Borobudur Temple

Overview

Borobudur is a Buddhist temple in Central Java, Indonesia, built in the 8th and 9th centuries as a stepped pyramid of volcanic stone. Guinness World Records recognizes it as the largest Buddhist temple in the world. It is the site of Indonesia's national Vesak celebration, the Buddhist festival marking the birth, enlightenment, and death of the Buddha. In 2022 the Indonesian government designated it a place of worship for Buddhists worldwide. Borobudur is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Present

Borobudur is managed as part of a state-run heritage park operated by InJourney Destination Management, an Indonesian state-owned company. Conservation of the monument itself is the responsibility of the Borobudur Conservation Office under Indonesia's culture ministry. In 2022, the Indonesian government and religious organizations signed an agreement designating Borobudur, together with the nearby Mendut and Pawon temples, as a place of worship for Buddhists from Indonesia and around the world. Before this, the site had served mainly tourism, research, and culture. Borobudur is the center of Indonesia's national Vesak celebration. Each year at the full moon of Vesak, usually in May, monks and lay Buddhists process from Mendut Temple to Borobudur for prayers, meditation, walking clockwise around the temple, and the release of lanterns. The celebration draws tens of thousands of pilgrims.

Religious Significance

Borobudur holds religious significance for Buddhists as a monument designed as a three-dimensional mandala, a diagram of the cosmos in Buddhist thought. Its terraces build this diagram in stone, and pilgrims walk clockwise around each terrace while ascending. The lower galleries carry relief panels depicting the life of the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, together with stories of his previous lives and scenes of human desire and its consequences. The upper circular terraces are open and largely unadorned, holding seated Buddha statues enclosed in latticed stupas, dome-shaped monuments that in Buddhist practice enshrine relics or mark a sacred presence. Buddhists understand the ascent from the detailed lower galleries to the bare summit as a movement from the everyday world of desire toward detachment and awakening. Borobudur is also the site of Indonesia's national Vesak celebration, the annual festival marking the birth, enlightenment, and death of the Buddha.

History & Structure

Borobudur was built between the 8th and 9th centuries CE under the Sailendra dynasty, a Buddhist ruling family in central Java. After the region's political center shifted to eastern Java in the following centuries, the temple fell out of use. It was gradually covered by volcanic ash and vegetation. In 1814, Thomas Stamford Raffles, the British lieutenant-governor of Java, commissioned the survey that brought the site back to wide attention. A Dutch-led restoration took place from 1907 to 1911. A second major restoration, carried out by the Indonesian government with UNESCO from 1973 to 1983, dismantled and rebuilt the lower terraces. Borobudur became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991. The monument is built of volcanic stone laid without mortar. Its base measures 123 meters on each side. It rises about 35 meters through nine stacked platforms, six square and three circular, crowned by a central dome. Its galleries carry 2,672 relief panels. The monument holds 504 Buddha statues, 72 of them seated inside latticed stupas on the upper terraces.

Additional Resources

• Official website: InJourney Destination Management: Borobudur
• Related: Smarthistory: Borobudur
• UNESCO: Borobudur Temple Compounds
• Book: Borobudur: Golden Tales of the Buddhas by John Miksic (1990)