Rectew of Reviewt, 119106. 



The Temple Ruins of Java. 



241 



Bas-relief from the Temple of Bore Budur. 



the Fyraniids of Egypt. Captain Baker, who vva 

 the first to thoroughly explore the ruins of Chandi 

 Sewa, or the " Thousand Temples," said that he had 

 never in his life seen " such stupendous and finished 

 specimens of human labour and the science and 

 taste of ages long since forgot, "owded together 1. 

 so smai: a compass as on this spot." Altred Russell 

 Walla,:e, speaking of the temple of Boro Budu 

 siys — -The amount of human labour and slali 

 eVpended on the great Pyramid of Egypt sinks into 

 insignificance whea compared with that required to 

 complete this sculptured hill-temple in the interior 

 of Java ' Herr Brumund called Boro Budur the 

 most remarkable and magnificent monument Bud- 

 dhism has ever erected," and Ferguson, in his His- 

 tory of Indian and Eastern Architecture, fi^ds .^n 

 that edifice the highest development of Buddhist 

 Art, an epitome of all its arts and ritua , and the 

 culmination of the Architectural style which 

 originating at Barat a thousand years before, had 

 bUun to decay in India at the time the colonists 



were erecting this masterpiece of the ages in the 

 hp-T rt of T ti V ii • 



The approach to the temple of Boro Budur is 

 through the gloom of a stately avenue of lordly 

 canan trees some mile in length. Rounding a slight 

 curve' in the avenue, the traveller is spellbound by 

 a vision that is a fitting climax to the magnificent 

 approach. Crowning a low rounded hi"' h.3 

 triumph of man's handiwork remains in deathless 

 defiance of the pitiless Arab who turned the fickle 

 inhabitants to a strange god, and vainly endeavoured 

 to obliterate all trace of their former devotion 



Viewing the silent grandeur of this noble, edifice, 

 one realises that the evolution of the human family 

 cannot be illustrated by comparing ^'^e generation 

 with another, or even one century with anothen 

 Barbarism often triumphs in its guerilla warfare 

 with civilisation, the resistless fomard movement 

 of humanitv is like a tide that continually advances 

 and recedes, vet in those very processes gradually 

 overcomes the forces that are opposed to it. 



