Imagine Buddha in Prambanan

·期刊原文

Imagine Buddha in Prambanan: Reconsidering the Buddhist Background
of the Loro Jonggrang Temple Complex

Reviewed by Katherine Hacker

Pacific Affairs

Vol.67 No.3 Fall 1994 Pp.485-486

COPYRIGHT University of British Columbia (Canada) 1994

ACCORDING to anthropologist Roy Jordaan, the Loro Jonggrang at
Prambanan, central Java -- a Hindu monument -- has too often been
viewed as a "rival" to the contemporaneous Buddhist Borobudur. While
others agree with this oversimplified reading, suggesting instead a
climate of peaceful coexistence (Jan Fontein, The Sculpture of
Indonesia [Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1990]), Jordaan's
thesis argues for actual Sailendra involvement at Loro Jonggrang.
The most rewarding of the four concise sections in this brief
monograph is chapter 2, a systematic review of earlier scholarship,
with its fascinating but all too familiar account of early colonial
privileging of the Buddhist tradition (I was reminded especially of
India's Durga Temple at Aihole). Less satisfying are the subsequent
"From Mandala to Ground-Plan" and "New Perspectives for Further
Research." Much of Jordaan's argument hinges on the dated Keluruk
inscription, issued during the reign of the Sailendras, which "may
have served as a kind of blueprint for the construction of an
extensive Buddhist mandala in which the unfolding of the Supreme
Being in both directions (i.e., Triratna and Trimurti [the Loro
Jonggrang]) was concretely represented". The author's position here
revives a hypothesis put forward in 1928 by F. D. K. Bosch whose
interpretation, to a certain extent, has been invalidated by more
recently discovered inscriptions. Building phases at Loro Jonggrang
are certainly plausible; however, the visual evidence Jordaan offers
is inconclusive. Unfortunately, interesting material such as a
discussion on the monument's ritual deposits and tantrism, which
enriches our appreciation for the religious complexity of the site,
have been placed in four appendices.
While a welcome addition to the literature on SoUtheast Asian art,
ultimately this enterprise is flawed by its insistence on
equivalence between the textual and the visual. Jordaan's
investigation into "whether Prambanan might have been conceived as a
symbol of religious tolerance and co-operation" (preface) should be
read and appreciated as a work-in-progress.