Talk:Borobudur/Archive 1

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

early comment

I've got a picture showing Borobudur, where you can see the typical form of a Buddhist temple. Unfortunately, it is not that appealing otherwise. Should it be included?

-> http://edderkop/asien/6/03-023.borobudur.jpg (big dl, slow connection)

Regards, Ravn 10:43, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hindu-Buddhist?

Does anybody know if the "Hindu-Buddhist" qualification is accurate for Borobudur? As far as I know, Borobudur is a Buddhist monument. This qualification propped up from anonymous user 65.0.107.99 who seems to have had a pro-Hindu partisan spree for one day [1]. Might be something to revert. Thank you for any comment.PHG 13:01, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Original Source?

I think that the majority of this article (as of 3rd March 2005) has been lifted from http://members.tripod.com/~angsa/borobudur.html and should therefore be rewritten. Can anyone confirm this? --Bwmodular 13:53, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you that the source is the same. Don't know who the author is, though, it appears to have been added by 202.65.112.42 on 11 Feb 2005. dlf 05:55, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm; a bit POVish/recidivist (came here from the Anastylosis I just did) - will have a look at some of the other langs articles & see if I can add to this (extensive work (besides looting alluded to here) was done by Dutch at turn of century).Bridesmill 02:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Viewed from the air

Borobodur viewed from the air -- I'm just now looking at it using GoogleEarth, from about 5000 ft up -- appears to be surrounded by at least one concentric "circle", about .33 miles / 524 meters in diameter.

Does anyone here know what that circle might be? Is there any sort of evidence on the ground of it? Perhaps it's just a modern fence etc., enclosing the "Borobodur Park" site, although a circle would be an odd shape for such a large fence. Seems to me the circle-choice would be Buddhist, evidence of something older. There must be something there, or the shape would not show up so clearly in the landsat photos. I have visited Borobodur myself, and I've read a bit about it, but I do not remember any mention of this sort of surrounding structure.

There appear to be other structures as well: perhaps another concentric circle further out, at 1.28 miles / 2000 meters diameter, plus various other forms of different shapes and sizes -- the rough resolution on the current GoogleEarth download makes it difficult to tell, but that innermost circle is very cleanly visible.

I can't remember how much "jungle" there was around the site, when I saw it myself in the 1970s and 1980s. I expect that a lot of clearing has occurred since then. The .33 mile circle nevertheless shows up clearly. Cites to any references about any of this, including other landsat photos, would be appreciated.

--Kessler 22:39, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

rewrite

Just imported a lot of material from the :nl wiki article, as well as a recent scholarly article (Murwanto). the 'Interpretation' section still needs some work, am invoking someone who knows Buddhism better than I to lend a hand (I'm a bit curious that the cited texts have no wiki articles, & aren't mentioned in the Buddhism texts articles).Bridesmill 18:12, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Re stories of colonials essentially 'abusing' the site, and request for citation - I'll dig, but it will be hard to find refs as this is heavily oral tradition. Given that these are Dutch oral traditions, also mentioned in the nl: article, there is next to no reason to doubt them (Indonesian oral tradition about the Dutch in this sense might be biased, if there was a bias in Dutch oral trad it would be to downplay abuse by their countrymen, rather than remember it).Bridesmill 15:59, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

"scholars"

The paragraph about the possibilities of what was occuring in the 900's, and the collective "scholars" has no citations to back up what the argument was, or what has been challenged, perhaps this is an area of Borobudur"ology" that needs more specific referencing - as an encyc art it reads "wooly" and unhelpful. 139.168.250.208 14:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC) Theat would be the footnote...click on the [1] in that para.Bridesmill 22:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Total revamp plan

Such a great monument with good pictures, but badly written with lack of sources. I am going to make a total revamp of this article. — Indon (reply) — 09:51, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Great - that's long overdue. Look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Email as source

I saw from the history of this talk page that Merbabu asked about source of the bombing attack from an email. I replaced that source with something else. Actually, I'd like to put the source there, but that will hinder this article to be featured, because an email would be said unreliable source. However, I will keep trying to find the source for the attack. I know that it must be somewhere out there. I wish that Indonesian newspapers have archive. Hey, who do have access to PDAT tempo? That would be great. — Indon (reply) — 09:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Questions from copy edit

The hidden foot (The reliefs)- is it still hidden or now exposed? --Merbabu 14:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
THis bit is not clear to me: The third and fourth galleries are devoted to Sudhana's further wandering about his search; terminated by his attainment of the Highest Wisdom.--Merbabu 14:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Answers:

Yes it is still hidden. I am going to make a picture of Borobudur's vertical layout. It's clearly seen from there. — Indon (reply) — 08:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The hidden foot is exposed in the southeast corner [2], since some stones were removed by Japanese occupational forces. (Caniago 12:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC))

It's bit confusing, you're right. I've made a copyedit to clarify. Basically, the paragraph only describes what has been written in the table. — Indon (reply) — 08:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Nail of Java

Is usually (in kejawen circcles from the 1950's and 1960's) referred to a small hill within the proximity of Magelang - not Bobobudur - anyone know anything further on this issue? SatuSuro 13:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry - Gunung Tidar - forgot to mention the name. SatuSuro 13:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

SatuSuro, I might be wrong, because I directly wrote the article from Soekmono (1976) paper. Could you please fix that? I noticed that 2 twin volcanoes (Merbabu & Merapi) are not at the north of Borobudur, so please check. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Indon (talk • contribs) 13:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

Major addition removed…

I reverted the addition of a large amount of information. It is unsourced, and from an anon, first time IP editor. Here is the diff: [3]. I don’t have the time or the expertise to go through this to check the validity of the information, or to check that it doesn’t repeat what is already written (I suspect is does repeat). I suspect it is a copyright violation too. Even if not, the volume of information in an already large article is probably inappropriate. Perhaps one day we need to create a separate article for the detailed description of the reliefs and their meaning. Indon, or others, what do you think of the edit??? Merbabu 02:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree for the removal. The edit is too detail for the article. I suggest to the anon editor to create a new article: "The Story of Borobudur Reliefs" and then we can have a link of "see also" in this article. — Indon (reply) — 10:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I posted a message to the anon editor. — Indon (reply) — 10:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I would be reluctant to accept a re-posting of the information unless we know what the source is. - and whether such information can be complete for the whole monument/candi/place - it might simply be too long for one article - it might need a number of separate articles if done properly SatuSuro 10:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Hidden foot as a wrong design?

Look what I've found in Kompas: http://www.kompas.com/kompas-cetak/0004/07/dikbud/boro09.htm (sorry guys, it's in Indonesian). It explains that the base was covered, so now it is hidden, because of wrong design. Another theory of the hidden foot. :-) — Indon (reply) — 19:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Missing GA review

DVD RW has reviewed this article and upgraded to GA, but his/her comments were posted in the article's PR entry. So, to complete the GA process, I copied the comments here. — Indon (reply) — 10:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

copied from Wikipedia:Peer review/Borobudur/archive1

Review by DVD R W

I just upped this article to GA and am leaving my comments here since this pr is going. I think the text looks good, with lots of facts, and credit to authors on this subject and so on, but what I find slightly lacking is the quality of the images. The detail photos are pretty good but the article really needs an overview, something orthographic like a plan or axonometric drawing - the two overviews in the article, [4] and [5] are lackluster. Indon, since you drew the renovation detail could you also draw a plan, and elevation, and section through the whole building? Maybe that would be too much to ask for now, but it would be a great improvement on the way towards A and FA. It would be good to show the access as well, this one [6] at flickr is uploadable (though slightly tilted) as is this one [7] which shows some of the verdure of the park below. I like this article so far and best of luck, dvd rw 04:58, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Apostasy?

Not sure this is really the appropriate term for this section heading. The word means something like 'abandonment of religious principles' but I'm not sure that it can be used in relation to a building. I think it's use is quite personal, but I may be wrong. I'd prefer 'Abandonment' or 'Dereliction' or something, but I may be wrong about the use of Apostasy. Any thoughts / suggestions?--Bwmodular 11:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey, you are more expert than me in this field. I wrote that word, got it from the Oxford thesaurus. Looks cool, but dunno if it can't be used for buildings. I prefer Abandonment rather than Dereliction (have to check this in my dictionary, but it sounds weird :-). — Indon (reply) — 12:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

None of the words above are suitable for an encyclopedia entry about borobudur - dangerous use of words.... Gautama buddha himself regularly talked about how evertything must pass - there is no proof that the place was abandoned for any particular reason (ok we have the volcano, plague and other problem people - but...) except that there are signs that possibly some monks reteated to the side of gunung merbabu with scripts... I would say that a very careful thought about english usage here is well worth the effort - abandonment with no reason given is what I would insist - you cannot prove anything else beyond that, as far as I understand... Satu Suro 13:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

However, there is no other proof that the monument was still in used when it was re-discovered. In fact, from Babad Mataram and Babad Tanah Jawi (see the "Abandonment" section), there is a hint that the monument wasn't used. It was only a ruin deserted deep in a forest. — Indon (reply) — 14:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree- I do hope you havent misunderstood - I do accept it was abandoned - its just that we cannot say why or how it was abandoned - is what i was trying to say - maybe the orang tua di sebelah gunung merbabu masih ada 'scriptorium dari zaman dulu' sampai zaman orang belanda- tetapi di borobudur tempat kosong! Satu Suro 14:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I thought about this hard last night and have yet to come up with anything that improves on 'Abandonment'. Dereliction really implies a failure to carry out one's duty, rather than allowing to let something become derelict. 'Loss' isn't right. Perhaps a phrase like 'The Lost Years' would be better - I know that's not right either, but could we come up with something like that? 'Period of Neglect'? Hmm, keep thinking about it, we'll find something. --Bwmodular 16:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Abandonment

I'm a bit concerned that the abandonment section places conversion to Islam as the first theory & the move around 1000 as the second. Soekmono appears to give equal if not more credence to the theory of abandonment around 1000 and gives the later date somewhat less credence; this long before Murwanto's work which very strongly supports the concept of abandonment around 1000. I believe this stronger theory should be listed first, with Soekmono's mention of conversion as a secondary ut still not totally disproven theory second. Thought I would raise this here before tackling the adjustment; with the article so close to FAC I don't want to ruffle feathers :-) Well done to the work since I posted the translation here by the way. Another minor concern is that in mid 2006 someone just chopped out a big chunk on abuse and looting of the site; I think it's significant - fairly certain I got it from Krom 1931 but it may now take a while to dig it out - would have been nice if it had been 'fact tagged' rather than just chopping it...Bridesmill 08:09, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Bridesmill for your comment. Actually there is no ordering in the writing of that section between the two theories. True that the date of the 1000s abandonment precedes the coming of Islam in the 14th century. I can reorder the theory for a better flow of the date ordering, but not because of one theory is stronger than the other. Not without a reliable source. And about the chopping head, there are many small events, for instances, when the Japanese soldiers re-opened the hidden foot during the Japanese occupation in Indonesia. However, there might give too many unnecessary historical events. Except if the event is mentioned in several sources, then it might be an important event. — Indon (reply) — 08:30, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks; adjusted to say what sources say (murwanto cites 4 others to support his argument, including soekmono (1990)). Also reworded the rediscovery piece slightly for flow, prose & imact (I agree w/ notputting too much trivia in, but if I can find the Krom piece again I'd like to re-insert the detail of how the site was abused durng this period). Bridesmill 16:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the edit and also your comments in the FAC. I just realized you did the first major contribution in this article. Hope this will get FA. — Indon (reply) — 08:55, 2 November 2007 (UTC)