WELCOME TO YOGYAKARTA

The western part of interior Central Java is the land of the Serayu, the only large river in Java that empty southwards into the Indian Ocean. Despite its apparently central location, this fertile basin and the coastal plain to its south, formerly known as Bagelen, has historically been isolated both from the north coast pesisir and the royal lands to the east. Consequently, this area has retained archaic cultural features that are no longer found in other parts of Java; these include traditional five-village federations and a unique oral imitation of gametan music.

Near the headwaters of the Serayu is the Dieng Plateau, a rich source of historical monuments as well as one of Java's strangest and most magical places. Dieng is a treeless moor at 2000 meters, ringed by pine-clad mountains. Here, gentle sunlight can give way to thick blankets of fog or chill rains in the blink of an eye. The earth is equally moody; crystals glitter in pools shining with kaleidoscopic colors; poisonous gas belches from jagged fissures. In the dawn of Indic civilization in Central Java, Hindu kings chose this elemental theater - the name means "Abode of the Gods" - as the setting for their monuments, many of which are still standing today. Apart from the maverick Candi Bima, which features rows of staring heads (apparently a unique imitation of an architectural style from Orissa), the seven surviving temples have a restrained, austere aspect. All of the temples are dedicated to Shiva; they date from the end of the 7th century to around A.D. 780. At the east end of the plateau is Goa Semar, a cave traditionally used as a place of meditation. In 1974, Goa Semar was the unlikely scene of an infamous private meeting between Suharto and the then Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam, shortly before Indonesia invaded East Timor.

Though Dieng is site of the oldest temples, it was at Gedong Songo that the "standard model" of the Javanese temple was established, upon which later architecture would elaborate: a cube-shaped central construction containing a shrine chamber, set on a wider plinth, and capped by a tall roof which recedes in steps, to give the impression that it is even taller. The Gedung Songo temples lie 50 kilometers east of Dieng as the crow flies; scattered over the summits of six mountains along the southern flank of Mt. Ungaran. They all date from between A.D. 730 and 780, and the main temple in each group is dedicated to Shiva. Because of its exposed location, this is thought to be the most dramatic temple site in Java. Nearby is the hill station of Bandungan, mountain resort for wealthy citizens of the north-coast city of Semarang, which is only an hour away.

For all its spectacle, Mt. Ungaran is only a minor outlier of Java's volcanic spine. To its southeast is the swampy basin of Lake Rawapening and the town of Ambarawa, where train passengers bound for Yogyakarta used to transfer to a remarkable Swiss-type rack-and-pinion railway, to negotiate a long, steep incline. Until the Semarang-Magelang-Yogyakarta line closed in 1977, in the face of competition from road transport, Ambarawa was a lively railway town. In 1978,
its train station became the national Museum Kereta Api (Railway Museum), where one can see some 25 Dutch and German locomotives of pre-1930s vintage. Some are still in working condition, including Ambarawa's cogwheel train from 1902, which will, by prior arrangement, haul visitors up the nine kilometer track to Bedono.

In the fields two kilometers south of Ambarawa is a big Dutch fortress, today known simply as Benteng Ambarawa (Ambarawa Fort). In the mid-19th century, this was intended as the lynchpin of Java's defense against invasion by a European enemy. No invasion came, and the fort was declared obsolete in 1892, but with its squat outlying blockhousesand staring gun ports it is still a formidable sight. Still further south is Banyubiru, a notorious concentration camp for Dutch civilians during the Japanese occupation, and still a major jail.

The twin volcanoes of Mt. Merbabu (3142 in) and Mt. Merapi (2914 in), mid-way between the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean, dominate Central Java at this point. Both offer rewarding panoramas: Merbabu is best viewed from Kopeng, and Merapi from Kaliurang, Yogyakarta's beautiful hill resort; Merapi can be climbed with a guide, from Selo, which lies between the two mountains. Merbabu is an extinct volcano that looks north towards Semarang. Merapi, by contrast, is vigorously and dangerously active, and presides over the living heart of the island, where the worldly glory of Java began and where its cultural soul still lies.

BOROBUDUR
Inner Java begins at Borobudur; south of the cool, upland town of Magelang, in the Progo river valley. It is the world's largest Buddhist monument and arguably the most extraordinary and impressive historic site in Indonesia.
The first two terraces were built at the confluence of two rivers - symbolizing the Ganges and Jumna to the architect in the middle of the 8th century. Around A.D. 790, the new Buddhist Sailendra. dynasty took over the huge project of finishing this temple. A century later, Borobudur fell into disuse when the center of power moved to East Java.

Borobudur is a gold mine of symbols. Some of its messages have been deciphered, others remain obscure. The overall form alone projects multiple associations; in plan, it is a mandala, a geometric figure promoting meditation; in profile, it is Meru, the Hindu cosmic mountain, or perhaps a single giant stupa, emblem of the Buddha's enlightenment.

The monument is a terraced pyramid of hewn volcanic rock (andesite) with a base 110 meters across. Four of the five lower terraces form square galleries around the periphery of the main structure. Ancient Buddhist ritual demands that pilgrims circle a shrine clockwise before approaching its center; to walk thus around Borobudur's galleries is a stroll of more than five kilometers. The more than 1300 illustrative reliefs on the walls, and some of the 1200 purely decorative panels, once adorned with brightly-painted stucco, were meant to boost the spirits of the perambulating pilgrim.

The reliefs in the first gallery depict historical episodes from the life of Buddha, who died some 1200 years before Borobudur's cornerstone was laid. Some 120 marvelous reliefs tell the story of the Indian prince Gantama. who became "The Enlightened One;" his mother Maya's miraculous conception; his birth; his first steps; his marriage; his three journeys; his meditative life as a solitary in the forest; his englihtenment under the bodhi tree; the preachings of Benares; and his death after eating rotten food.

Also in the first gallery, is the beginning of a cycle of 720 reliefs, continued in the second and third galleries, depicting Buddha's 500 previous lives. The fourth gallery, on the fifth terrace, shows the son of the well-to-do merchant, Sudhana, on his quest for wisdom and enlightenment, aided by various bodhisattvas. In addition, the walls of the four galleries are perforated with niches which contain no fewer than 368 Dhyani Buddhas, arranged in the four cardinal directions. To the west, Buddha Amitabha ("Immeasurable Light") sits in a gesture of meditation. To the south sits Ratnasambhava ("Jewel-Born"), in a gesture of wish-granting. To the east sits Akshobya ("The Unshakeable"), in a gesture of invocation to the earth. Finally, to the north sits Amoghasiddi ("Realizer of Goals"), in a gesture of fearlessness. In the 64 niches of the fifth gallery, one can see Buddha Samantabhadra ("All-Benevolent") in gestures of giving and debating.

The three upper terraces are round and have no walls. Here, within 72 miniature, perforated stupas, one can see meditating Adi-Buddhas (the transcendental Over Buddha), moving the "Wheel of Learning" with his hands. Reaching in to touch one of these figures is supposed to bring good luck.
From here, the plan of the temple becomes increasingly abstract. The simple form of the unadorned central stupa represents enlightenment. What can't be seen are two small, sealed chambers within the great stupa, containing Nothing; total emptiness; a void.
Apart from being a great religious monument, Borobudur is an important source of historical information. In their pious friezes, its makers gave us priceless stone pictures of their own lost time; here are the houses, the ships, the clothes, the musical instruments and dances not of Buddha's India, but of 9th-century Java. Not until a thousand years later did Europe finally grasp Borobudur's importance. The ubiquitous Raffles di it in 1814, under a mountain of ash. In 1911, the Dutch completed the first restoration. By 1968, the earthen core was rotten and the whole structure in danger of collapse; a major UNESCO program was launched to save it, and the work was completed in 1983.

Two smaller Buddhist temples are also associated with Borobudur. The 8thcentury Candi Mendut, three kilometers to the east, was once described by a Dutch scholar as, "the jewel among the antiquities of Central Java." Although its exterior has some fine detailed reliefs, Mendut's fame is primarily based on the beautiful statuary in its shrine chamber. Inside, a three meter-tall sitting Buddha preaches the law of suffering. The smaller bodhisattva figure seated on his left is Lokesvara, the Bodhisattva who refused to become a Buddha until all men on earth were saved. Offerings are still brought here on Waicak, the anniversary of the Buddha's enlightenment. The figure on the right is the bodhisattva Vajrapani. Candi Pawon is a miniature Mendut located halfway between Mendut and Borobudur.

YOGYAKARTA
AND SURROUNDINGS
South of Borobudur the Progo flows out onto the broad coastlands of the Daerah Istirnewa Yogyakarta (Yogyakarta Special Region), the only princely state-within-a- state to survive the national revolution of 1945-49. The region's history begins in Prambanan, 17 kilometers east of Yogyakarta. Scattered about this village are some of the finest temples in Indonesia. The oldest are contemporary with Borobudur, and like Borobudur they are Buddhist monuments built during the Sailendra era. Candi Kalasan, the first to be encountered on the way out of Yogyakarta, was consecrated in A.D. 778; its Buddha statue is gone, but the external carving is still marvellously intricate, all the more so considering it was originally only a base for even finer detail in plaster. Kalasan represents Indonesian Buddhism in a more sectarian form than Borobudur; it was dedicated to a cult goddess, Tara. Candi Sewu, the "Thousand Temples," is another early Buddhist establishment. It features some 240 small shrines which are arranged in a complex mandala pattern around a large central building; in its
present state as ruins, it has the air of a lost city.

When the Sanjaya returned to power after A.D. 832, to establish the kingdom sometimes known as "First Mataram," they intermarried with the Buddhist Sailendra and even sponsored the construction of Bhuddist temples themselves. Candi Plaosan and Candi Sari, stone versions of a two-storey, wooden temple design of the time, are the result. Nevertheless, the new dynasty was a Hindu dynasty, and the greatest of its architectural works, said to have been built to rival Borobudur, is the great Hindu temple complex known as Candi Prambanan.
Like Borobudur, Prambanan is often said to surpass even its Indian prototypes. The Opak river was actually diverted to make way for the three extensive precincts which once surrounded this temple. The outer walls and shrines are now. . .