Cultural Heritage

Borobudur Temple

Borobudur is the biggest Buddhist temple in Indonesia located in Muntilan District, Regency of Magelang, Central Java Province. It is the beautiful and glorious temple which was built in seventh century during the Dynasty of Syailendra. Borobudur temple had attracted since seventeenth century as mentioned in Babad Tanah Jawi. Sir Stanford Raffles (1811-1816) interested stone building of Budur village, and to appoint H.C. Cornelius to clean this building and Th. Van Erp 1907-1911 who intended firstly to conserve the building stone in hill. And big scale conservation in 1973-1983 under the leader of Prof. Ir. Rooseno and Dr. R. Soekmono funded by Indonesia and grant from other countries.

Borobudur temple has the form of terrace with big stupa. The temple forms has a series of symmetric building with stupa on the top. Structure of the temple has an accompanying component in the form of small stupa. Every terrace of temple has its specific meaning. Symbolic meaning of Borobudur Temple is on the shape of terrace and its places. This connection with cosmology of Buddha, means that the world divide into three parts, Kamadhatu, Rupadhatu, and Aruphadatu.

Borobudur temple was made in phase, first phase in 780 A.D. for basement of terrace, next phase up to fifth phase. The temple consist of ten stages. The first six are square form and stage 7-10 in form of circle made of stone in amount 2.000.000 pieces with volume about 55.000 m3.

Prambanan Temple

Prambanan temple is a great building based on Hindu religion familiarly with Bandung Bondowoso story, located in border of Special District of Yogyakarta, and Central Java Province. The temple constructed in 856 A.D., known as monument of Siva the most beautiful and biggest temple in Indonesia, built in the era of Rakai Pikatan in 846-855 A.D. Mr. C.A. Lons was interested in that temple. In 1733 the condition of the temple was covered by land and plant. Effort of cleaning on the large scale was done in 1855 and in 1919 started to be conserved. In 1953 Siva temple finished to be restored, while Prambanan complex finished in 1993.

The biggest complex of Prambanan temple has three main yards, first yard is 110 x 110 m with three main temples namely Siva temple in central, Brahma in the south, and Vishnu in the North. These three main temples symbolized three gods of Hindu religion in the concept of Trimurti. In front of those three main temples there is three temples called Wahana, God transportation that Eagle for Brahma, Buffalo for Siva, and Swan for Vishnu. Beside Wahana temple there is Kelir temple placed in every gate and two temples and Sudut temple. At the second yard there is Perwara temple; accompanying temple arranged in four rows surrounded the first yard in amount 224 pieces. First row is 68 constructions, second is 60 constructions, third 52 and fourth 44 constructions. From that number only a few number can be reconstructed. The third yard could not be found any building of temple.

The Siva temple had five statues, located in the center chamber is Siva statue, in the north chamber standing Dewi Durga Mahisasuramardhini statue, in the west chamber standing Ganesya statue, and the south chamber standing statue of Agastya. In this temple have found relief Ramayana story in the panel of wall building. Inside of Brahma temple there is Brahma statue, and in the Vishnu temple there is Vishnu statue. In the Vishnu temple is carved the story of Kresnayana, and Brahma temple is continuos story of Ramayana.

Prambanan Temple (also known as Loro Jonggrang) is actually a huge Hindu temple complex about 15km north east of Yogyakarta. It was built in the 9th century and designed as three concentric squares. The inner square contains 16 temples, the most significant being the 47m high central Siva temple flanked to the north by the Brahma temple and to the south by the Vishnu temple. The middle square contains 224 lesser temples arranged in four rows.

Legend has it that the princess Loro Jonggrang had unwillingly consented to marry Bandung Bondowoso (a terrible prince with magical powers) on the condition that he build her a huge temple complex, containing 1000 statues, in a single night. She believed he would never manage this impossible task and so the marriage could be avoided. However, as dawn approached on the night of the task, it looked as though the prince was going to complete the challenge. He was just about to start the final statue when he heard the sound of rice being pounded by the local villagers, the traditional sign for the start of a new day. The prince believed he had failed and never completed the final statue. Only later did he discover that Loro Jonggrang had asked the villagers to begin pounding the rice early, so as to trick the prince and escape the marriage. He was so angry that he turned the princess into a statue of Durga, which can still be seen inside the central Siva temple.

Tana Toraja Traditional Settlement

Tana Toraja is located in the Northern part of the South Sulawesi Province. Situated between Latimojong Mountain range and Mount Reute Kambola. The arible Toraja consists of three groups. The Eastern around lake Poso, Western Toraja living around the Palu river and Kalawi in Centre Sulawesi.

The Specific architecture of Torajan house has its own architecture form. Torajan house are shaped like a bout and the two ends are shaped like the bow. Torajan house is a compound buildings consist of traditional houses (Tongkonan) and rice storage buildings (Lumbung). The building are sculpted with ornaments of various shapes. The ornament is painted with traditional colour dominated with the black and red colour. All of them create the aesthetic value of the building of Torajan houses.

Toraja is a name of Bugis origin given to the different peoples of the mountainous regions of the northern part of the south peninsula, which have remained isolated until quite recently Their native religion is megalithic and animistic, and is characterized by animal sacrifices, ostentatious funeral rites and huge communal feasts. The Toraja only began to lose faith in their religion after 1909, when Protestant missionaries arrived in the wake of the Dutch colonizers. Nowadays roughly 60% of the Toraja are Christian, and 10% are Muslim; the rest hold in some measure to their original religion. Whatever their religious belief, it is their ancestral home, their 'house of origin', the great banua Toraja with its saddleback roof and dramatically upswept roof ridge ends, that is the cultural focus for every Toraja. This house of origin is also known as a tongkonan, a name derived from the Toraja word for 'to sit'; it literally means the place where family membets meet - to discuss important affairs, to take part in ceremonies and to make arrangements for the refurbishment of the house.
The Toraja are divided up geographically into different groups, the most important of which are the Mamasa, who are centred around the isolated Kalumpang valley, and the Sa'dan of the southern Toraja lands. There have never been any strong, lasting political groupings within the Toraja. The Sa'dan area, with its market towns of Makale and Rantepao, is known as Tana Toraja. Good roads now reach Tana Toraja from Ujung Panjang, the capital of Sulawesi, bringing a large seasonal influx of foreign tourists who, while injecting money into the local economy, have not yet had much lasting affect on local people's lives. -culture.or.id-