Hi everyone! How are you all? today my friends and I traveled to Ngawen Temple, this temple is a Buddhist temple, this temple is located in Ngawen village, Muntilan district, Magelang regency. According to history, this temple was built by the Sailendra dynasty of the rulers of the Ancient Mataram Kingdom. This temple is also described as a temple that was built as a sacred building which is mentioned in the Karang Tengah inscription in 824 AD, the Ngawen temple building is mentioned in Sanskrit, with the word Venuvana which means Bamboo Forest.
What is the structure of this Ngawen Temple?
I took a walk in this temple, and saw that this temple consists of 5 small temples, two of which have different shapes, namely decorated with lion statues on each of the four corners. Then in this temple I also saw a headless Buddha statue with a sitting position named Ratnasambawa. Then the reliefs - other reliefs are also found in this part of the temple, including reliefs about Kinnara, Kinnari, and Kala-Makara.
The first Ngawen temple was discovered by the Dutch, at that time Indonesia was still under Dutch colonialism, in some other histories it is said that this temple was built during the Buddhist-style Syailendra dynasty and Hindu-style Rakaipikatan dynasty. However, the community and residents prefer to call this temple a Buddhist temple because various evidences such as the headless Buddha statue were found.
Because it was built during these two dynasties, Ngawen Temple was given the nickname Transitional Temple. Then I also saw and made a comparison of the Ngawen Temple when at first glance it has a building shape that almost resembles a Hindu temple building. The resemblance is found in the sharpness of this temple building. Besides the resemblance to a Hindu temple, this temple also has similarities to a Buddhist temple, because it is seen from the characteristics that have a stupa and terrace, namely the symbols of a Buddhist temple.
Thank you so much for visiting my post and following my story today. Hope it's useful for you!
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