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165
Writings of Borobudur: Making sense of an Early Modern Javanese manuscript within the production of archaeological
knowledge in Indonesia
(Panggah Ardiansyah)
Writings of Borobudur: Making sense of an Early Modern Javanese
manuscript within the production of archaeological knowledge in
Indonesia
Tulisan-tulisan tentang Borobudur: Menempatkan naskah Jawa Modern
Awal dalam produksi pengetahuan arkeologi di Indonesia
Panggah Ardiansyah
History of Art and Archaeology Department, SOAS University of London
pa15@soas.ac.uk
ABSTRAK
Kata Kunci:
Borobudur;
produksi
pengetahuan;
Babad Tanah Jawi
Kawasan Borobudur sebagai situs warisan budaya saat ini dapat
diterjemahkan sebagai sebuah konstruksi cerita tentang keagungan masa
lalu, penyesalan akan kehilangan, dan penyelamatan oleh otoritas kolonial,
yang terarahkan oleh estetika yang dibangun pada masa kolonial. Tulisan
ini membahas proses pembentukan pengetahuan historis tentang
Borobudur dengan metode dekonstruksi sejarah berdasarkan analisis
terhadap Babad Tanah Jawi, yang disusun dari akhir abad ke-18 sampai
dengan awal abad ke-19 oleh kraton Jawa. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan
bahwa pada masa Jawa Modern Awal Borobudur memiliki kualitas spiritual
dalam kehidupan masyarakat, berbeda dengan sudut pandang otoritas
kolonial.
ABSTRACT
Keywords:
Borobudur;
knowledge
production;
Babad Tanah Jawi
As a heritage site today, Borobudur is arguably constructed from stories of
ancient grandeur, regrettable loss, and colonial rescue, infused with lingering
aesthetics of colonial construction. This paper discusses the historical
deconstruction of the process of historical knowledge production of
Borobudur by analysing the Babad Tanah Jawi manuscript produced from
the late 18th century to the early 19th century by Javanese courts. The result
shows that during the Early Modern Java, Borobudur held significant
spiritual quality for the local communities, unlike the previous interpretation
by the colonial authorities.
Article Submitted
Article Accepted
Article Published
03-05-2021
28-11-2022
26-12-2022
VOLUME : 42 No. 2, November 2022, 165-178
DOI : 1 0.3 088 3/j ba.v 42i 2.8 86
VERSION : English (original)
WEBSITE : https://berkalaarkeologi.kemdikbud.go.id
E-ISSN: 2548-7132
ISSN: 0216-1419
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non
Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
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Berkala Arkeologi Vol. 42 No. 2 November 2022
INTRODUCTION
A certain Ki Mas Dana had started an uprising against the court of Mataram
located at Kartasura around 1709/1710. He launched his action from the village of
Enta-Enta and managed to block the military operation organised by Jayawinata,
the regent of Mataram. Upon defeat, Jayawinata went to Kartasura to seek
assistance from the royal court. Pakubuwana I, responding to the request, ordered
Prince Pringgalaya to bring half of the regents in Kartasura to capture Dana,
possibly alive, so that the monarch could make a spectacle of his punishment for
the public (Anonymous, 1940, p. 41). Dana was overwhelmed by Pringgalaya's
attack, and following the defeat, he took refuge in Borobudur. Quickly Dana was
captured and brought to court by Pringgalaya. Upon Dana's arrival at Kartasura,
the court officials tied him to the twin sacred beringin trees in front of the palace.
Then the officials invited the city inhabitants to stick needles into Dana's body as
punishment for his action. Later, he was beheaded, with his head put on a stake at
the royal square, and his trunk was buried in the mountain (Anonymous, 1940, pp.
40–42).
This story, taken from one of the many episodes in the Babad Tanah Jawi
manuscript, has been cited in several contemporary publications about Borobudur,
mainly by Indonesian archaeologist Soekmono and Singapore-based John Miksic.
Both archaeologists have used the example from Babad Tanah Jawi – along with a
story on the crown prince's visit to Borobudur in 1758 from the so-called Babad
Mataram manuscript – to argue that Borobudur was never entirely forgotten by the
local community even after the temple was out of use since the 10th century
(Miksic, 1990, p. 28; Soekmono, 1976, pp. 4–5). Notwithstanding, Soekmono and
Miksic have labelled the narratives in Babad Tanah Jawi and Babad Mataram as
superstitious, even though Miksic remains ambiguous by assuming that for the
Javanese, the name Borobudur "only meant a hill with a large collection of
sculpture" (Miksic, 1990, p. 17). In such labelling, these archaeologists undermine
the historical value of such stories not to be on par with the Western-construct
disciplines of history and archaeology. We can trace back this epistemological
attitude toward local manuscripts to colonial time, whereby socio-political
structure and assumed expertise underpinned archaeological knowledge
production for Borobudur from the 19th century onwards.
From the early 19th century, Europeans popularised antiquarian study and
reconstrued it into the professional discipline of archaeology on the back of
Enlightenment rationalism (Diaz-Andreu, 2007, pp. 41–59). In this context, The
History of Java, published in 1817 by Thomas Stamford Raffles (1751–1826), marked
the beginning of a scientific inquiry into the already-in-ruins Candi Borobudur
with its description of an ancient structure called Bóro Bódo. During Raffles' time
in Java, he was informed of the existence of this ruined candi while residing in
Semarang in 1814 (Raffles, 1817, pp. 29–30). Concerning Raffles and other
contemporary British commentators on Javanese temples, art historian Sarah Tiffin
(2016, p. 201) notes that they had primarily disregarded the Javanese babad
literature because such a chronicle was considered over-elaborated, mystifying,
and, most importantly, historically inaccurate and deficient in its scholarship
quality. Historians Marieke Bloembergen and Martijn Eickhoff (2013, p. 88, 2020,
p. 116) have explored how local superstition and mythology are often avoided in
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the production of knowledge about Hindu-Buddhist temples in Indonesia. This is
the hierarchical underpinning in writing the history of Borobudur, which
privileges modern archaeological construction of the site, often based on Indic
sources. Though they have also noted that some ambiguities between what can be
considered as “scientific” and “superstition” are present to this day, with the
temple of Prambanan often called 'Loro Jonggrang' (Bloembergen & Eickhoff, 2020,
p. 25).
In the process briefly discussed above, the enterprise set out by Raffles was
to be presented as a ‘discovery’ of the existence of the Borobudur temple. This
narrative is still broadly accepted today, including by the Indonesian government.
In 2014, both national and local authorities celebrated the ‘200 years of the
discovery of Borobudur’, most notably by the issuance of special edition stamps
(see Figure 1) highlighting the figure of Raffles (Fitriani, 2014). In this regard, the
term 'discovery' indicates a complete disregard of Early Modern Javanese relations
to Hindu-Buddhist period temple ruins. The discourse on 'discovery' embodies a
hegemonic aesthetic perception of Borobudur as a site to be appreciated for artistic
achievement and as an archaeological object. As Anderson noted, in this colonial
construction, the temple was stripped of its spiritual value while being
"museumised. . . [and] repositioned as regalia of a secular [original emphasis]
colonial state" (Anderson, 2006, p. 182).
Figure 1. Stamps were issued to celebrate 200 years
after the 'discovery' of Borobudur by Raffles
(Source: Rinta Adita, 2014)
Dealing with these apparent hierarchies of knowledge, recent studies on
the development of art history and archaeology in Indonesia have highlighted the
multiplicity of voices towards Hindu-Buddhist remains in Java. In doing so, they
mainly focus their attention on the early-19th-century Serat Cethini manuscript,
which provides descriptions of various Hindu-Buddhist temples. Observing the
local appreciation recorded in Centhini, Bloembergen and Eickhoff conclude that
the "narrative anchors to reimagine the temple as part and parcel of the local
historical landscape" (2020, pp. 32–33). While this observation is accurate in some
sense, for the local people, the temples were not just objects from the past. Tiffin
(2016, pp. 108–109) has noted that Cabolang, one of the pilgrims in Cethini, felt
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spiritually engaged with Borobudur and its surrounding landscape. She presents
the story as an example of the ongoing spiritual admiration of the temple.
However, she falls short in providing the specifics on how this spiritual quality
came about for the 19th-century Javanese.
With those studies in mind, this paper aims to present a contextual analysis
of the spiritual meaning of Borobudur when it appears in the Babad Tanah Jawi
manuscript produced from the late 18th century to the early 19th century, lead to
revisiting the historical knowledge produced for Borobudur. The story from Babad
Tanah Jawi cited here was already identified as late as the early 20th century (see
Brandes, 1901, pp. 73–84). However, this local manuscript is either only
acknowledged as a side note or simply not mentioned, such as in the official
historiography written for the site management's website (see Borobudurpedia,
2020). Thus, the purposes of this paper are twofold: to trace an alternative path for
writing the history of Borobudur by way of an in-depth reading of Babad Tanah
Jawi text; and to demonstrate how and why that path has been repeatedly
suppressed by the structure of archaeological discourse in Indonesia.
METHODS
The discussion begins by proposing a reading of a passage concerning
Borobudur in the Surakarta Major version of Babad Tanah Jawi. Historian M.C.
Ricklefs identified this text as the source for the Meinsma-edited text published in
1874 (Ricklefs, 1972, p. 289). The significance of this historical juncture Meinsma
publication, which will be explained below, necessitates a new consideration of the
Surakarta Major Babad text within the historiography of Borobudur. To gauge the
importance of this passage, including its brevity, a cue from historian Bambang
Purwanto is taken in his call for the inclusion of Javanese manuscripts as a source
for writing history. While the dating precision of events described in the Javanese
manuscript tradition is debatable, we can read the texts as representations of socio-
cultural realities at the time of their production (Purwanto, 2006, p. 96). They are
part of a historical tradition seeking to document, transfer memory to the next
generation, build political legitimacy, and express intellectual achievement
(Purwanto, 2006, p. 98).
The second part of the discussion will historically trace and deconstruct
how archaeology as a scientific discipline has often disregarded local perspectives
in the historiography of Borobudur. In doing so, the reading of Babad Tanah Jawi
will be bolstered by an examination of colonial construction of knowledge on
Borobudur concerning the work of Michel Foucault on rationality and regimes of
truth (Rouse, 2003, pp. 95–122). The discussion draws from Foucault's insight into
the complex ways political power is drawn from knowledge construction. The
process is not necessarily centrally orchestrated but can be borne out of "discursive
alignment from heterogenous text and performances" (Rouse, 2003, p. 188).
Archaeologist Laurajane Smith (2006, p. 11) argues that this power/knowledge
alignment has been used to authorise technical and aesthetic expertise on heritage
discourse.
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RESEARCH RESULTS
The study shows that while a narrative of dispossession was being written
in European colonial historiography, the Javanese Islamic community continued
to appreciate the ruins of Borobudur. The brief reference to Borobudur in the late-
18th-century/early-19th-century Babad Tanah Jawi provides an exciting example. It
is presumed that Sultan Agung (r. 1613–1645) began the original text's
composition; according to Dutch historian J.J. Ras, the main narrative was already
crystallised by the late 17th and early 18th centuries (Ras, 1987, pp. 343–356). It is
of note that Sultan Agung is known for his efforts to harmonise Javanese Hindu-
Buddhist traditions with pious Islamic characters in his palace (Ricklefs, 1998, pp.
469–482). Other interests have shaped the form of the text best known today.
Today's title for this manuscript is taken from an edited book by J.J. Meinsma in
1874, published as Sērat Babad tanah Djawi, wiwit saking Nabi Adam dumugi in taun
1674. It is a heavily edited and redacted version of the Surakarta Major Babad made
with the specific intent of rendering the text a legible historical resource according
to Western standards (Ricklefs, 1972, p. 286). In 1941, the Meinsma text was
translated into Dutch by W.L. Olthof under the title of Babad tanah Djawi in proza:
Javaansche geschiedenis. It should be noted that Dutch philologist-cum-
archaeologist J.L.A. Brandes commented on the reference to Borobudur in the
Meinsma edited text (see Brandes, 1901, pp. 73–84). However, the reading
provided was brief and has not been discussed further either by him or other
archaeologists.
Frameworks of historical research, paradigms of royal legitimacy and the
politico-religious matrix within and beyond the text of Babad Tanah Jawi must be
considered when reading this pre-colonial reference to Borobudur. The quote and
synopsis given below are taken from the transliterated 31 volumes of Babad Tanah
Jawi published by Balai Pustaka, a colonial publishing house in the Dutch East
Indies, between 1939 and 1941. This multi-volume publication was selected
because it comprises the first half of the Surakarta Major Babad (Wieringa, 1999, p.
246), the same Babad used as the source for the Meinsma edited text. The Surakarta
Major Babad was initially composed in the reign of Pakubuwana IV (1788–1820)
and finalised during the reign of Pakubuwana VII (1830-1858), with a copy of this
version now available in Leiden (LOr. 1786). Ricklefs believed that the revisions
were mainly undertaken to legitimate then rulers, usually immediately following
coronation or when legitimating the throne. Such revisions primarily included
updating dynastic histories (Ricklefs, 1972, p. 289).
In the Babad Tanah Jawi text from Balai Pustaka, Borobudur appears during
the account of the reign of Pakubuwana I (r. 1705–1719) in canto 110, lines 90–99;
the name Barabudhur is mentioned in line 96.
Ki Mas Dana wus malayu gêndring, gya ingêsuk mring wong Kartasura,
mring Barabudhur loroge, ardi sigra kinêpung, pan kacandhak Ki Dana aglis,
binănda wus ginawa, mring Kartasurèku, wong cilik kèh binoyongan, sigra budhal
Pangeran Pringgalayèki, myang sagung pra punggawa (Anonymous, 1940, p. 42).
Ki Mas Dana sprinted without looking back, after being defeated by the
soldiers of Kartasura, [he] retreated to Borobudur, the mountain was rapidly
surrounded, Ki Dana was immediately captured, brought hand-tied, to
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Kartasura, [his] commoner-army were captured and taken, Prince
Pringgalaya quickly departed, went [with] all of the soldiers (English
translation by the author).
It should be noted that Babad Tanah Jawi had been reproduced from time to
time and doubtlessly preserved in several versions originating from the courts of
Yogyakarta and Surakarta (see Ricklefs, 1972, pp. 285–315) . The act of text copying
was often performed to preserve a manuscript, given that the writing support is
perishable in Java's tropical climate (Wieringa, 1999, p. 252). In particular, historian
Ann Kumar (1984, pp. 223–247) has noted that copying the Babad genre allowed
significant narrative variation from one version to another as part of a living
literary tradition considered the opposite of archival keeping of records.
Nonetheless, in this Babad genre, specific historical figures and episodes can easily
be identified, and the same main narrative is generally deducible. With this issue,
historian Bambang Purwanto (2006, p. 90) has critiqued the scholars' dismissal of
the Early Modern Javanese manuscript as a viable historical source for the
historiography of Indonesia because of this literary character. More recent
developments in Indonesian, as well as Javanese historical scholarship, have
brought a greater appreciation of Javanese perspectives and belief systems
narrated within the passages from these various texts and of their pertinence to
historical research (see Purwanto, 2006, pp. 88–126; Sastrawan, 2020, pp. 2–23).
DISCUSSIONS
Borobudur as Sacred Space
In the passages from Babad Tanah Jawi, we can see how Borobudur was
remembered and accepted as part of the Javanese socio-political geography
concerning the power dynamics within Mataram polity and its descendants. In this
sense, Ki Mas Dana appeared as an obscure figure within Mataram royal
historiography. Beyond this text, not much is currently known about him, and, to
the author’s knowledge, there is no mention of him in other manuscripts. The
location where Dana started his rebellion, the village of Enta-Enta (or Ngenta-
Enta), is of particular interest. According to Javanese historian Soemarsaid
Moertono, the name comes from the word ngenta, meaning to imitate or copy
something. Its exact geographical position is unknown today, but the location was
used previously by Raden Surjakusuma in starting his revolt against the Mataram
king. Surjakusuma built a palace complex complete with its public square while
launching a failed rebellion against Amangkurat III of Mataram (r. 1703–1708)
(Moertono, 2009, p. 89).
On the other hand, Dana's capturer, Prince Pringgalaya, seems to be an
important figure inside the palace of Mataram. He was installed as deputy patih
(equal to grand vizier) during the reign of Pakubuwana II (r. 1726–1749), giving
him a position as one of the leading confidants of the current ruler. The prince was
also known for his sympathetic view of the Chinese community when rebelling
against VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie / The Dutch East India Company)
in the 1740s (Ricklefs, 1983, pp. 268–290). Nonetheless, it is unclear whether he took
his own life or was poisoned by his enemies following a court intrigue in 1755
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(Kumar, 1997, pp. 330, 341). Thus, Ki Mas Dana seems to be one of the many rebels
who took up arms in the never-ending and complicated contest for royal power
within the realm of Mataram. Placed within this broader historical context,
Borobudur comes into our sight for a split second in a much larger genealogical
narrative from the royal historical tradition.
The reference to Barabudhur in the Babad Tanah Jawi is very rapid. It could be
taken as a passing reference to a toponym like any other whose only historical
value would lie in the dating usage of the name. However, there is more to the
reference here because Borobudur appears as a place of refuge in political and
military conflict. Does Ki Mas Dana need to take refuge at Barabudhur when
retreating from a battlefield? Or, perhaps more precisely, why do the authors of
Babad Tanah Jawi need to have him take refuge there?
Barabudhur in Babad Tanah Jawi can be compared with Budur in the
Deśawarṇana, a 14th-century Old Javanese manuscript of Majapahit. Both referred
to the site of Borobudur in passing, but unlike Deśawarṇana, which designated
Budur as a Buddhist sanctuary (Krom, 1927, p. 7), Babad Tanah Jawi makes no
sectarian reference. At first sight of Babad Tanah Jawi, it might not discern any
religious or cultural dimensions to the reference. The notion of refuge can only,
however, beg this question. Some might reduce the refuge here to pragmatics: the
ruin might represent a labyrinth-like structure, which could serve as the perfect
hide-out to defend oneself from an enemy's attack. In this reading, Barabudhur
would have figured in the story for its position as a strategic location providing a
hiding place for those on the run. Brandes considered this when discussing the
reference of Barabudhur in Babad Tanah Jawi but dismissed it as he did not find
evidence that the stones had been used to make a fortification on or near the
monument (Brandes, 1901, p. 80). Strategically speaking, one would not be wholly
protected inside the monument because the structure of Borobudur would remain
open to attack from its four gates. Brandes also mentioned that Diponegoro, during
the Java War (1825–1830), fought battles in areas near Borobudur (Brandes, 1901,
p. 80). However, it is thought that he had never used the structure of Borobudur
as a defensive shelter.
The lack of obvious usage of the temple in strictly military terms leads us to
consider other reasons why Ki Mas Dana is said to have taken shelter specifically
in Barabudhur. Examination of the Javanese word ardi may prove helpful here, a
term used in the phrase "ardi sigra kinepung" following the reference to Barabudhur
(see Babad Tanah Jawi line 96 canto 110 above). In a general sense, ardi means
mountain. It comes from an older Javanese form (Horne, 1974, p. 37) originating
from a Sanskrit loanword adri (Bratakesawa, 1928, p. 89). In a literal sense, it seems
like straightforward usage since we know that Candi Borobudur sits on the top of
a slight elevation.
Zoetmulder's Old Javanese-English dictionary (1982) indicates another layer
of meaning for ardi with use found in the 15th-century Tantu Pagelaran, in line 24
canto 92: atapa ṅunîṅ ardi (meditate in the mountain). Atapa comes from the root
tapa, and according to the Horne Javanese-English dictionary (1974, p. 592), tapa
means "to withdraw to a secluded place and live in solitude for holy meditation,
in order to purify one's being of all outside matters and concentrate the will
towards a goal". Within Babad Tanah Jawi text, there are many occurrences for the
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usages of different words for 'mountain' adjacent with and closely related to the
concept of tapa. For example, in line 20 canto 6, one reads atêtapa ana in ardi
(meditate in the mountain) (Anonymous, 1940, p. 39), and line 28 canto 7 narrates
ri kang tapa ing arga (those who meditate in the mountain) (Anonymous, 1940, p.
58). Tapa and mountains are very frequently associated in South and Southeast
Asian contexts. 'Mountain-temples' like Borobudur, pyramidal sacred refuges
built atop elevations or to resemble such an elevation in and of themselves, are one
expression of this association. It seems possible, even logical, to read the reference
to Borobudur in Babad Tanah Jawi as a refuge in this context: a rebel would have
sought refuge in the mountain in order to protect himself magically as well as
physically, and to gather, through meditation, his forces – again magical as much
as physical (see Acri, 2020, pp. 273–290) .
For tapa, the Gericke and Roorda dictionary (1901, p. 679) notes that ascetics
performing the practice aim to achieve higher spiritual power or do a favour for
the deity. Regarding the story of Ki Mas Dana in Barabudhur, there is a similar
context in various texts, whereby rebels go to a secluded location, but not only in
a mountain, to prepare themselves spiritually and strengthen their bodies
internally. A well-known 17th-century rebel figure, Untung Surapati, is said to
have hidden inside a cave in the mountains of Ngantang, East Java, while another
17th-century insurgent Raden Punta is said to have meditated at the burial
grounds of Tegal Arum (Moertono, 2009, p. 90). Caves are thought to carry potent
magical power and have a spiritual connection with local spirits (Roxas-Lim, 1983,
pp. 107–175). Similarly, burial grounds were often considered spiritually potent
because of their spatial function as a meeting point between ordinary beings and
supernatural forces (Tiffin, 2016, p. 242). Funerary markers in the forms of terraces,
altars and images located deep in the forest and high up on the mountain also
indicate such perceptions in related contexts. Sasaka Domas of Baduy in the
western part of Java is one of them. Constructed in elevated terraces with arranged
stones, the only access to the site is through an annual pilgrimage to pay respect to
the ancestral spirit called Batara Tunggal in the fifth month of the lunar calendar
(Wessing, 1999, pp. 64–66). This perception of supernatural power in specific
places drove rebels to those places: they believed they could gain the inner peace
necessary to acquire the mythical power necessary to defeat royalty. This process
is presumed as the case of Ki Mas Dana in retreating to Barabudhur.
It is of note for these discussions that Borobudur's terraced pyramidal
structure is similar to graves of respected rulers in Java. Two such revered sites
can be taken as examples: Sunan Gunung Jati's grave in Cirebon and Sultan
Agung's tomb in Yogyakarta. While the latter is attributed to the greatest ruler of
Mataram, who successfully led the state to its peak, the former figure is considered
as the founder of both Cirebon and Banten states in the 16th century, aside from
being counted as one of Wali Sanga (Nine Muslim Saints) members. Sultan Agung
died in 1645 and was buried in Imogiri royal cemetery. He and his family are
placed on the highest platform of three elevated terraces, considered the most
sacred sanctuary within the complex. Meanwhile, Sunan Gunung Jati presumably
died in 1570 and was buried in Cirebon, where his tomb is kept in the inner and
highest courtyard, a compound made of elevated terraces. Both sites nowadays are
famous popular pilgrimage destinations for Islamic communities, particularly
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from Java. The topographical plan of these revered tombs evokes the illustration
of Borobudur by Cornelius in 1814 (see Figure 2). In this context, it is rather
difficult not to imagine that 18th- and 19th-century local Javanese elites did not
consider Borobudur a source of mythical power.
Figure 2. General view of Borobudur, drawn by H.C. Cornelius or his draughtsmen, watermark by J.
Honig and Zoonen, c. 1814–1816
(Source: The Trustees of the British Museum)
While it is still unclear that the perception described above was also
followed by communities outside the palace wall, particularly those living near the
site, it is clear that Borobudur was not a dead monument. There are passing
evidence, here and there, albeit in differing manners, that Javanese people
continued to appreciate and appropriate Borobudur before and during the
consolidation of colonial power in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A colonial
report states that, in a festive ritual in the mid-19th century, the Javanese would
cover the Buddha images stored inside the perforated stupas at the top of the
monument with yellow ointment (Miksic, 1990, p. 28; Scheurleer, 2007, p. 81). A
particular statue, the first Buddha inside the perforated stupa on our right when
climbing from the eastern stairway, was venerated by the Javanese, Chinese and
Europeans alike and was named Sang Bimo, from the name of the second brother
of Pandava (Scheltema, 1912, p. 270). By the late 19th century, heaps of flowers and
burning incense were often found surrounding the image on the upper terraces
(Miksic, 1990, p. 28; Scidmore, 1897, p. 198). This practice was performed in search
of blessing to avoid misfortune such as illness or stillbirth (Bloembergen &
Eickhoff, 2020, pp. 45–46). The contemporary desire of the local community and
general public alike to re-use and create new meanings for the site is, therefore, not
without historical precedence. Acknowledging this continued appreciation
contributes to thickening the historiography of Borobudur. In turn, it is obligatory
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to examine why historical Javanese accounts have been frequently de-legitimised
and so rarely been acknowledged in 'scientific' writing on Borobudur and what
impact that has had on our knowledge of the site; 'our' here including Indonesians
schooled or not in history and archaeology.
Continuity/Rupture in the Archaeology of Indonesia
As Bloembergen and Eickhoff (2020, p. 15) have highlighted, the term 'dead
monument' was in the 1992 Indonesian Law on cultural heritage to stipulate that
any site already abandoned at the time of its discovery could not be brought into
use again. While the law was updated in 2010, this directive is still widely followed
by heritage managers in Indonesia. This is a stunning result of the hegemonic
colonially inspired view of Borobudur as only an archaeological object. Tiffin
(2016, p. 107) has argued that the problem with 'discovery' is that it "credits the
remains [Hindu-Buddhist temple ruins] with an interest or importance that dates
only from their sighting by Europeans and so completely ignores local knowledge
and practices".
As mentioned in the opening, the Barabudhur reference in the Babad Tanah
Jawi has been recognised since the early 20th century. Brandes was the first to
publish this material in his 1901 short article in Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land-
en Volkenkunde, one of the academic journals published by the Batavian Society of
Arts and Sciences (hereafter the Batavian Society). He recognised the name from
reading the Meinsma edited text of Babad Tanah Jawi (see Brandes, 1901, pp. 74–75).
Brandes' brief study was quoted by Dutch journalist and adventurer J.F. Scheltema
in his book, Monumental Java, to argue that "the natives knew of the existence of
the chandi Boro Budoor long before Cornelius' discoveries" (Scheltema, 1912, p. 266).
Based on his journalism and cultural commenting works, Scheltema was an
outcast figure in the Dutch East Indies archaeological circuit.
On the other hand, one of the most prominent Dutch archaeologists, N.J.
Krom, published his magnum opus, Beschrijving van Barabudur: Archaeologische
Beschrijving (Borobudur: Archaeological Description), in 1920; it was translated
into English in 1927. While he briefly mentioned the Barabudhur passage in the
Meinsma edited text, he did not address its significance (see Krom, 1927, p. 3).
Krom did summarise two local stories about the temple, but he believed they were
"of little importance to the history of the temple" (Krom, 1927, pp. 19–21). The quick
dismissal by Krom derived from and contributed to the discourse at the time,
where the sole focus was on the original construction, coupled with presumptions
of the unreliability of modern Javanese oral and written traditions. The knowledge
produced disengaged the Early Modern Javanese people from Borobudur; a
process traced back to Raffles' History of Java.
Raffles glorified the Javanese Hindu-Buddhist architectural ruins alone.
His chapter on Javanese religion includes not a single example of Islamic
architecture while providing lengthy commentary on numerous Hindu-Buddhist
monuments (Raffles, 1817, pp. 1–64). He often employed 'Sepoys,' Indian contract
foot soldiers, whose knowledge of Indic culture was used to interpret Javanese
reliefs and statues. Raffles wrote that "… nor did he [the Sepoy] fail to draw a very
degrading and natural contrast between the ancient Javans, as Hindus and artists,
and their degenerate sons, with scarce a remnant of arts, science, or of any religion
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(Panggah Ardiansyah)
at all" (Raffles, 1817, p. 27). This very utterance served to disrupt the cultural
engagement of local peoples with the temple ruins in reinforcing "the idea that the
Javanese had turned their backs on the superb cultural legacy that the candi
represented" (Tiffin, 2016, p. 110). In his book, Raffles' prejudice was apparent
when he argued that the contemporaneous Javanese, whom he homogenously
labelled as Mahometans (a standard term used by Europeans in the 18th and 19th
centuries to name Muslims), were less civilised because they could not construct
monumental structures such as those characteristics of Hindu-Buddhist cultures
(Aljunied, 2005, pp. 10–12). This discourse has been widely recycled and
distributed to become the very foundation of understanding the formation of the
Hindu-Buddhist heritage of Indonesia. In our case study, Borobudur, as a heritage
site today, is constructed on this foundation, with stories of ancient grandeur,
regrettable loss, and colonial rescue infused with a lingering aesthetics upon which
present state management has consolidated its authority over the local
community. In turn, it created a perception of neglect by the Early Modern
Javanese for the legacy of ancient temple architectures, a perception which
continues to impact research, conservation, and management of Borobudur today
(see Borobudurpedia, 2020).
Once the British administration handed over Java in 1816, the Dutch
colonial authority successfully imposed and legitimised itself as the caretaker of
Hindu-Buddhist remains, including Borobudur, through developing Western
scientific knowledge in archaeology. The Batavian Society played an essential part
in this process of disruption by adopting and assimilating the narrative of rupture
into its policies. The society, often considered the oldest of its kind in Asia, was
established in 1778 by J.C.M. Radermacher (1741–1783). Radermacher took
inspiration from the Dutch Society of Sciences of Haarlem, where he had served as
one of the directors stationed in the Indies (Steenbrink et al., 1993, p. 59). The
primary purpose of the Batavian Society was to conduct scientific investigations
into the cultures of the East Indies archipelago. The society was on the decline
before Raffles took over its presidency in 1814 (Tiffin, 2016, pp. 30–31). In turn,
Raffles' rejuvenation included recalibrating the Society's focus on scientific
inquiries into antiquities originating from Java (Tiffin, 2016, p. 31). The heightened
attention to Javanese Hindu-Buddhist temples by the Batavian Society had a
profound impact. The Batavian Society later inspired and guided the foundation
of the Society for Antiquarianism, Linguistics and Ethnology of the Principality of
Jogjakarta in 1885 (Southworth, 2017, p. 251). Its chairman, the physician-turned-
amateur archaeologist Isaac Groneman, hosted the visit of King Chulalongkorn of
Siam to Borobudur and Prambanan. In this exchange of knowledge, the two had
lively discussions on Borobudur as a Buddhist temple (Bloembergen & Eickhoff,
2020, pp. 77–78). The Javanese were present during the visit, yet their voices were
silenced. Comparable to this kind of discussion, most inquiries into ancient
architectural remains in Java would first and foremost deal with the original
meanings and functions of Hindu-Buddhist architectural programs. Underpinned
by colonial structure, this disregard of later local perspectives represents epistemic
violence, which precedes the way in which the heritage discourse is set for
Borobudur today.
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CONCLUSION
While historian Denys Lombard argued that the emergence of Islamic
practices in Java since the 16th century created a new 'mentality' in Javanese
peoples, he also acknowledged the possibility of continuity of pre-Islamic
traditions. In particular, he questioned how far the Javanese perception of kramat
graves has continued to deploy traditional perceptions of sacred space, as
evidenced in, for example, the neak ta (local tutelary deity) of mainland Southeast
Asia (Lombard, 2020, pp. 241–342). This scholarly window is more often than not
quickly shut, however. This is partly due to a perception that pre-16th century
'Hindu-Buddhist' and post-16th century 'Islamic' cultures were mutually
exclusive. 'Indonesianists' do not take on both; instead, they are divided between
'Hindu-Buddhist' and 'Islamic' specialisms. Historians Andrea Acri and Verena
Meyer observe that "scholars of the 'Hindu-Buddhist' period have rarely if ever,
taken into account 'Islamic' material post-dating the 16th century, and vice-versa"
(Acri & Meyer, 2019, p. 277), which is relevant with what have been discussed
above.
In this epistemological context, reading on how Barabudhur was referenced
in the Babad Tanah Jawi aims to sketch an alternative pathway to understanding the
history of Borobudur. The text suggests continuation in some form of veneration
of the site while also demonstrating an ongoing permutation of meaning. From the
account in Babad Tanah Jawi, it can be speculated that as late as the late 18th to early
19th centuries, Borobudur was perceived as a source of supernatural power, at
least by the Mataram royal elites. This reading supports the discussion of Serat
Centhini conducted by other scholars to counter the colonial assumption of
perceiving Borobudur as a dead monument. Nonetheless, these palace
manuscripts, of which Babad Tanah Jawi also appeared in the Meinsma edited text
in 1874, have been continuously side-lined in the archaeological study of
Borobudur. This act greatly supported the rhetoric of discovery so well established
by Raffles to have been actively reproduced in the temple's historiography.
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