Temples

I'm watching a program on The History Channel International called The Lost Temple of Java at Borabudur in Indonesia. I find it fascinating how these really old temples were focused on process, the journey of life, often requiring temple goers to move from stage to stage as some important knowledge is delivered.

Here's a quote from John Micksic, a professor of archaeology at the National University of Singapore, studying the temple:

We are in the first of Borabudur's main galleries, of narrative reliefs, on my left two series one above the other, each of which goes all the way around this square monument, on my right two more series stacked up each of which also goes completely around this edifice. And above it three more vertically arranged terraces each going all the way around this hill. To see them all in sequence, like an ancient pilgrim, you'd have to walk five kilometers. The reward for this journey by an ancient pilgrim would have been the promise of untold supernatural power.

The whole thing is a pyramid which turns into concentric circles of stupas after a series of four walled terraces. There are 1,460 relief stone panels in the temple, which were considered stepping stones, so to speak, for the progress of pilgrims and priests to the temple. They had to understand each of them before they were allowed to enter upper area consisting open terraces containing 72 bell-shaped perforated stupas which covered statues of the Buddha. The successive terraces and the panels along them apparently represented sequential stages of enlightenment, each accessible by smaller and smaller groups of monks which center on a single large stupa. Each stupa was built with holes in a checkerboard pattern which allowed those who were close to it to see the Buddha inside. What was the "untold supernatural power"? Perhaps godhood or oneness with God? Nirvana?

The sophistication of the carvings and artistry impressed the first Europeans who saw them in the midst of jungle where they lay hidden, as they realized that these people would have had such skills and culture while their own ancestors were still wearing skins and battling the Romans. They couldn't believe that the Indonesians could have built them. However, they are quite distinct from any found in India or China. The temple was abandoned, apparently due to volcanic activity which destroyed the civilization which built it, before it was rediscovered by Raffles, the man who helped build Singapore.

The Egyptians used temples in which the Pharaoh was led through an annual ritual, proceeding from stage to stage, at the end of which he emerged as a god. The wall paintings depict the pharaoh giving hand grips or providing answers to priests along the course of the temple. The pharoah was given a papyrus which gave him the words to say at each step.

Some of this sounds reminiscent of what I've heard about Freemasonry, which is said to trace its roots to ancient temples. The progress from degree to degree seems to be a common pattern.