Lost Buddhist Temple City, Sumatra

[sabaijai]

The lost temple city of Sumatra

27 JANUARY 2010 MICHAEL LENZ

Hidden by jungle since the end of its glory days, the mysteries of the Muara Jambi temple complex are gradually being unearthed by Indonesian archaeologists. Candi Kedaton is a busy place. Walls are being demolished and bricks are being diligently numbered and stacked under blue plastic tarpaulins. “We have to stabilise the foundations of the temple. Once we’ve done that we will rebuild the walls and reconstruct the temple,” explains Agus Widiatmoko, chief archaeologist of the Indonesian province of Jambi.

Only 14 months ago the candi (the Indonesian word for temple) was covered in thick jungle.

Candi Kedaton belongs to the Muara Jambi temple complex, a 2062-hectare Buddhist site on the east coast of Sumatra vying for Unesco World Heritage status. Covering 7.5 kilometres of the Batanghari River’s banks, the site is quite rightly known as Indonesia’s Angkor Wat. Of the 82 known ruins on the site, so far only eight have been dug up and reconstructed.

The city of Jambi is a no-nonsense blue-collar town, producing oil and rubber. It is also the location for several paper mills that process the vast amounts of timber harvested, illegally or not, from the surrounding rainforest. The city has a few hotels meeting international standards as well as an airport, which makes it the ideal gateway to some of Sumatra’s most exciting nature reserves and historical sites.

Two-and-a-half hours south of the city is the Harapan Rainforest Reserve where you can spot hornbills, wild boar and treetop gibbons. A bit further away is the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park where Asian elephants, Sumatran tigers and orangutans roam the forest. Another exciting, if more inaccessible attraction are the stone age megalithic complexes of Mount Kerinci, which at 3805-metres is Indonesia’s highest volcano.

The Muara Jambi is only 22km outside the city, and the most relaxed way to get there is a one-and-a-half-hour boat journey up the Batanghari River. Faster, of course, is a drive by car through sleepy villages, rice paddies and lush orchards dripping with mangos, durians and langsat.

Temple tourism is in its infancy, so amenities for visitors are few and far between. For a few Indonesian rupiah, local guides will happily take you around the complex. Their view of history might not be completely accurate, but they will fill you in on the popular local stories and myths – which are certainly no less entertaining. The temples may have no religious significance to the Muslim guides, but they remain a source of local pride, reminding the locals of a far more ancient tradition of belief and achievement.

From the 4th until the 13th century AD, Muara Jambi was the centre of the Hindu-Buddhist Melayu Kingdom and a partner in its tumultuous history. According to the Chinese Buddhist monk Yijing, who travelled through the area in the 7th century, the early Melayu was an independent kingdom and a centre of Buddhist worship and education. By the end of the century, however, it was taken over by the rival Srivijaya empire, another ancient Malay Kingdom. Even as a vassal state, Jambi continued to be powerful due to its gold mines, and is probably the reason why the Sanskrit name for Sumatra is Suvarnadvipa (island of gold).

In its heyday, the influence of the Srivijaya empire extended to Java, the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines. One major reason for this was Jambi’s strategic location at the point where the South China Sea, the Java Sea and the Straits of Malacca meet. Its control of this trade bottleneck enabled its influence to reach even the borders of present-day Cambodia, until Jayavarman II, the founder of the Khmer Empire, severed the link.

As Srivijaya’s dominance waned in the 11th century, due to conflicts with the Chola Kingdom of South India and Javanese feifdoms, the seat of the empire was moved to Jambi. Jambi’s political, diplomatic and commercial connections produced a cosmopolitan city where traders from Arabia, India and China mingled with the Bugis of Sulawesi and other indigenous tribes.

n two restored temples, Candi Gumpung and Candi Tinggi, a collection of artefacts includes coins from China, ceramics from Siamese Sawankhalok and a huge bronze kettle from Vietnam. But beyond these artefacts and a few old documents, little is really known about the temples. “We even don’t know the real names of them,” admits Widiatmoko. He points to a block of sandstone with ornamental carvings on its sides, which sits next to Candi Kedaton’s main stairway. “We have no idea what purpose these stones served. They must have been imported since there is no sandstone in Jambi. Perhaps they served as pedestals for Buddha statues.” While most of the bricks used for the temples are plain red stones, occasionally archaeologists have found some bricks covered in carvings. “These bricks contain the oldest graphic representations of Sumatran architecture and show domestic architecture reflecting a variety of cultural influences in Jambi,” says Widiatmoko. One thing that is known is that it will be impossible to restore the Jambi temples to their original state since the main structure of each temple was made from wood.

Walking the tracks of an ancient civilisation makes you hungry. Fortunately Widiatmoko knows the perfect place for lunch: the home of batik artist Azmiah Edy Sunarto in Jambi. In the traditional manner, we sit on the floor in a living room that doubles as a show room for the colourful batik tulis – hand-drawn batik artwork. A red, beautifully designed batik sheet is spread out and the artist’s daughter serves lunch. Fish and meat curries are placed on the batik sheet, accompanied by vegetables, fruits and rice.

Pointing to her creations, Azmiah Edy Sunarto tells us that Jambi batik is characterised by its floral and fruit motifs, unlike Javanese batik that uses animals. There are about 80 traditional batik Jambi designs, which, she says, are as ancient as the temples, handed down from generation to generation since the glory days of the Melayu Kingdom.

Source: Southeast Asia Globe http://www.sea-globe.com/life/133-travel/4...city-of-sumatra