The Building of Temples

How was a temple built? On Kitab Silpasastra, a book containing knowledge about how to make a relief, statue, and temple, there is no description of how these stones ware constructed into a temple. There are various opinions about how the big and high temples were build.

The method and process of temple building. As the first step, with his authority, the king ordered his people to find and gather huge stones to be carried to the location of the temple. The building of Prambanan Temple is one of the evidence of a king’s authority. At that time, the kings of Sanjaya Dynasty ordered their people to gather huge stones to build a temple.

The second step, these stones were cut into pieces. The cutting should be based on the guidance of Kitab Silpasastra. These pieces were piled up onto the foundation and base of the temple.

The third step is the building of the temple’s body and top. After the bottom of the temple was built, then this part was covered by soil. This soil mound was used as a way to pull the huge stones which would be piled up as the temple’s body and top. The higher the temple building, the higher the mound around it, and the wider the area of the mound as well.

A Secret Revealed
The privilege of a king, ” buat haji/gawai haji” that enabled a king to empower his people to build a temple was not regarded as an order. According to Hinduism and Buddhism, giving your energy to build a temple is a kind of devotion to your belief. This fact explains as well as answers the question of why in 8th - 10th century A.D., particularly in Central Java, there were many big temples . This also reveales the fact that the building of temples in Indonesia was not a forced labour.

Another way to build the temple’s body and top was by pulling the huge stones upward using levelled wooden ladders. When the temple’s building was higher, the ladder should be higher, wider, and also longer.

The building of the temple did not use any adhesive or cement like in the present time’s buildings. The huge stones were just joined. One of the stones was holed and the other one was given a kind of brace. So, when the building of the temple collapsed, the stones would not shatter.

The placement of the god statue in the temple. After all parts of the temple were built, the last process was placing the statue of god in the temple. If a temple was used as monument, then the statue placement involved a great ceremony that was the burial of king’s ashes ceremony in the base of the temple.

A Secret Revealed
At the time the temple was found, there were many missing ” temple stones ” because of many reasons. Therefore, new stones were needed to replace the missing ones. However, as the renovation principle ordered to maintain the originality of archaeological heritage, then these new stones were given special marks, so the next generation will be able to recognize the difference between the new stones and the original ones .

Check out my other guide on Determining The Age of Temples
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