Borobudur

Borobudur rises above the Kedu plain in central Java, a vast Buddhist monument built of stone under the Sailendra dynasty. Its six square terraces and three circular terraces lead upward to a great central stupa. Galleries covered with carved reliefs tell stories of the Buddha and the path to enlightenment; above them, seated Buddhas look out from within perforated stupas. The whole monument forms a sacred mountain through which pilgrims ascend.

Built in the late eighth and ninth centuries, Borobudur belonged to an age when Buddhist and Hindu rulers raised temples across central Java. The monument later fell out of regular religious use as political centres shifted and Islam spread on the island. Its great stone mass remained known locally, though vegetation and volcanic deposits obscured it. In 1814 Thomas Stamford Raffles, the British administrator of Java, heard of the site and sent H. C. Cornelius to investigate. Workmen cleared trees and earth from the monument, bringing its terraces and carvings back into wider view.