Borobudur

Borobudur is on Java, an island in Indonesia.

It is a giant temple made of gray stone. It is built like a big cake with layers, getting smaller toward the top. Bell-shaped towers sit on the round top layers.

Borobudur stands in the Kedu Valley in central Java, about 42 kilometers northwest of the city of Yogyakarta. It is a Buddhist monument, built between about 778 and 850 CE, when a family of kings called the Shailendra dynasty ruled the area.

The monument is built around a small natural hill, like a giant stepped pyramid. Its walls are covered in carved pictures, and on its round upper terraces stand 72 stone stupas shaped like bells, most of them still holding a statue of the Buddha. UNESCO made Borobudur a World Heritage Site in 1991, together with two smaller temples nearby, Mendut and Pawon.

Borobudur lies in the Kedu Valley of southern Central Java, 42 km northwest of Yogyakarta. UNESCO calls it one of the greatest Buddhist monuments in the world and an outstanding dynastic monument of the Shailendra dynasty, under which Britannica dates its construction to about 778 to 850 CE.

The World Heritage property (1991) comprises three monuments on a straight east-west axis: Borobudur itself and the smaller Mendut and Pawon temples to the east. UNESCO notes that Borobudur's art and architecture, from the early 8th to late 9th centuries, influenced an architectural revival in Indonesia between the mid-13th and early 16th centuries. Britannica traces its style to Indian Gupta and post-Gupta art.

The walls of Borobudur are covered in carved pictures. People look at them as they climb.

On the top layers are 72 stone bells with holes in them. Inside most of them sits a statue.

Borobudur's walls and railings are covered with carved stone pictures called reliefs, about 2,520 square meters of them, about the area of six basketball courts. As people climb, they walk around each level and pass carving after carving.

On the three round terraces stand 72 bell-shaped stupas made of stone lattice, full of holes, so you can peek at the statue of the Buddha sitting inside many of them. People following the traditional route start at the east stairway and walk around every level before reaching the top, more than 5 kilometers in all.

UNESCO's figure of 2,520 m² of low reliefs makes Borobudur's carved surface its defining feature: the walls and balustrades of the square terraces form galleries lined with relief panels. Britannica notes that the hundreds of reliefs at the lowest level are partially hidden.

The three circular terraces carry 72 openwork stupas, perforated bell shapes built to shelter statues of the Buddha (Britannica notes that many still contain one), around the large central stupa. Britannica describes the traditional route: a pilgrim begins at the eastern stairway and walks clockwise around each of the nine levels before reaching the top, a distance of more than 5 km. The photograph shows people in robes walking in procession at the foot of the monument.