Borobudur temple was built in the 9th century with 2,672 reliefs and 504 Buddha statues. Borobudur is built to represent many layers of Buddhist theory. from a bird’s eye view, the temple is in the shape of traditional Buddhist mandala. A mandala is central to a great deal of Buddhist and Hindu art, the basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four entry points, and a circular center point. Working from the exterior to the interior, three zones of consciousness are represented, with the central sphere representing unconsciousness or Nirvana.

According to this Buddhist cosmology, the universe is divided into three major zones. The Borobudur temple represents these zones in its rising layers: Kamadhatu, Rupadhatu and Arupadhatu.

The first section is called “Kamadhatu” which describes the human lives which are able to control desires which is described by the foundation section.

The second is called “Ruphadatu” which describes human lives which are able to control desires yet still bound by forms.

The third section is called “Arupadhatu” which describes nirvana and sunyata worlds, described by 3 terraces in the form of circles.

THE RESTORATION

Borobudur was left to the ravages of nature around the 12-14th Century when the power of Java shifted to the East of the island. The reason for this shift is unknown, but it is often speculated that there was a volcanic eruption and people moved to be away from it.

There are manuscripts that relate stories of Javanese re-visiting the site in the 18th Century. But it was the “re-discovery” by the British Sir Stamford Raffles in 1814 that led to greater recognition and also preservation efforts in 1815 Raffles commissioned an initial clean up, where 100 laborers spent 45 days felling trees and moving earth from the remains. Many areas of the temple were sagging.

Activities continued with documentation and interpretation of the reliefs. It was during the work of Ijzerman in 1885 that the hidden reliefs at the base of the temple were discovered. It was these hidden reliefs at the base of the temple were discovered. It was these hidden reliefs that also revealed some Sanskrit instructions left for the carver, with lettering that was so distinctive that the construction of the temple was able to be dated to the middle of the 9th century.

In 1907 a large-scale restoration was carried out under Dutchman Van  Erp that finished in 1911. The work was significant and definitely safeguarded the temple for some time. However, many of the pieces were not put back in their original positions during the restoration.

In 1956 another assessment of the temple was made by a Belgian expert who was sent by UNESCO. His assessment concluded that water damage was significant, and would need to be stemmed if the temple was to have a long term future. The hill below the temple was eroding, the foundations were being weakened and also the reliefs were being eroded.

Preparatory work began in 1963, which amongst other things discovered that the hill was not a natural hill as had always been assumed, but areas of it were loamy soil, mixed with stones and stone chips. The initial work assessed the scale of a restoration to be gigantic, and the Indonesian Government then submitted a proposal to UNESCO in 1968 outlining the works needed.

UNESCO gave full support and commenced work to raise funds for the restoration. From 1968 to 1983, research through to restoration took place under UNESCO. Specialists from the world over came to assist in the dismantling, and re-engineering of the site. A great deal of work was also done to develop procedures to prevent the microorganisms eating away the stone. The UNESCO world heritage listing of Borobudur Temple was inscribed in 1991.