Borobudur Temple(Indonesia)

Borobudur is a terraced temple surmounted by stupas, or stone towers; the terraces resemble Indonesian burial foundations, indicating that Borobudur was regarded as the symbol of the final resting place of its founder, a Shailendra, who was united after his death with the Buddha. The Prambanan temple complex is also associated with a dead king. The inscription of 856 mentions a royal funeral ceremony and shows that the dead king had joined Shiva, just as the founder of the Borobudur monument had joined the Buddha. Divine attributes, however, had been ascribed to kings during their lifetimes. A Mahayana inscription of this period shows that a ruler was said to have the purifying powers of a bodhisattva, the status assumed by the ruler of Shrivijaya in the 7th century; a 9th-century Shaivite inscription from the Kedu Plain describes a ruler as being "a portion of Shiva."

The divine qualities of these kings, whether of Mahayana or of Shaivite persuasion, had important implications in Javanese history and probably in the history of all parts of the archipelago that professed the forms of Indian religion. The ruler was now and henceforth seen as one who had achieved union with the supreme god in his lifetime. Kingship was divine only because the king's soul was the host of the supreme god and because all the king's actions were bound to be the god's actions. He was not a god-king; he was the god. No godlike action was more important than extending the means of personal salvation to others, always in the form of union with the god. The bas-relief of the Borobudur monument, illustrating Mahayana texts and especially the Gandavyuha--the tale of the tireless pilgrim in search of enlightenment--is a gigantic exposition of the Mahayana path to salvation taken by the king; it may be thought of as a yantra, or instrument to promote meditation and ultimate union with the Buddha. But Borobudur can also be identified as a circle, or mandala, of supreme mystical power that signified the Void of the Vairocana Buddha according to the Vajrayana persuasion of Tantric Buddhism. The mandala was intended to protect the Shailendra realm for all time. The pedagogical symbolism of the Prambanan temple complex is revealed in its iconography, dominated by the image of the four-armed Shiva, the Great Teacher--the customary Indonesian representation of the supreme deity. Prambanan affirms the Shaivite path to salvation; the path is indicated in the inscription of 856, which implies that the king had practiced asceticism, the form of worship most acceptable to Shiva. Shaivism in Java as well as Mahayana Buddhism had become hospitable to Tantric influences. An almost contemporary inscription from the Ratu Boko Plateau, which is not far from the Prambanan complex, alludes to special rites for awakening Shiva's divine energy through the medium of a ritual consort.