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.