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

CEYLON
452
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AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA
385. Barabudur, air view
familiar form of the Indian relic mound; this
is an exact and accurate architectural representation
of the concept of the sky as a solid vault
covering the world mountain, Meru. The number
of storeys - nine - corresponds to the levels
of the Indian Meru and the number includes
the subterranean Meru which was believed
to extend underground to the foundations of
the world - here eloquently represented by the
hidden basement. Barabudur is, then, once
again an architectural replica of the world structure
and the number of storeys was definitely
and unavoidably fixed by this conception.
On entering Barabudur, the pilgrim penetrates
the world of Buddha to read in its reliefs
the story of man's journey down the long night
of birth and death to ultimate enlightenment
with the culmination of the career of the Bodhisattva
in the realms of the mystic Buddhas.
The whole plan and elevation of Barabudur as a
sealed world apart seems to state plainly that
its
secrets were not to be grasped at once nor
lightly taken, but rather to be apprehended by
degrees. At first the monument seems completely
solid and impenetrable - one has to hunt
for the entrances opening like caves in a magic
mountain.
The heavily garnished and massively constructed
balustrades cloak the galleries in a veil
of stone. At the bottom is the buried and inaccessible
basement gallery with its relief of the
Kamadhatu. The bas-reliefs of the galleries,
like these passages themselves, are completely
invisible from the exterior. Even the Dhyani
Buddhas in their niches are only half-seen, so
masked are they in their deep architectural
grottoes. On the three upper terraces sit seventytwo
Buddhas under stupas which are really