{"id":3879,"date":"2010-02-17T13:19:25","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T13:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org?p=3876&preview_id=3876"},"modified":"2010-02-17T13:19:25","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T13:19:25","slug":"discovery-of-ancient-hindu-temple-underscores-indonesias-mixed-religious-heritage-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=3879","title":{"rendered":"Discovery of Ancient Hindu Temple Underscores Indonesia\u2019s Mixed Religious Heritage – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Buddhist monks inspected a ninth-century Hindu temple recently unearthed at the Islamic University of Indonesia in Yogyakarta. Kemal Jufri for The New York Times<\/p><\/div>

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YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia \u2014 As if on cue, the two Buddhist monks in saffron robes appeared one late afternoon recently, seemingly out of nowhere, to complete the picture of Indonesia<\/a>\u2019s religious past and present.<\/p>\n

The visitors stood at the edge of a large fenced-off pit where a ninth-century Hindu temple had recently been unearthed here on the campus of the Islamic University of Indonesia<\/a>. On the other side of the pit, where a mosque\u2019s large dome rose in the backdrop, the muezzin would soon call the faithful to the sunset prayer.<\/p>\n

The discovery of the nearly intact Hindu temple was a reminder of the long religious trajectory of the country that now has the world\u2019s largest Muslim population. In few places on earth have three major religions intermixed with such intensity and proximity as in Indonesia\u2019s island of Java. If the sultan of Yogyakarta\u2019s palace lies at the heart of this city, Java\u2019s spiritual center, the world\u2019s largest Buddhist monument, Borobudur<\/a>, and one of its largest Hindu temples, Prambanan<\/a>, stand in its outskirts.<\/p>\n

About 90 percent of Indonesians are now Muslim, with only pockets of Buddhists and Hindus left. But Hinduism and Buddhism, Java\u2019s dominant religions for a much longer period, permeate the society and contribute to Indonesia\u2019s traditionally moderate form of Islam.<\/p>\n

For more than a decade, proponents of a more orthodox version of Islam have gained ground in Indonesia. More women are wearing head scarves and more Indonesians are adopting Arabic-style religious rituals as fundamentalists press for a purge of pre-Islamic values and ceremonies. But Indonesia\u2019s traditional Islam provides a counterpoint.<\/p>\n

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Continue reading the main story<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThis is Indonesia,\u201d said Suwarsono Muhammad, an official at the Islamic University. \u201cIn the long history of Indonesia, we have proven that different religions can live peacefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that spirit, Mr. Muhammad said, the university planned to showcase the Hindu temple prominently in front of a library to be built around it, in the shape of a half-circle.<\/p>\n

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Archaeologists found a statue of Ganesha, a Hindu deity, during their excavations on the campus of the Islamic University. The New York Times<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>

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It all began last August when the private university decided to build the library, \u201cthe symbol of knowledge of our religion,\u201d next to the mosque, Mr. Muhammad said. In the two decades the university had occupied its 79-acre campus outside Yogyakarta, no temple had ever been found. But chances were high that they were around. Most of the nearby villages had the same prefix in their names: candi, meaning temple.<\/p>\n

By Dec. 11, a construction crew had already removed nearly seven feet of earth. But the soil proved unstable, and the crew decided to dig 20 inches deeper. A backhoe then struck something unusually hard.<\/p>\n

The crack the backhoe left on the temple wall would become the main sign of damage on what experts say could be the best-preserved ancient monument found in Java.<\/p>\n

Researchers from the government\u2019s Archaeological Office in Yogyakarta headed to the campus the next day, excavated for 35 days and eventually unearthed two 1,100-year-old small temples. In the main temple, 20 feet by 20 feet, a perfectly preserved statue of Ganesha, the elephant-headed deity, sat next to a linga, the symbol of worship for the god Shiva, and a yoni, the symbol of worship for the goddess Shakti.<\/p>\n

In the adjacent secondary temple, about 20 feet by 13 feet, researchers exhumed another linga and yoni, as well as two altars and a statue of Nandi, the sacred bull that carried Shiva.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe temples are not so big, but they have features that we haven\u2019t found in Indonesia before,\u201d Herni Pramastuti, who runs the Archaeological Office, said, pointing to the rectangle-shaped temple, the existence of two sets of linga and yoni, and the presence of two altars.<\/p>\n

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Continue reading the main story<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Researchers surmised that the temples were preserved in pristine condition because they were buried in a volcanic eruption a century after they were built. The lava from Mount Merapi, about 7.5 miles to the north, is believed to have filled a nearby river before flowing over the temples, minimizing damage.<\/p>\n

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Three major religions intermixed in Yogyakarta and Java. The New York Times<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>

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Indung Panca Putra, a researcher at the Archaeological Office, said the temples\u2019 walls and statues contained refined details not found in the dozen small Hindu and Buddhist temples discovered in this area.<\/p>\n

Officials moved the most valuable artifact, the statue of Ganesha, to the Archaeological Office. For further protection against thieves, workers erected a fence on the campus, and guards limited access inside.<\/p>\n

The two Buddhist monks, though, had had no trouble getting inside. They had traveled from their monastery, about an hour away by car, to visit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are our ancestors, so we have a sense of belonging,\u201d said one monk, Dhammiko.<\/p>\n

Historians believe that Hinduism spread in Java in the fifth century, followed three centuries later by Buddhism. Kingdoms hewing to both Hindu and Buddhist beliefs flourished in Java before they were eclipsed by Islam in the 15th century.<\/p>\n

But Islam itself incorporated beliefs and ceremonies from the other two religions. Just as some unearthed temples in east Java have a Hindu upper half and a Buddhist lower half, some early mosques had roofs in the shape of Hindu temples, said Timbul Haryono, a professor of archaeology<\/a> at Gadjah Mada University<\/a> here and an expert on Hinduism in Southeast Asia. Early mosques faced not in Mecca\u2019s direction, but west or east in the manner of Hindu temples.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings didn\u2019t change all of a sudden,\u201d Mr. Haryono said. \u201cIslam was adopted through a process of acculturation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Indonesia\u2019s arts, like the wayang shadow puppetry that dramatizes Hindu epics, or in people\u2019s private lives, traces of the earlier religions survive, he said. Food, flowers and incense still accompany many funerals for Muslims, in keeping with Hindu and Buddhist traditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cHinduism was Indonesia\u2019s main religion for 1,000 years,\u201d he said, \u201cso its influence is still strong.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source: Discovery of Ancient Hindu Temple Underscores Indonesia\u2019s Mixed Religious Heritage \u2013 The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia \u2014 As if on cue, the two Buddhist monks in saffron robes appeared one late afternoon recently, seemingly out of nowhere, to complete the picture of Indonesia\u2019s religious past and present. The visitors stood at the edge of a large fenced-off pit where a ninth-century Hindu temple had recently been unearthed here on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[1133],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}