Monumental Effort in Java

By Frederic Golden

An international team helps salvage a Buddhist treasure

The giant stepped pyramid rises eerily out of the lush rice fields of central Java, like some forbidden city in a sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Bristling with statuary and turrets, the imposing edifice sits in stony silence in the gathering light of dawn. But this is not a Hollywood fantasy. It is Indonesia's Borobudur, the world's largest and probably most mysterious Buddhist monument, which will be rededicated this week as a national shrine and tourist attraction after being rescued from decades of neglect.

Built around 1,200 years ago, Borobudur (usually translated as "temple on the hill") is an architectural jewel that Historian Arnold Toynbee ranked as the equal of the Parthenon. Very little is known of the people who built and used it, or of the reasons it was permanently abandoned in 1006 after an earthquake and the eruption of the nearby Merapi volcano. Covered with some two miles of bas-reliefs that depict the life of Buddha and the sacred stories of Buddhism, Borobudur is a source of immense national pride to Indonesia, even though Islam is now the religion of more than 95% of its people.

Carved of gray-brown volcanic stone, Borobudur consists of a large platform, roughly 400 ft. on each side, surmounted by a wedding cake of five progressively smaller square terraces. These are topped by three circular layers. Crowning the entire structure is a bell-shaped stupa. Dozens of statues of Buddha line the balustrades on each level. Ancient Javanese architects, under Hindu influence, designed Borobudur as a model of the Mahayana Buddhist cosmos; the various levels represent the ascending stages of enlightenment that must be passed before nirvana, or spiritual freedom, is reached.

For some eight centuries, the site was overrun by tropical growth, shaken by quakes and lashed by monsoon rains. Still, when the British Lieutenant Governor of Java, Thomas Raffles, rediscovered the ruins in 1814, he was sufficiently impressed to order a cleanup of the stone pyramid. The Dutch, who regained Java from the British in 1816, continued the custodial work, which culminated in a major restoration after the turn of the century, but their well-meant efforts failed to stem continuing damage from tremors and poor drainage.

By the 1960s, Borobudur's foundation was so badly weakened that the entire structure was in danger of collapse. Some of the balustrades were listing as much as 11DEG because the artificial hill on which the temple sits had settled. Algae, fungi and lichens were eating away at porous stone, obliterating the exquisite carvings.

An alarmed Indonesian government appealed to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for international help to save the monument.

No other archaeological rescue of such magnitude had been attempted since UNESCO's raising of the Egyptian temple of Abu Simbel in 1966 to protect it from the floodwaters of the Aswan dam. Consultants from a variety of disciplines, from architecture to soil mechanics, concluded that halfway measures would no longer do; a major rebuilding had to be undertaken. To arrest the "stone cancer," as experts call it, the temple's entire middle section was removed, a job comparable to taking out the center of a layer cake without causing a collapse. With the help of a computer contributed by IBM, each of the 1,300,232 stones was catalogued, then cleaned and chemically treated before being returned to its place. Thousands of stones that had tumbled down over the years had to be fitted, like parts of a brobdingnagian jigsaw puzzle, into then" proper niches. Even local mystics were consulted, along with the computer, to find where the stones be longed. (Sadly, 54 of the Buddha heads still have not been matched with 258 headless Buddha torsos.)

More important was ensuring the temple's structural integrity, continually threatened by Java's heavy rains. Under the leaning balustrades went reinforced concrete slabs. To prevent water from undermining the hill upon which Borobudur sits, the engineers installed hidden drain pipes to replace the gargoyle spouts provided by the ancients. Finally, gravel, tar, epoxy and lead were layered under the stones to protect them and the foundation from seepage. Says Indonesian Archaeologist Soekmono, 60, known among his countrymen as the Guardian of Borobudur: "The structure is engineered to last another 1,000 years."

The reconstruction took a decade of effort and cost $25 million. Located 30 miles from the Javanese city of Jogjakarta, Borobudur is eventually expected to attract several million visitors a year. At this week's ceremony, Indonesian officials, as well as representatives of UNESCO and 28 contributing na tions and corporations, will gather at the temple for the local equivalent of a ribbon cutting. Even if the donors do not achieve nirvana as they climb Borobudur's refurbished steps, they can take pride in setting an example for all the world to emulate in the care of a noble relic of the distant past. --By Frederic Golden. Reported by Sandra Burton/Jogjakarta

With reporting by Sandra Burton/Jogjakarta This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.