutch epigraphist J. G. de Casparis, have linked this with Borobudur, though the identification is not certain.

Design and meaning

Seen from above, Borobudur forms a mandala, a diagram of the Buddhist cosmos. Its square base measures about 123 metres on each side. Above it rise five square terraces and then three circular terraces, topped by a large central stupa. The monument stands about 35 metres high today; with the lost spire of the central stupa it was probably around 42 metres.

The levels are commonly interpreted as the three realms of Buddhist cosmology:

• Kamadhatu, the world of desire, represented by the base.
• Rupadhatu, the world of forms, represented by the square galleries with their walls of reliefs.
• Arupadhatu, the formless world, represented by the open circular terraces.

A pilgrim walked clockwise around each level, climbing gradually from the busy, crowded carvings of the lower galleries to the calm, open space of the summit. On the circular terraces stand 72 bell-shaped stupas of latticed stone, each containing a seated Buddha, arranged around the great central stupa. In total the monument originally held 504 Buddha statues.

The reliefs

Borobudur carries 2,672 relief panels: 1,460 narrative scenes and 1,212 decorative panels. Laid end to end, the narrative panels would stretch for several kilometres. They are among the finest and most extensive collections of Buddhist relief sculpture anywhere.

The reliefs illustrate a sequence of texts. The hidden base shows the law of cause and effect (karma) from the Karmavibhangga. The first gallery tells the life of the historical Buddha from the Lalitavistara, together with Jataka and Avadana tales of his earlier lives. The upper galleries follow the Gandavyuha, the story of the young pilgrim Sudhana’s search for wisdom.

The carvings are also a rich record of everyday life in ninth-century Java. They show houses, markets, musicians, farmers, animals and ships, including large outrigger vessels of the kind that sailed the trade routes of the Indian Ocean.

The hidden foot

When the monument was finished, a broad band of stone was added around the original base, covering 160 reliefs of the Karmavibhangga. The reason is unknown: it may have been needed to stop the structure spreading or slipping, or it may reflect a change in religious intent. In 1885 the Dutch engineer J. W. IJzerman discovered the hidden reliefs. They were photographed panel by panel and then covered again, except for a small section on the south-east corner left open for visitors.

Abandonment and rediscovery

In the early tenth century the centre of Javanese royal power moved east. By around 929 the court was based in East Java, and the great monuments of the centre lost their royal patrons. Possible reasons include political conflict, the search for new trade opportunities and volcanic activity, but none can be proved. From the fifteenth century onwards most Javanese gradually converted to Islam, and Borobudur ceased to be a place of active worship.

The monument was never completely forgotten. Javanese chronicles of the eighteenth century mention the hill of Borobudur, and local villagers knew of the ruins. But it was overgrown with jungle and partly buried under earth and volcanic ash.

During the British occupation of Java (1811–1816), the Lieutenant-Governor Thomas Stamford Raffles heard reports of a great monument in the Kedu region. In 1814 he sent the Dutch engineer H. C. Cornelius, who worked with around 200 men for about two months to clear trees and earth. Further clearing followed under the Dutch administration in the 1830s, and by 1835 the whole monument had been largely cleared.

Exposure brought new problems. Visitors took away heads of Buddha statues and carved stones as souvenirs, and in 1896 King Chulalongkorn of Siam was given eight cartloads of sculptures during a visit, many of which are now in Bangkok.

Restoration

The first major restoration was carried out by the Dutch army engineer Theodoor van Erp between 1907 and 1911. He rebuilt the circular terraces and stupas and reconstructed the central spire, though he later removed it because he could not prove its original form.

Water was the monument’s greatest enemy. Rain seeped into the hill core, causing walls to lean and reliefs to erode. Between 1975 and 1982 the Indonesian government and UNESCO carried out a second, much larger restoration. The square terraces were taken apart, roughly a million stones were cleaned and catalogued, a concrete foundation and new drainage were installed, and the monument was reassembled. It was formally reopened in 1983.

Borobudur has faced further threats since then. On 21 January 1985 bombs damaged nine of the stupas on the upper terraces. An earthquake in 2006 and the eruption of Mount Merapi in 2010, which covered the monument in ash, required further conservation work. In 1991 Borobudur, with the nearby temples of Mendut and Pawon, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

By the numbers

Timeline

• c. 780: Construction of Borobudur begins under the Sailendra dynasty.
• c. 825: The monument is substantially complete, in the time of King Samaratungga.
• 842: An inscription records land given to support a foundation some scholars identify with Borobudur.
• c. 929: The royal court is established in East Java; Central Java’s temples lose their patrons.
• 1814: H. C. Cornelius clears the site on the orders of Thomas Stamford Raffles.
• 1885: J. W. IJzerman discovers the hidden reliefs of the original base.
• 1907–1911: Theodoor van Erp carries out the first restoration.
• 1975–1982: Indonesia and UNESCO dismantle and rebuild the square terraces.
• 1991: Borobudur is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Legacy

Borobudur is the most visited monument in Indonesia and a national symbol. Each year Buddhists from across Indonesia and Asia gather there for Vesak, the festival commemorating the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha, walking in procession from Mendut to Borobudur.

It stands alongside the Hindu temples of Prambanan, built only a few decades later about 40 kilometres to the south-east, as evidence of a Javanese civilisation that absorbed Indian religious ideas and transformed them into something original. Like the rock-cut Kailasa temple at Ellora in India, it shows how monumental religious architecture of this era could combine engineering on a huge scale with intricate storytelling in stone.

Why it matters

Borobudur is the greatest surviving monument of the Sailendra age and one of the world’s most important Buddhist sites. Its reliefs preserve both Buddhist teaching and the daily life of ninth-century Java, and its long history of abandonment, rediscovery and restoration has shaped modern ideas about how to protect world heritage.