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On Prambanan

In Paul Michel Munoz’ Early Kingdoms of the Indonesian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula, he says that “Prambanan was a complex of temples dedicated to [the Hindu god] Shiva, which was built to celebrate the return to power of the Sanjaya Dynasty in Central Java around 825AD.” (at 354)

“As with the majority of Indonesian Hindu temples, the shrine of Prambanan presents typical cruciform, mountain-type shapes symbolizing Mout Meru, the residence of the Gods and the axis of the world in Hindu mythology.  The temple is divided by three concentric prescints with surrounding low walls which present openings for doors.  The external precinct was empty.  In the middle precinct were 224 small chapels or shrines disposed on four ranks…The inner precinct contained 16 cruciform temples.”  (Ibid., at 355)

The three main temples in the inner precinct are dedicate to the Hindu gods, Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma.  In front of each temple is a smaller temple dedicated to the vahanas or mount of those gods.  The vahanas of Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma are the Garuda, Nandi Bull and Hamsa, respectively.  To read more about vahanas, click on this.

Other than its religious significance, there is a legend about Prambanan.  The legend goes -

Once upon a time, there were two warring kingdoms in Java.  One king had a son name Raden Bandung Bondowoso while the other king had a beautiful daughter named Loro Jonggrang.  During a battle, Bondowoso kills Jonggrang’s father. Sometime after, Bondowoso encounters Jonggrang and immediately falls in love and proposes marriage to her.  Understandably, Jonggrang does not want to marry Bondowoso but does not tell him so directly.  Instead, Jonggrang tells Bondowoso that she would only marry him if he could build 1000 temples overnight.  Bondowoso then causes the temples to be built overnight.  When Jonggrang sees that there is a possibility for Bondowoso to finish building all the temples, she orders her people to set fire on the east side and make the roosters crow to make it appear that dawn had arrived.  Thinking dawn had arrived, Bondowoso’s men stopped construction of the last temple.  When Bondowoso later realized that Jonggrang tricked him, he is furious.  He curses Jonggrang to be the 1000th temple of Prambanan.  To read more about the legend, click on this and this.

I do not know which of the temples is believed to be Loro Jonggrang.  Perhaps it is one of those that have been destroyed by the Gempa (earthquake) waiting for someone to reconstruct it.  Maybe next time I visit Prambanan, I will make sure to find Loro Jonggrang.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 12:08 am and is filed under My Indonesian Experience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.