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Borobudur
The ninth-century Buddhist monument in central Java, a stone path to enlightenment
Mist lifts off the Kedu Plain in central Java to reveal a dark stone mountain ringed by volcanoes: Borobudur, the largest Buddhist monument in the world. Built around 800 CE, more than three centuries before Angkor Wat, it is less a temple to enter than a path to walk. Pilgrims circle clockwise up through square galleries carved with the life and teachings of the Buddha, then out onto open circular terraces where bell-shaped stupas hold seated Buddhas gazing across the plain. The climb traces the Buddhist journey from the world of desire to formlessness. Each May, Buddhists from across Indonesia and beyond walk in procession to the monument for Vesak, the festival of the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death.
The monument is built over a natural hill about 40 kilometers northwest of Yogyakarta, with the active volcano Merapi on the eastern skyline. Its base is about 123 meters square, and it rises about 35 meters through nine stacked platforms, six square and three circular, to a large central stupa. About 55,000 cubic meters of andesite stone were fitted without mortar. The square galleries carry 2,672 relief panels, the largest ensemble of Buddhist reliefs anywhere, showing courtly life, ships and markets as well as scripture. In all, 504 Buddha statues sit in niches and in the 72 perforated stupas on the upper terraces. Two smaller temples, Pawon and Mendut, lie on a straight line to the east, the route of the Vesak procession.
Borobudur was built under the Sailendra dynasty from about 780 to 830 and abandoned by the fifteenth century as Java's centers of power shifted east and Islam spread. Covered by ash and jungle, it was brought to wider attention by Thomas Stamford Raffles's British administration in 1814. The Dutch engineer Theodoor van Erp restored it from 1907 to 1911, and a UNESCO-led campaign dismantled and rebuilt it between 1975 and 1982. A bombing in 1985 damaged nine stupas, and ash from Merapi's 2010 eruption buried it again. UNESCO inscribed the temple compounds in 1991. To limit wear, the state manager InJourney has since 2023 capped climbers to the upper terraces, required visitors to wear special upanat sandals and sold timed tickets.