Borobudur is one of the greatest Buddhist monuments
in the world. It is located near Magelang. It is about 42 km from Yogyakarta.
Borobudur temple ever becomes one of the seven wonder in the world.
The name of Borobudur was firstly written in the
book of “Sejarah Pulau Jawa” by Sir Thomas Raffles. He wrote about a monument
called Borobudur. Borobudur is derived from two words; bore means bore village
and budur means ancient.
Borobudur was established about year 800 M. It spent
about 75-100 years to build the monument. The process of the monument’s
development was finished at the time when the king was Samaratungga. Borobudur
has three stages that have different meanings. The bottom stage is Kamadhatu.
Kamadhatu represents the world that still has “kama” or it can be explained
that the people in the world are still seeking for their own lust. The second
stage called Rupadhatu. It consists of four alleys with 1.300 relief pictures. There
are 432 Buddhist statues in the stage of Rupadhatu. The highest stage named Aruphadatu.
It means that it is not tangible or concrete. This stage represents the place
of the gods and explains that people are free from all their passion but cannot
reach the “nirwana”. In the stage of Arupadhatu, the Buddhist statue placed
inside of hollow stupas. Borobudur has total 72 stupas.
About the relief, Borobudur has four reliefs. They
are Karmawhibangga, Lalitawistara, Jataka and Awadana, and Gandawyuha. The
first relief is Karmawhibangga. It tells about the “karma” or the causal effect
of good and bad deeds. The second relief named Lalitawistara. It shows people
about the birth of Sang Buddha or it represents Prince Siddharta, the son of
King Suddhodana and Empress Maya in the land of Kapilawastu. The third relief
called Jataka and Awadana. Jataka is a collection of stories that tell about
Sang Buddha before he was born as Prince Siddharta. It tells about good deeds
and the order that people have to help each other. Actually Jataka and Awadana
are similar but the difference is Awadana does not tell about Sang Bodhisattwa
but the other people. The last is Gandawyuha. It tells about Sudhana that never
give up searching for the real truth.
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