Once upon a time there were two prosperous kingdoms in Central Java, Indonésia called "Pengging" and "Prambanan". Pengging was reigned by Prabu Dhamarmoyo, whose heir Bandung Bondowoso was renown for his bravery, goodlook and having a supernatural power, whereas Prambanan wad ruled by Prabu Boko, who was famous as a ruthless giant king.
It may sounds incredible but the only daughter of the giant king is an infamous beauty, whose name "Roro Jonggrang" actually means 'a slender maiden'.
Prabu Boko had tried to invade Pengging but failed and got killed by Prince Bandung Bondowoso. Gupala, the prime minister of Prambanan had managed to escape and fleed back to report the death of the king to the princess.
Before the princess has had the time to digest the fact that her beloved Father had departed, the Pengging troops led by Bandung has arrived in Prambanan to take over the leaderless kingdom.
Bandung fell in love immediately after he had met the infamous beauty Roro Jonggrang and wanted to make her his consort. Unfortunately the princess declined the proposal. No matter how good his qualification was, Bandung was still the murder of her royal father, so she just can't live together with him as a husband and wife.
Nevertheless Bandung has insisted to marry her. Since she is now basically just a princess of a fallen nation, she can't afford directly offending the powerful enemy prince. Therefore she gave Bandung two requests that should actually be an impossible task for a normal man no matter how strong and clever he is, which were to build her a real deep well (later on it will be called 'Jalatunda') and a thousand temple as a prove of his love to the princess. The request should have not been too excessive if only there is no additional condition for it, namely the time limit is only one single night.
Roro Jonggrang was surprised that Bandung agreed to her condition without any complaints. He completed the well quite fast so the first task was actually accomplished well. The princess asked him to go down the well again to inspect, whether everything is good. Once he was inside the lady ordered the Prime Minister to burry the prince alive.
However the prince was really powerful and managed to escape the calamity. Nevertheless he still forgave her on the account of his guilt for making his beloved woman an orphan.
The love struck prince just presumed that he owed her nothing since that point of time. His life debt has been evened out already so he started to proceed with the next task.
Prince Bandung meditated to call all the demons and monsters he had once subdued to help him constructing the thousand temples in a night.
With the help of those mystical creatures the task was nearly accomplished when the night was not even closed to dawn just yet.
The princess was frantic watching it.
However Jonggrang did not only have a devastating beauty but was also very cunning. She ordered her personal maids and all the womenfolks in the capital to start pounding rice and burning hay at the east side of the city to create an image of upcoming sunrise.
Her calculative mind had indeed saved the situation, the demons were deceived and thought that the sun was rising soon so they had to go back to their demon realm immediately.
But this is unfortunately only a temporary success for Roro Jonggrang because she has to face the fury of the prince afterwards.
Prince Bandung was really mad being schemed by the lady he love, especially after realizing that only one single statue was missing.
A vicious curse finally came out of his mouth out of his fury. He cursed Roro Jonggrang to be the final statue completing her own request of thousand temples.
The then infamous beauty of Prambanan kingdom ended up being a stone.
The prince had naturally regretted his vicious curse but he just couldn't take it back.
This is one of the folklores from my homeland Indonesia which relates to the Hinduism cultural heritage.
Candi Sewu aka Candi Prambanan is one of the biggest temple blocks built in the 9th century during the reign of Sanjaya Dynasty from Mataram Kingdom. The main temple is 47 meter high and Durga statue which is taken as the image of Roro Jonggrang is located at the north side chamber of Shiva temple.
FYI, this is not the image of the princess but another statue in the temple.
The chamber where the Durga statue located was too dark and I didn't have a good quality smartphone nor camera at that time so the picture is simply too ugly to post here 😅.
All photos here were taken during my first return trip to Indonesia after getting married, so it was a decade ago.
The temple walls are adorned with the reliefs narrating the Ramayana epoch,telling the legendary love story of Rama and Shinta.
That's why the government present the traditional opera about this legend every full moon to entertain the tourists in the temple compound. The ticket is not cheap for Indonesian wallet though 😅, so the market target is more likely the foreign tourists.
On the three pictures above you may recognize so many temple ruins.
Prambanan temple was first discovered during the short period of Great Britain colonialism in Indonesia. The scientists assigned by the colonial government didn't work well enough so that many stones were either used by locals for renovating their home caused by ignorance of the historical value. The more precious relics were stolen, taken away to Europe, so we have actually lost plenty of our cultural heritage this way.
The last big lost was caused by the big earthquake 14 years ago. So many parts were destroyed and the temple was closed rather long for renovation at that time.
In the temple compound there is a big park for raising deers. The temple is particularly beautiful nearing sunset or sunrise. But it's also very beautiful in the mist.
If you like to visit the temple, it is located around 17 km northeast of Yogyakarta.
This is my first article about Indonesian cultural heritage aside from the culinary art. I hope you enjoy it.
The folklore is naturally only a tale.
The historians suggest that the temple compound was constructed to consecrate the return of Hindu Sanjaya Dynasty to dominate Java after the reign of Buddhists Dynasty Syailendra for nearly a century long.
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