The grandeur of Borobudur is something immense, sphinx-like, incomprehensible and yet so fascinating. It overpowers with a sense
of our own incapacity to give a description…. Its enigmas are too many and too great for us to solve, and yet it exercises such a powerful
charm, lays such a hold on the mind that we are irresistibly compelled to use all our powers to discover something of its mysterious being.

Located in close proximity of the geographic center of the Island of Java in Southeast Asia, the man-made pyramid-mountain of Borobudur has puzzled archaeologists and scholars alike since the very day that the western world rediscovered it during the early nineteenth century. Comparable in size to the Egyptian pyramid at Saqqara, this enigmatic structure contains more than 1.6 million stone blocks and measures more than 400 feet along either axis.

   In 1814, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles — acting in his capacity as the British Empire’s Lieutenant Governor on Java — sent a survey team to investigate incredible rumors about a great ruined sanctuary located deep within the island’s interior. It took six weeks for a crew of two hundred men to clear away the
soil, volcanic ash and vegetation that had embraced the monument for centuries. Upon clearing the site, the discoverers were able to discern the foundations
of a stepped pyramid, which provides the framework for a series of galleries that collectively contained 1,300 beautiful bas-relief carvings that if placed end-to-end would span a distance of more than 1.5 kilometers. The walls of the monument’s galleries in turn were designed to support no less than 432
cave-like niches, each of which contained a stone image of the Buddha. Near the top of the pyramid, the exploration team uncovered three round terrace platforms, each of which supported a series of bell-shaped chambers called stupas. Residing within each of the half-dome shells was a statue of a Buddha displaying the symbolic hand gesture known as the ‘Turning of the Wheel.’

  The beauty and delicate execution of the separate portions, the symmetry and regularity of the whole, the great number and interesting
character  of the statues and reliefs with which they are ornamented, excite our wonder that they were not earlier examined, sketched and
described, Raffles wrote.

Between the release of Raffles’ masterful monograph on the History of Java in 1817 and the inauguration date of the latest round of restoration efforts at Borobudur in 1972, scholars and researchers from around the world have published in excess of five hundred learned studies on the monument. The Dutch archaeologist J. W. IJzerman wrote of his surprise discovery of a relief series that had previously lain hidden beneath the monument’s wide base and the
Dutch engineer Theodoor van Erp produced the first comprehensive architectural description. Eminent European scholars such as Alfred Foucher, Nicholas
J. Krom and F. D. K. Bosch succeeded in identifying many of the Buddhist texts that the builders had used as the inspirational sources for carving the monument’s many narrative relief panels. Furthermore, Paul Mus was able to shed additional light on the monument’s meaning by viewing Borobudur within
the context of a comprehensive analysis of India’s ancient religious scriptures. Yet despite these and other early discoveries and insights, the general feeling among scholars remained that Borobudur’s essential meaning had nonetheless eluded their grasp.

Borobudur expresses a complex message in a code that has yet to be cracked, partly because the range of individual elements making up the
code is so vast, wrote John Miksic, associate professor of SE Asian Studies at Singapore National University.

This sanctuary does not reveal its secret to just anyone that comes along,” added author Vratislav Jan Zizka. One might even argue that the
endless steps and stairways, and the kilometers of stone bas-reliefs are arranged in such a manner as to confuse us in our calculations and to
beguile us away from simple measuring and reasoning.

Although the early identification of the Buddhist texts associated with Borobudur’s narrative bas-reliefs helped to reveal the monument’s outer or ‘exoteric’ meaning, the consensus remained that the pyramid-mountain encapsulated an inner or ‘esoteric’ message that continued to defy all attempts to unveil it.
Despite decades of intensive effort, no one had been unable to discover any ancient text or inscription that could help to explain the monument’s purpose or even whether Borobudur is its true name. Exposed to the region’s unforgiving tropical environment, all documents recorded on palm leaves and other
perishable materials had disintegrated long ago. The few stone and copperplate inscriptions that have somehow managed to survive the passage of time are totally silent with regards to this magnificent structure. Even the name ‘Borobudur’ continues to present an enigma.

As the authors have conceived it, the purpose of this new publication is to provide readers with the latest information pertaining to the unique position that Java’s pyramid-mountain Buddha occupies within the general context of Southeast Asia’s ancient art, architecture, art, history, religion and sciences. To accomplish this goal, Borobudur serves as the symbolic departure point for conducting a much wider discussion that examines the entry of India’s Hindu-Buddhist civilization into the island kingdoms of maritime Southeast Asia in general as well as the monument’s relationship with indigenous Javanese customs and religious practices in particular.

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