Once upon a time, with the help of genies, a prince could build over dozens of temples in a night. Silly me, once I used to believe in the folktales that were circulating around prambanan temple, the largest hindu temple in Indonesia. As a child, it was mesmerizing to hear that such majestic architecture was built with the help of genies. However, thanks to stories like this, sacred ancient places like the Prambanan temple could survive for centuries. It mainly survived the war and colonialism that happened centuries ago in the country. Not only that it survived man made calamity, some of it survived some devastating natural disaster that the country ever experienced. This is also the part where we all should be questioning, “ How?”. “How come?”, “ what made the structure special, that it was earthquake and volcano proof”.
Now, as an adult, I got to see the temple from another point of view. The last time I did a historical tour around the ancient and archeological site around this area was back in 2015. The tour included archeologists and experts around this place who explained its history and structures of the temples surrounding the temple. This year, I revisited the place in order to complete my timeless history around the Ancient Kingdom of Mataram before I moved to the “neo” Mataram kingdom which shifted its kingdom from central java to east java. And this time, not only that I see it from its history point of view, I am learning more about the structure and the architectural design of this place.
Picture from top right to bottom right : Both prambanan temple from the first entrance. A cat that we met who was checking out the visitors. And finally a famous photo spot where people take picture with the word prambanan on it.
The sky was giving me a hint that today was not the day. The clouds were gray and it moved swiftly. It felt like I was racing against the clouds so that I could be at Prambanan temple when it was still sunny. Inside the car, I was slightly upset with the thought that I could miss taking pictures of the temple when it was sunny. Not to mention, if the rain started, it would be hard to actually take time examining the reliefs and the structure around the area.
We, my friend and I reached the area when the sky was cloudy but it had yet to rain. As soon as we’re about to enter the complex, we immediately had to scan the Peduli Lindungi, Indonesian contact tracing app before entering the ticketing booth. These days, the ticket for a domestic tourist/local is 50.000IDR/person. It’s 20.000 more expensive than a few years ago. Allegedly, as I heard from my Grab driver that there is a different management of the place, hence why the price was increasing.
Despite being born in this province and a native, my friend has never been to Prambanan temple. So, it was her first time to visit this majestic compound that was built in the 8th century. It was also the first time she discovered the truth about this place and the royal boko palace. As in schools, they were taught about the folklore of prambanan, about a love betrayal myth and how this place was made overnight with the help of genies. I was taught the same too and the story is a popular Indonesian folktales. But as my title mentioned, we are going to learn about facts today.
Facts over folktales
Prambanan isn’t the actual name of this temple. The actual name of this temple is Siwagrha or the house of shiva. The ancient kingdom of mataram was the follower of shivaist which I have also mentioned in some of my timeless architecture series. But because of its location and the folktale, it received several names such as prambanan temple and loro jonggrang. And the actual name swagrha is a name that was found from prashasti/inscription called Shivagrha inscription in which it mentioned the naming of a huge area that was dedicated to the lord shiva.
The temple represents a trimurti concept in hinduism. The middle one is a Shiva temple with a Shiva statue..The next one is a Brahma temple and the other one is dedicated to vishnu. Around the temple are smaller temples dedicated to the deity that used to be a vehicle such as nandi, garuda, and hamsa. Then around the outer complex is surrounded by a perwara temple that some of it is falling apart due to a major earthquake.
Unfortunately, no visitors are allowed inside of it so I could not show you inside the temple that has the statue of the Hindu deities.
The reliefs around the temple glisten when the sun hits the right spot of the temple. Back when we were able to explore inside of it, the archeologist told me that the reliefs recounts the tale of Ramayana, an ancient sanskrit epic that tells the story of King Rama quest to rescue his wife Shinta. This story, in modern times, is now recounted through a musical theater that visitors could watch every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I got the experience of watching this magical dance once. The dance itself was held during the evening with the prambanan temple as the background. It was a magical experience and indescribable to watch the story being told in dance moves.
When you try to take pictures, the temple is beautiful at so many angles that you can think of. There are some spots that I can recommend to anyone to take pictures from. The prambanan from the massive lawn is one, and another one is near the exit entrance, where the temple is the background and around it is the ruins. The final one is from the exit to the parking lot. This one is a view of the temple from afar. Whichever you choose, the view remains majestic.
Since I haven’t touched on the material of this complex, Its materials are built from andesite stone and found from the surrounding area, the same stone that is also found in Borobudur temple. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any guide in this temple. In fact, I had more discussion with a guide when I was visiting the royal boko’s place where I also got some information about prambanan temple and the royal families behind this mega project.
While I explained some of the information that I know to my friend, she was even more curious. She was mesmerized, puzzled, and dazed. While I sat on the bench to rest, my friend walked around the area and was taking pictures. It was when the clouds were getting darker that we decided to leave and move to another site, the ancient boko royal kingdom. But before we walked to the parking lot, we decided to tour around the nearby temples that includes Candi Sewu, which was indicated in the folktale of loro jongrang, the temple that is said to be 1000 temples built overnight. However, in reality though called Candi Sewu which means 1000 temples, there are only 249 temples as the information board mentioned. This temple is a buddhist temple that’s unlike prambanan, a hindu temple. Mainly, the temple around this area shows that there was an inter-religious relationship between the hindu and the buddhist.
Temple Less Traveled
Candi sewu is less visited by the visitors mainly for its location that is quite far from Prambanan temple. However, you can use a golf car or a transportation called tayo which costs 2$/person to explore the temples around.
You can also walk but expect to spend more than 2 hours to circle this area like I did in the past. So, getting around the vehicle is definitely preferred. This temple is one of the most amazing temples around the prambanan complex. Exploring this temple will make you feel like you are inside an Indiana Jones movie looking for the lost artifacts.
Like many other relationships that have its ups and down, the relationship between the two dynasties with different religions was the same. During its glory day, there was an inter-religion marriage between a hindu king with a buddhist princes from sailendra dynasty. Their marriage resulted in some Buddhist temples around a hindu dominated kingdom. However, the rivalries between the two different dynasties at that time, also caused friction. Today, we can see its witness called Kraton Boko or Boko Royal Kingdom.
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 | Mac is a jack of all trades. A typical introvert in love with literature, books, technology and philosophy. She is also so into nootropics, productivity, minimalist lifestyle, cybersecurity, and languages. Other than that, she is passionate about cooking and traveling. In her free time, she enjoys learning various things. If you like her content, don't hesitate to upvote, leave a comment or a feedback. A re-blog is also appreciated. |