The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

CEYLON
the
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AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA
Kalasan is surrounded by no less than two hundred
and fifty small chapels repeating its shape
in smaller scale [380 and 381]. It is highly likely
that the whole collection of buildings was designed
as a kind of architectural mandala with
the separate chapels dedicated to the deities
comprising the esoteric cosmic diagram or mandala.
The individual shrines at Candi Sewu are
small square cellas [382]. They appear to be
adaptations for Buddhist usage of the Dravidian
temples, with a bell-shaped stupa crowning a
terraced superstructure with small replicas of
the terminal member on the lower levels. The
recessed cruciform plan of the main temple
of Candi Sewu is extremely similar to the plan
of the Pala temple at Paharpur [195]. The close
relations between Java and Bengal in the eighth
and ninth centuries, already suggested by the
382. Candi Sewu, shrine 4»»
inscription of the Javanese Baladeva at Nalanda
and the presence of Nalanda bronze images in
Java, is confirmed again by this very obvious
architectural connexion between Candi Sewu
and the architecture of Buddhist India. As will
be revealed in greater detail presently, there is
every reason to believe that the Buddhism of
Java in the eighth and ninth centuries was the
same esoteric phase of the religion known as
Vajrayana as spread from Gangetic India of the
Pala Period to Tibet and Nepal, and ultimately
to the Far East.
The supreme monument of mystic Buddhism
in Java, a building which in its style and iconography
is one of the great masterpieces of
religious art in Asia, is the stupa of Barabudur.
In this final chapter on Indian art we shall analyse
this one monument as a supreme illustration
of how here, as in all the great examples of
religious art in the Indian world, the iconography
or religious purpose of the temple ultimately
determined its particular shape and
form, from the conception of the whole to the
least detail.
Barabudur - the very name has a majestic
and mysterious sound - could well be described
as the most important Buddhist monument in
greater India, a monument which holds locked
within its hidden galleries the final development
of Buddhist art in Asia. This sanctuary
is
really a rounded hill, terraced and clothed in
stone, and is marvellously situated in the plain
of central Java, rising like a mountain to rival
the towering volcanic peaks that frame the
horizon [383]. The name of this famous building
has always been a source of dispute among
scholars : translation offered by Paul Mus -
'the vihara of the secret aspect' - seems best to
describe the deep mysteries it holds. As puzzling
as the meaning of its name are the origins of
the temple : the consensus of present opinion
seems to be that it was raised during the reign
of the dynasty founded by Sailendra, the mysterious
'King of the Mountain and Lord of the