Not long after seven
we were on the higher terraces where there were no further human or other
figures in the relief or statuary. The protocol was to round upward clock-wise,
following the unfolding story of the Buddha in the stone: his royal mother and father
long without issue; the intervention and birth; the five steps taken the first
days of the baby Siddhartha’s life, with a lotus flower springing up in the
last footfall. For a listener without almost any of this knowledge the guide’s
tale held interest, particularly given the record in the stone that we
followed. A book of life in stone read by the peoples here in central Java from
the eight or nine hundreds. Remarkable.
Looking out over the surroundings there were no remnant structures of any sort.
The vegetation and land form on the other hand could not have altered markedly.
The 800 or 900’s CE people came to this temple from beneath trees like the ones
that filled the present terrain. Rice fields, the greenery and folds of the
land the same. Despite the foreign intruders, in central Java here the racial
features would not have significantly changed over this relatively short
period. It was unknown how long the structure took to build. A century to a
century and a half, the guide suggested.
En route in the van a great deal of stone was visible in the river-beds.
Borobudur was constructed from the same volcanic rock. Eruptions from Merapi
volcano had brought the rock to the site; it had not been carted the forty
kilometers. There may have been quarries in the area, but even that store must
have been produced from within the bowels of Merapi. Hard, durable rock in a
masterly construction; on the upper levels approaching nirvana numerous large
bells enclosed the calm, enlightened Buddha. For contemporary eyes the figure
appeared trapped under the stone fret-work covers rather like a specimen under
a bell-jar.
The past was a challenge to the imagination of us moderns of course; especially
to us moderns in the immigrant communities of the New World. South-east Asia
presented close contact, through the people above all. This at Borobudur was
that rare other case, a great monument to the life of the past. Rock and stone
and the evidence of the ancient physical world had been little in evidence in
either Singapore or Malaysia.
Many months past the bodhi trees in Singapore had cried out for a visit that
never occurred. Here at the entry to the oldest ancient Buddhist temple on the
globe the guide surprised naming two or three tall trees at the gate. Tall
trees five or six metres in height, yet somehow immature looking in an
unimpressive autumnal aspect, bare branches and almost without colour. In Singapore
one rarely saw browned or fallen leaves.
There were a number of us foreigners in attendance—Scandinavian, Korean,
Shanghais—but by far the greater proportion were visitors from other parts of
Java and the Indonesian archipelago. Large groups of schoolchildren and
university students all charmed to meet outsiders and keen for photographs. The
young Shanghais wife was startled and blushed with pleasure at her unexpected
popularity. The husband, also a Shanghai native of a number of generations,
turned out to be an odd kind of Muslim who ate pork, kept no fast and consumed
alcohol. This was a man who was highly unlikely ever to perform the hajj. Yet a
Muslim for all that.
Out-bound before dawn the size of Jogja became apparent. Some distance out
Merapi appeared on the right. We travelled north-westerly. Borobudur was sited
some forty kilometers from the volcano; Jogja surprisingly a shorter distance.
Not many years ago Borobudur was closed to visitors because of the ash from an
eruption, the guide informed. Even at that distance a great deal of the debris
had carried and taken a number of days to clear. The sly vulpine smile of the
guide had been witnessed previously in other central Javanese relating the
eruptions of Merapi back in Singapore.
Merapi has a central place in Java tengah—central
Java—geographically and also in the historical consciousness. Even in the
present day large cities, even Yogyakarta with the early warning systems and
motorized transport for evacuation, Merapi remained a threat. With eruptions
there were earthquakes too of course. A good number of Indonesian foreign
workers in Singapore hailed from the region, from Java tengah, some from the foothills of Merapi itself. There were
numerous kampungs along the ridges of all the volcanoes.
On the return newly planted rice fields under water with dark faces beneath the
conical straw caps. Again shallow rivers uncovered their rocks of the same
colour as the temple stone. Borobudur had been sited between two large rivers
that we crossed numerous times, always with rock. Merapi appeared again and
again. The bus driver returning came to an abrupt, unexpected stop less than a
half hour after departure. Here was another temple if anyone wanted
photographs. The other occupants of the van were templed-out. From the bus this
structure looked of small interest. For people who had seen Angkor Wat and now
Borobudur there was little attraction.
Mendut
was again largely Buddhist, entirely different in form and concept, though
built from the same volcanic rock. It stood in a straight line from Borobudur
it was said, in clear relation. The bell or chimney form was unusual and access
by descending stair. Within a confined, dark vault was entered, the only light
from the narrow doorway behind, stone walls rearing and once on the floor
suddenly a startling encounter with a giant, looming Buddha seated on a raised
plinth. The familiar figure daunted through its size and bulk. Research later
put the height of the statue at only three metres; with the plinth and sunken
floor the effect was much more marked. Standing before that figure one was
quickly reassured by the placid, peaceful features and the posture. The spatial
arrangement—close and narrow on the horizontal plane and leaping upward on the
vertical—brought one very much into the presence of the great teacher;
appropriately at his feet. Brought one to a very close, unambiguous audience.
(An early Prophet some of the more liberal Muslims in Singapore considered the
Buddha.) The scale was out-size, but the form familiar from the Singaporean
streets where one commonly encountered gold-leaf Buddhas of this particular
kind. This was the Vairocama Buddha of highest meditative aspect; the
particular mudra, the hand gesture was
much the lesser part. Within some of the temples in the side lorongs through
middle Geylang one could see this same figure through the windows, again giant
sized. Housed inside those buildings in the midst of the condominiums the
effect was altogether different. In smaller scale in front of shops too this
same form stood sentinel. Up at Aljunied beside a stainless steel merchant a
temple of some kind in the shop-row had placed this six foot high seated Buddha
between the outer pillars of the walkway. At Mendut the encounter was far more
stirring. In any of the familiar iconography, even with lambs and donkey, the
Christ figure never presented anything like this calm, this compelling
quiescence. There was some part cowing, some part challenge and reproof in the
expression the Buddha presented in this close, shadowy encounter. If this was
mindfulness or beatitude realized in the human figure it was not to be found
anywhere amongst the peoples of the earth.
In order to recover from the half-five start in the morning a short kip was
taken after lunch back at the hotel, where an afternoon downpour woke and
darkened the room prematurely. In this monsoon period we had been lucky with
the fine, mild weather of the morning. The sheer inner curtain over the window
couldn't be drawn on the strings; the best one could do was gather the folds in
one corner and hook them through the steel grill in order to let in some light.
It was in the midst of this operation that a glimpse outside revealed a strange
line in the cloud in the distance. Behind the side wall of the ugly modern
hotel opposite a dark plane took something like a thirty degree descending
perpendicular. Light cloud to one side and casts of blue-grey left one
uncertain. The incline was unusual. Down at reception the lads behind the desk
confirmed the matter. Yes, Merapi. Gunung
Merapi. It was the volcano alright. The chaps stared a little blankly.
A final farewell arrived at the airport on departure. In Indonesia one boarded
and evacuated even international aeroplanes by way of the old wheeled gangways
from the earlier era of aviation. At the scrum on point of entry to the cabin a
casual look to the side brought up the same form, the same angles and
proportions. Merapi in an open, wide vista.
