BY J. F. SCHELTEMA, M.A. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, AND VIGNETTES AFTER DRAWINGS OF JAVANESE CHANDI ORNAMENT BY THE AUTHOR MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1912 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, AND VIGNETTES AFTER DRAWINGS OF JAVANESE CHANDI ORNAMENT BY THE AUTHOR MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1912 COPYRIGHT TO MY DEAR COUSIN AND FRIEND PROFESSOR AUGUST ALLEBÉ DIRECTOR EMERITUS OF THE NETHERLANDS STATE ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS AT AMSTERDAM If this book needs an apology

It is the crowning virtue of all great Art that, however little is left of it by the injuries of time, that little will be lovely. John Ruskin , Mornings in Florence (Santa Croce) . Java’s ancient monuments are eloquent evidence of that innate consciousness of something beyond earthly existence which moves men to propitiate the principle of life by sacrifice in temples as gloriously divine as mortal hand can raise. Fear, however, especially where Buddhism moulded their thought by contemplation i

The Batu Tulis, lit. “the inscribed stone”, near Bogor, commemorates the feats of a certain prince, Parabu Raja Purana, otherwise Ratu Dewata, and calls him the founder of Pakuan, ruler, maharajah ratu aji , of Pakuan Pajajaran. That kingdom is the centre of everything tradition has transmitted regarding the Hindus in West Java. Its origin, according to native belief, goes back to a settlement of princely adventurers from Tumapel in East Java, and when Mojopahit flourished after the fall of that

Where five residencies—Samarang, Pekalongan, Banyumas, the Bagelen and the Kadu—meet between two seas, the wonderland of the Diëng links the eastern and western chain of volcanoes which are the vertebrae of Java’s spine. The Diëng plateau, the first part created, as tradition goes, and destined to remain longest above water in the island’s final destruction and submersion, is nothing but a huge crater. Nature, in her most mysterious mood, exercises here a charm of a peculiar character, well expr

The vast plain of Prambanan, which extends southward from the foot of the Merapi, one of Java’s most active volcanoes, [35] is, or rather was, studded with Sivaïte and Buddhist temples. Called, in the later days of ignorance regarding their signification, after some outstanding feature (Sewu, Loomboong, Asu), after gods, demi-gods and heroes of romance (as on the Diëng), after the villages near which they were found (Kalasan or Kali Bening), or after their general position, a good many might sha

Le bon sens nous dit que les choses de la terre n’existent que bien peu et que la vraie réalité est dans les rêves. Charles Baudelaire , Les Paradis Artificiels (Dédication) . Except during a period of some four centuries and a half, from about 940 till the palmy days of Mojopahit, when declining Hindu civilisation, for reasons as yet unexplained, sought a refuge farther east, Central Java and especially that part of it known in our time as the Principalities, i.e. Surakarta and Jogjakarta, has

When, suddenly, for reasons still unknown, the classic period of art in Central Java closed, about 850 Saka ( A.D. 928), East Java awakened and entered on an era of artistic activity in every direction, which lasted until the fall of Mojopahit six centuries and a half later. In architecture it offers nothing so grand and imposing as the ancient temples of the Middle Empire, but much more diversity, and numerous inscriptions, resembling, after 900 Saka ( A.D. 978), in form and contents, what we p

Although the theory of Gautama the Sugata’s life-story being only a repolished solar myth has broken down, its vital element of emancipation from Brahmanic bonds is certainly much older than Buddhism and the traditional Buddha but an incarnation of ideas long germinating and attaining fruition in his teachings, precisely as happened with other religious reformers who came and went before and after. The thirty-three gods of the three worlds, “eleven in heaven, eleven on earth and eleven dwelling

Among the ancient monuments of Insulinde [125] the chandi Boro Budoor stands facile princeps . Situated in the Kadu, it is easily reached from Jogjakarta, about twenty-five miles, or from Magelang, about eighteen miles distant, by carriage or, still more easily, by taking the steam-tram which connects those two provincial capitals and leaving the cars at Moontilan where an enterprising Chinaman provides vehicles, at short notice, for the rest of the journey via the chandi Mendoot on the left ban

... la vérité rendue expressive et parlante, élevée à la hauteur d’une idée. Ernest Renan , Vie de Jésus ( Introduction ). The pasangrahan , built for the convenience of visitors to the Boro Budoor, offers fair accommodation to the student of oriental architecture and lover of art in whatever form. Also to a good many who feel it incumbent on them to be able to say: “I have taken everything in,” or who have quite other ends in view than communion with the thought of distant ages: foreign tourist

It has already been remarked that the natives knew of the existence of the chandi Boro Budoor long before Cornelius’ discoveries or, rather, that they never lost sight of it, and the place it occupies in the Javanese chronicles appears from the Babad Tanah Jawa . [164] In the early years of the eighteenth century Ki Mas Dana, son-in-law of Ki Gedeh Pasukilan, incited the people of Mataram to a rebellion, which broke out in the dessa Enta Enta, a centre of sedition it seems, since only a short ti

It has been suggested that the practical value of this volume might be enhanced by the addition of a short bibliography indicating the works to which students, who wish to go deeper into the subjects touched upon, could turn for more ample information. Il y a l’embarras du choix and, always abreast with latest research, particularly the publications of learned societies as the Royal Institute of the Dutch East Indies, the Royal Geographical Society of the Netherlands, the Batavian Society of Art

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