Travelistar: The Prambanan Plain, Land of Ancient Ruins (part 1 of 3)

The Prambanan Temple Compound

The Prambanan Plain

When you read the word Prambanan, it will remind you of the Great Prambanan Temple Compound in Yogyakarta. I'm not just talking about that largest Hindu temple complex in particular. I will tell you about the land that consists of many archaeological remnants of thousand years old civilization called The Prambanan Plain. The Prambanan Plain, located in the border between Special Region of Yogyakarta Province, The Sleman Regency, and the Klaten Regency in Central Java. Yes indeed, it is where the mighty Prambanan temple compound located.

Initially, it was the capital of Medang Kingdom or the Old Mataram Kingdom that flourished and at its peak of glory between 8th to 10th CE. As the result, monumental creations were created in the form of temples for religious purposes and grand monument like Borobudur. Those ruins that were built on Prambanan Plain mostly during the reign the Sanjaya Dinasty that embraced Hinduism as the kingdom's official religion, they lived side by side with the Budhist community.

Our journey to Prambanan Plain is like going back to time where our Javanese ancestor lived. Many ancient ruins are still to be found even today. The ruins scattered in many locations and centered in the Prambanan district of Klaten and Sleman regency. The largest ruins would be the Prambanan Temple Complex. Unfortunately, most people only know this temple complex, for it has been declared as one of World Heritage by UNESCO. They don't know that in the same area they can see other ruins.

There are at least 18 ruins found on the Prambanan Plain. Scattered from the Klaten Regency of Central Java on the east to Sleman Regency of Yogyakarta region on the west. Many of the ruins, in fact, centered nearby the Prambanan Temple Complex. If we are lucky to have enough time to travel around Prambanan, we can see some of the ruins that each has its own characteristics. It is not hard to find them, coz they are nearby one another. We only need a map from our gadget to find them. Some of them can be found by walking from the Prambanan Temple which are in the same area.

Ruin of Candi Kalasan

If we come from the city of Yogyakarta, first we can find the Ruin of Kalasan. Probably 2 km before the Prambanan Temple Compound. We can even see it from the main road, since it is 34 meters in height. As my point of view, it looks like more to ancient castle or palace than a religious building. The size and the grand design is rather unique. Unlike other ruins in the area, that are built as compound temple, it stands alone in an incredibly high. Though it is not as tall as The Siva temple at Prambanan Compound, it exceeds the height of any other temple complex in the area. As if it was built special.

Indeed, it was built for special reason, that is to worship the Female Bodhisatva, The Goddess Tara. The Mahayana Tantric was the main religion at the time when the Kalasan temple was constructed. Though the Royal's family were Hindus, Budhism were still the religion of most people. This shows us the tolerance between religions in old Javanese life.

The Kalasan Ruin was also called Kalibening temple as mentioned in the stone inscription found nearby, namely the Kalasan Inscription, dated in 700 Chaka or 778 AD. It mentions how the High Budhist Priest were able to persuade the King, whom was a Hindu, to built the Temple of Kalasan for the worship of Bodhisatva Tara, and to construct the Budhist monastery nearby, which is now known as Candi Sari, only hundreds meters away from Kalasan temple.

If we have gone to Chiang Mai in Thailand, sadly I haven't, we would remember of the Grand Temple of Wat Chedi Luang. I think they both have similar design, the square base and the four doors on each side with supposedly has stairs on every faces of the temple. Only that Wat Chedi Luang was built 6 centuries later after the construction of Kalasan Temple.

The temple is badly damaged, might be because of the earthquakes and eruptions of Merapi volcano through time. The community that, mostly, embraced Islam later, would be another reason of this ruin to be abandoned. The present government could not completely restored once a magnificent building. There is, supposedly, a big bell shape stupa on its top and smaller 3 stupas on each of the 4 doors. All the four stairs going to the doors have also gone. Luckily, most of the wall niches that beautifully carved are still intact. Some stone blocks, that were part of the building, are found and arranged on the ground.

The feeling of proud and at the same time sad, mixed together when I visited the place. I was so proud that our ancestors did not just wear short and becoming slave as the European countries sees us so. Our ancestors was, actually, great in developing civilization. Only an advanced civilization could build such glorious building like this one. The sad feeling came when I see the ruins are not being taken cared of accordingly. We still need experts in archaeology, especially local archaeologist, to uncover the mysteries of ancient civilization found in Java. If Egypt has Egyptology as the field of science, we should start to use the term Javanology as the field of science for uncovering the ancient Javanese Civilization.