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For many years the peasants of the region between Samarang and Boro-Boedoer paid their taxes in gold melted from the treasure trove turned up by the plough, or dug from the precincts of some forgotten sanctuary, buried beneath the rank vegetation of the teaming soil.
The temple of Boro-Boedoer is built upon a slight rounded eminence, the last of a chain of hills on the eastern bank of the river Prago. The entire edifice rests upon an equilateral base of six hundred and twenty feet, situated due N.S.E. and W., and rises gradually in terraces adapted in design to the form of the hill.
The solemn grandeur of Boro-Boedoer blinds the casual observer to many details which manifest the ravages of time, the ruthlessness of war, and the decay of a discarded creed. Headless and overthrown figures, broken tees, mutilated carvings, and shattered chapels abound, but the vast display of architectural features still intact conveys an impression of permanence rather than of ruin.
The mighty Temple of Boro-Boedoer, built up through successive ages, indicates the gradual change from the simplicity of the early faith, at first supplanting, and eventually becoming incorporated with, the Brahminism which succeeded it in modified form, as though rising from the ashes of the earlier Hindu creed which Buddhism virtually destroyed.
The archæological interest of Java culminates in the mysterious temple known as Boro-Boedoer, "the aged thing," with an actual history lost in mist and shadow, though recorded in imperishable characters on this spellbound sanctuary of a departed faith.
At Boro-Boedoer, ten miles from Magalang, there are the remains of the vast temple of that name; and about a mile distant, on the nearer bank of the Prago river, is the small and externally insignificant temple of Mendoet. Inside this latter is a vaulted chamber, the roof of which springs from walls twenty feet in height, and rises to sixty feet in the centre, covering a fine statue of Buddha.
But even this splendid account of the Boro-Boedoer temple is not complete; since the date of its publication a new series of bas-reliefs have been discovered, and are being gradually photographed. In connection with the temples of Brambanan and Kalasan, also, new and interesting discoveries are being made from year to year.
There is an inn at the small village near the temple, but it is not sufficiently inviting to merit more than a transitory visit; at the same time, there is nothing to prevent the gentlemen of the party from staying the night at Boro-Boedoer if they felt so inclined. From Djokja, of course, the railway extends to Samarang and to Soerabaia.
Professor Rhys Davids has pointed out an interesting distinction between the Boro-Boedoer and the Buddhist shrines in India, viz. that, whereas the cupolas at Boro-Boedoer are hollow, the dagabas of British India are always solid.
[Footnote 2: "Bôrô-Boedoer Temples," by Dr. C. Leemans,
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