EARLY TRACES HINDU-BUDDHA INFLUENCE ALONG THE NORTH COAST OF CENTRAL JAVA: ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY AT DISTRICT OF BATANG (lanjutan)

(Tulisan ini telah diterbitkan dalam Jurnal Penelitian dan Pengembangan Arkeologi Amerta Vol.32 tahun 2014 oleh Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional) 

                According to the inventory of the Ronggowarsito Museum, six other sculptures would also come from Balekambang: a statue of Durga (04.00077), a second makara (04.00079), two jaladwara (04.0080 and 0.00081) and two antefixes (04.00082, 04.00083). The Durga is broken into three parts and unfortunately so eroded that it is impossible to define its style. The goddess is depicted standing on the buffalo. She has eight arms and one can still distinguish the conch in her upper left hand and the disc in her upper right hand. The second upper right hand probably held a short sword or a club. The remaining attributes are unidentifiable. The second makara attributed to the site of Balekambang in the inventory of the Ronggowarsito Museum does not form a pair with the one we mentioned above. It is also likely come from a staircase, but it should have been part of a staircase of smaller dimensions because the lower two thirds of the inside are not decorated. The trunk is clearly symmetric and wrapped. The necklace is entirely plant like and, in the monster's mouth , one can see a lion's head. Behind the head of the makara one can find a pattern quite similar to the one of the first makara discussed, which suggests that the two makara are more or less the same period (ninth century). Of the two jaladwara, one is a simple duct without decor (MR 04.00080 ), while the other is of a singular kind (MR 04.00081). The end of the duct has the shape of a crocodile, mouth open and all fangs visible. A young woman sits astride the crocodile, legs bent, her chest leaning forward and her his hands on the head of the animal. Her hair falls in ringlets down her back and to her feet . The duct is unfortunately cut in a coarse conglomerate and no detail is visible.

            At around 200m from the spring, to the north-east, a first surface survey has yielded numerous potsherds, the majority of which are Chinese and Thai ceramics from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century.

            It is clear from the above information that the site of Balekambang was used at least from the seventh to the ninth century. In the course of the ninth century several religious stone structures were built here, probably including a bathing place and a temple. The site also had a late occupation at the end of the fifteenth century, but there is so far no material evidence in favor of a continuous occupation.

Pejaten

            The site of Pejaten is located further inland, in the valley of Tersono, at about 300m east of the Arus River. The place is now in the middle of a rice field. Archaeological material was found scattered over a fairly large area. Some large format bricks are still visible in the rice fields, but most of the sculptures have been displaced. Gathered in the center of village of Pejaten, one can see a Gaṇeśa, a bull, an engraved stone, brick fragments and a large stone mortar. The lintel and the doorsill reported by Goenadi Nitihaminoto e.a. (1977/1978: 23) seem to have disappeared.

            According to villagers, a stone urn containing a ring and earrings has been discovered in the nearby fields. In 1975, Sri Soejatmi Satari (1977: 7-8, 11-13 pictures) noted the presence of four additional bulls, a Viṣṇu, a second Gaṇeśa and two large door elements, as well as of various architectural fragments. She also mentions the discovery, on the land of the same desa bu in the hamlet of Rejosari, of two statues of a bull and a top piece (Sri Soejatmi Satari 1977: 8 photos14). Today, some of these objects are at the Ronggowarsito Museum. It is the case of the statue of Viṣṇu (04.00067 MR) and of two Gaṇeśa (MR 04.00013 and 0.00014). The museum inventory mentions three other sculptures coming from Rejosari, but without mentioning the exact origin: two bulls (MR 04.00090, 04.00091) and a Gaṇeśa (MR 04.00089).

            The poor state of preservation of most of the sculptures makes it difficult to specify their style and date, but three sculptures are characterized by a somewhat unusual iconography: the Gaṇeśa still in Pejaten, the Gaṇeśa nr 04.00089 at the Ronggowarsito  Museum and the statue (MR 04.00067) identified as a Viṣṇu by Sri Soejatmi Satari (1977:10, 1978:4).

            The Gaṇeśa that one can see on the site a carved stele of almost one meter high. The statue is of massive proportions, the shoulders are broad and square, the belly is protruding and the thick trunk contrast with the legs, which seem almost frail. The deity is shown seated, one leg tucked under the belly and the other slightly hanging. The arms are four in number but all hands are damaged. So, it is impossible to distinguish their position or the attributes they were holding. The god wears bracelets on his arms and wrists, and a collar and a belt around the belly. Several factors make this sculpture atypical compared to the usual production of Central Java. The position differs from what might be called the Javanese canon, in which the elephant-headed god is almost always depicted sitting cross-legged, with the soles of the feet touching each other. To my knowledge, the only Javanese representation of Ganesa where we see the god in lalitasana or in a position close to it are, on the one hand, the Indian influenced bronzes of the late eighth or early ninth century and, on the other hand, the later tantric statues, generally associated with the Singhasari-Majapahit period (thirteenth - fourteenth century). In addition, mention should be made of Gaṇeśa of Jalan Ruslan in Palembang, the dating of which, after being initially placed in the twelfth century (McKinnon 1985 : 18), was finally assigned to the seventh - eighth century (Brown 1987). In proportion and position , the Ganesha of Pejaten is closer to the old statues than to the East Javanese sculptures. The treatment of the feet is also comparable to the sculptures of the eighth century : the feet are of human length (not short as in the case of Gaṇeśa Singhasari) and the left foot is placed with the plant upwards. The edge of beads bordering the stele also recalls the bronzes of the eighth or early ninth century found in Central Java. The absence of jatamukuta is, to our knowledge, rather unique, since all other Javanese statues of Gaṇeśa Java represent the god crowned with knot of ascetics. So, the only Indonesian images that we can compare the Gaṇeśa of Pejaten with are of Indian manufacture or Indian influence and are, for the most part, relatively old. The lack of bun still pointing in the direction of India, where the tradition is from the sixth - seventh century.

            The Gaṇeśa nr 04.00089 of the Ronggowarsito Museum is stylistically so close to the Gaṇeśa of Pejaten that there is little doubt that the two sculptures actually come from the same site. They share the same characteristics: massive proportions, a round and protruding belly girded by a rope, as well as short arms. The feet are in a unique position, but different from our first Gaṇeśa. The Gaṇeśa of the Ronggowarsito Museum is sitting cross-legged, like most Javanese Gaṇeśas, but the soles of his feet do not touch as it is usually the case: the left foot is placed on the right foot, a position that cannot be found on any other Javanese Gaṇeśa.

            The statue nr 04.00067, kept at the Ronggowarsito Museum in Semarang but originating from Pejaten, is by far the most unusual sculpture ever discovered on this site. On an oval stone slab is carved a relief, now strongly eroded, depicting a male deity with four arms, flanked with two acolytes. The god is represented standing. He wears a cylindrical miter, which led Sri Soejatmi Satari ( 1977:10 , 1978:4 ), and, in her wake N. Dalsheimer and PY Manguin (1998 : 104) , to compare this sculpture to the Viṣṇu No. 1 of Cibuaya and to place it within the well-known family of the mitered Viṣṇu, dated to the 5th-6th century CE and found in many coastal sites in South-East Asia. This identification and these stylistic links, however, become less obvious when one closely observes the statue. From an iconographic point of view, only two of the four attributes are clearly identifiable and match attributes of Viṣṇu: the conch (in the upper left hand) and the club (in the lower left hand). The object held in the upper right hand, identified by Sri Soejatmi Satari as a disk, may actually as well be a rosary. While the disc is usually held between two fingers, on the statue of the Ronggowarsito Museum, the god's hand is clearly closed passing through the object, which is how the rosary is usually held. Sri Soejatmi Satari did not identified the fourth attribute, in the lower right hand. On closer inspection, it seems to have the shape of a kendi that would be held horizontally. We can see its bulbous belly, its narrow neck and its sprout, pointing upwards. As for the identification of the god's two acolytes, it is difficult to agree with the proposal of Sri Soejatmi Satari, who suggested they were the goddesses Śrī and Laksmi. The figure to the god's left is human-like, but the figure to his right, with its large triangular head, looks more like an animal. Instead of Viṣṇu , might well face a representation Hari- Hara with Viṣṇu's attributes (mace, conch and perhaps Garuda) on the one side, and Siva's (rosary, kendi, bull) on the other side. This new identification would seem to be confirmed by the presence, in Pejaten, of boulder carved with Siva's trisula and Viṣṇu's cakra. From a stylistic point of view, the large head of the statue, its awkward proportions and center fold of his skirt, brings the statue of the Ronggowarsito Museum close to the Viṣṇu No 1 from Cibuaya. However, the Pejaten sculpture is so eroded that is difficult to draw definitive conclusions from these similarities. Nevertheless, we cannot help but note that the identification of the  Ronggowarsito Museum sculpture as Hari- Hara, a divinity rarely represented in Java, reminds the relatively numerous statues of that god originating from southern and central Cambodia and generally dated to the seventh - eighth century.

Klenteng (Sibebek)

            Klenteng is located 7.5 km upstream of Pejaten, in the area of Bawang. The place is situated at an altitude of approximately 700 m, in the foothills of Mount Prahu. At about 200m to the east flows the Tok Dandang/Kambangan River, a tributary of the Arus River. The site is now in the rice fields.

            Along the road, under a shed, one can see a statue of Shiva's bull, a yoni and two cylindrical stones, decorated with rows of lotus petals. According to our informant, these objects were found a few meters away, near the river, and then transported to their current location.

            Goenadi Nitihaminoto (1978: 15-17) noted, in addition to the above mentioned artefacts, the presence of a jar with four ears, a sculpture of 'Siva Mahaguru' (Agastya), a statue of Nandisvara and a second yoni. The statue of Agastya is now kept in the Museum of Semarang (RM 04,257).

            The inventory of the Ronggowarsito Museum mentions a Durga coming also from Klenteng (RM 04,263 ). The goddess is depicted with six arms, standing on the body of the buffalo. Her upper right arm is raised, as if she was about to throw the cakra that she holds in her hand. The middle right hand holds a sword and the lower right hand a rope, tied around the tail of the buffalo. In the upper left hand, the goddess holds a conch and, in her middle left hand, a cylindrical object (perhaps a club). Her lower left hand is placed on the head of the demon, who emerges from an injury in the buffalo's neck. The demon, depicted as a dwarf, holds his hands in Añjali-mudrā. The statue has many unusual details. First, it is one of the few six-armed Durga found in Java (the Durga with eight arms being by far the most common type). Second, the club and the rope are not among the usual attributes of the Javanese Durga. The rope, or more precisely the slip knot, appears at least on one other statue of Durga, found in Semarang and now preserved at the National (MNI 127a ) Museum. However, the way the string is represented here, wrapped around the tail of buffalo, is found, to our knowledge, on only one other sculpture, discovered on the Dieng Plateau (photo OD 11294 ). The goddess' lower left hand, gently placed on the demon's head, is also an unusual detail in Central Java.

            This iconographic element is indeed mainly associated with statues of the Singhasari period, like the Durga from candi Jago and Singosari. The long loincloth of the Durga of Klenteng is similar in structure to that of Loro Jonggrang Durga. The goddess' elongated proportions echo the Durga of Sambisari and that of candi Suko , a  now disappeared temple near Boyolali. It is therefore likely that the Klenteng Durga should be ascribed to the second half of the ninth century.

The presence of a yoni and a dvarapala, as well as of two gods (Durga, Agastya) of the Javanese triad (the third one being Gaṇeśa) suggests that a temple once stood on the site of Klenteng.

Cepit

            Further upstream, on a hill crest, at 980m above sea level, the site of Cepit overlooks the valley of Bawang. The hill is bordered by the Arus (west) and Belo Rivers (east). There, in the middle of a grove, near a Muslim tomb, one can see three stones: a large rectangular stone of 143 x 57 x 23 cm, a smaller stone of 46 x 26 x 17 cm and the lower part of a yoni measuring 67 x 69 x 43 cm. The latter has a special moldings, with a succession of three bands triples without panels.

            From older data it can however be concluded that a temple once stood on the Cepit hill. The earliest description of the site is provided by G.A. Pet, engineer at Bagelen Regency (Notulen 1868 : 23). Pet notes the presence, "in a place called Kasoer Selo, near the village of Delles", of a male statue in a squatting position, a sculpture of a cow, a kind of jar, a decorated stone, a water tank (watervat) and "some other indescribable things." This information was taken over by Verbeek (1891) and supplemented by Sell in 1912. The latter, who gave us the name of the hamlet (Lembu) where the remains are located, provided a fairly accurate description of the sculptures (Sell 1912 : 173-174 ). He identified, amongst others, a Gaṇeśa (76 cm high), a statue of Shiva's bull (105 x 35 x 65 cm), three linggas, two decorated columns (zuiltjes), a conical stone surmounted by a button (height: 74 cm , diameter 42 cm), a yoni made of two parts and two large rectangular stones (127 x 42 x 20 cm and 132 x 46 x 34 cm).

            When Sri Soejatmi Satari visited the site in 1975, the place had not changed much, but more things were visible. She gave the most complete description of the remains. According to Sri Soejatmi Satari (1977: 9), the site would consist of three groups, distant from each other from about 10m. The first group, which is still visible today, was composed of a yoni (made of in two parts) and fragments of stone blocks. The second group included a lintel adorned with a Kāla as well as a few stones arranged in a square. The third group was the one with the most sculptures: a Gaṇeśa, a kind of top stone decorated with a lotus, a headless statue of a bull, two tall lotus-shaped stones, the spear of a dagob and a lingga.

            The site was excavated in 1978 (Goenadi Nitihaminoto e.a. 1978): ten excavation pits of 2 x 2m were opened in the central area of the site. The researched uncovered many stone fragments and a few potsherds, but no sculptures. Imported ceramics were all from the post-classical period, the oldest ones dating from the seventeenth century.

Today, the statues are no longer in situ and we must therefore be based ourselves on the observations made in the 1970s to get an idea of ​​the nature of the site. The presence of large rectangular stones (probably parts of a door frame) and of a lintel is a sufficient evidence to conclude to the former existence of a temple. In the light of the yoni, lingga, bull and Gaṇeśa, we can also say that it was a Hindu monument. The lintel mentioned by Satari, which also appears on the photos of the 1978 excavations, is now stored at the office of the Department of Tourism and Culture of the district of Batang. Its composition and style are typical of the Central Javanese period of Central Java. the kala is unfortunately incomplete (the upper part is missing) and damaged (not only by the wear of time but also by recent drops of cement). The absence of lower jaw, the relative simplicity of ornamentation and the profile of the vegetal scrolls along the edges the stone more closely resemble older kāla older than those of Loro Jonggrang style (c. 850-928) copies. It is therefore possible that the temple of Cepit was built prior to 850.

            Cepit is not an isolated site: two other sites, namely Kepyar and Klawen, have been identified in its immediate vicinity.

Kepyar

            The site of Kepyar is located at about 930m above sea level, on a hill overlooking the valley of Bawang, opposite Cepit. The hill is bordered to the west by the Belo River and to the east by the Putih River.  The place is now a Muslim cemetery, many temple stone lie around on the ground; some of them are reused in the tombs. Many stones are rectangular, but other have a more complex stereotomy. There are also antefixes, stones with moldings and at least one crowning stone. None of the antefixes are carved yet, which suggests that the temple was never finished.

            A lintel adorned with Kāla, measuring 117 x 66 cm, was also found in Kepyar (Data Peninggalan Batang 1985). Unfortunately, no picture of it is available.

Klawen

            The hamlet of Klawen is located in the area of Bawang, below the hills of Cepit and Kepyar, at about 840m above sea level. It is part of the village Candigugur, a name that can be translated as "the fallen (i.e. in ruins) temple." The temple which the name of the village refers to was probably located in Cepit or Kepyar.

            A yoni once stood in front of a house in the village. It was transferred to Batang and is today at the office of the department of tourism and culture. The pedestal bears no decoration, except moldings. These moldings are quite peculiar: the usual pattern (cyma, triple band, panel and pilasters, triple band, reverse cyma) is replaced by a cyma, a series of three triple bands and a reversed cyma.

            A lingga (Data Peninggalan Batang 1985), two yonis and a peripih (Goenadi Nitihaminoto 1978: 8) were also discovered in the village of Candigugur. The peripih is most likely the one that is stored in Ronggowarsito Museum under the inventory number 04.00260 and recorded as coming from "Bawang". It is a square stone of 22 x 22 x 11 cm, with nine small compartments measuring 4.5 x 4.5 x 1.5 cm.

Deles

            Not far from Cepit, Kepyar and Klawen, the middle of a rice field, there is yet another site: Deles.             Today, only a yoni and a circular stone are visible in Deles. In 1975, Sri Soejatmi Satari (1977: 10) was still able to see a sculpture made ​​unidentifiable by erosion. Several objects kept at the Ronggowarsito Museum are listed in the inventory as coming from Deles. However, Deles is in this case the name of the desa (village) and not that of the  the dusun / dukuh (hamlet), hence the uncertainty concerning their precise provenance. For most of them, there is every reason to believe that they actually come from Cepit (desa Deles). Four sculptures representing Shiva's bull, together with a fragment of Kala, cannot be attributed with certainty to either Cepit, Kepyar or Deles and are hence included here. Two of these bulls (04.00039 04.00041 MR and MR) are damaged and badly eroded.

            The third bull (MR 04.00042) is of excellent workmanship and comparable to the best statues of the Yogyakarta area. The bull's position is very naturalistic and his eyes expressed great gentleness. The last bull - which is also the one who is most likely to come from Cepit and not from Deles - is particularly noteworthy because of the inscription that it bears on the base. This brief text has been studied by Griffiths (2012: 473-474). He gives the following reading, "Nama Sivaya January (my) cche (da)" and  dates it paleographically the seventh or eighth century.

            The last object from desa Deles kept at the Ronggowarsito Museum (MR 04.00028 ) is a block of stone, roughly rectangular, measuring 70 x 44 x 15 cm, with one side carved. In the center, in relief, one can see a raksasa, recognizable thanks to his thick hair. His left leg is bent, the corresponding hand is posed on the knee. He holds a club in his right hand. The bottom relief is entirely occupied by a plant like motif. To the right of the raksasa one can see remains of a Kāla: a leg, palm facing turned towards the visitor, a rounded cheek and part of a ear or horn. A similar composition is found at Candi Morangan (Klaten), a temple usually associated with the second half of the Central Javanese period. The presence of a leg and, apparently, a lower jaw brings the Kala of  Deles close to those of the Loro Jonggrang style and would therefore confirm a dating posterior to 830 or 850 AD.

Discussion

            The main virtue of our survey in the district of Batang is likely to show that the inscription of Sejomerto, often cited by historians Java for its link with the Sailendra dynasty, is not an isolated finding. It actually comes from a region much richer in archaeological remains than suggested by previous research.

            In the district of Batang, most of the archaeological sites of the Hindu-Buddhist period are found in the small plains and valleys of the interior, mainly around Tersono, Bawang, and Sejomerto Blado. These areas also correspond to areas of volcanic soil, well-watered but away from major floods - in contrast to the lowlands of the northwest and northeast. There is probably in Batang, as in Central Java, a more or less direct correlation between the Hindu-Buddhist settlements and irrigated rice. It remains to determine whether the virtual absence of archaeological remains in the coastal plains is due to an old will to avoid floodplains and areas requiring complex systems of water control, to a significant shift of the coast line or, more prosaically, to the difficulty of identifying ancient sites under thick layers of alluvium.

            In the state of our knowledge, it seems that the distribution of Hindu-Buddhist sites follows a distribution pattern favoring middle valleys. There are exceptions of course, the most notorious being the group remains around Simangli, in the southwest part of the district, the ruins of Sigemplong in the south, and the site of Balekambang near the coast.

            The sites of Simangli, Pejati, Batur and Punden Wali Ajar Pendek are located in the highlands, in an area that, still nowadays, is difficult to access. Since the area is also not suitable for wet-rice cultivation, it seems unlikely that these are remains of a large settlement. Without other data, neither textual nor material, it is difficult to get an idea of the precise function of these sites. Remote mountain or forest remains are often considered to have an almost exclusive religious function. However, the assumption of the presence of an ancient village cannot be  ruled out. In a region where the main trade goods have long been the products of the forest, it would be wrong not to consider the possibility that such highland sites played a role in wealth production.

            The function of Sigemplong, which we were unfortunately not able to visit but which was described by Dutch explorers (Notulen 1867: 91-92, 1868: 11, 23; 1871: 27), seems pretty clearly established: it is a staircase leading to the Dieng Plateau. Access to Dieng via Batang is not easy, but it is nevertheless possible. The road starts from Deles, follows a ridge between the rivers Arus and Belo before reaching the village of Sigemplong, where the road becomes a footpath. One branch goes via Mts Sipandu and Pagerkandang and ends near the Telaga Merdada, west of Dieng. The other branch runs along the foot of Mt Sipandu until the village of Rejosari and leads to Dieng Kulon, not far from the temples of the Arjuna group. It is possible that Sigemplong was part of an ancient pilgrimage route leading from Deles to Dieng and that the remains of Deles, Cepit and Kepyar (and perhaps others, more downstream ) were also part of it. One should however not associate all the sites of the district of Batang to this this "Dieng route." On the one hand , the site distribution in the lower valleys, without direct physical link with Dieng, makes this hypothesis event. On the other hand, it raises the question of the anteriority of the remains. In the current state of knowledge, the remains of Batang appear to be more ancient than those of Dieng. Hence, the region of Batang does not seem to have developed because of its proximity to the plateau. It is contrariwise likely that the Hindu-Buddhist presence in the region of Batang promoted the development of the religious center of Dieng, as the landscape of Batang is marked by the omnipresence of massive Prahu and mythologizing of this 2500 m high giant seems natural .

            Among the sites located outside the area the densest in classic remains, the one that attracts the most attention is Balekambang.  Balekambang is indeed the only site located (almost) on the coast, at about 1 km from the modern beachfront, near a source of fresh water, at the foot of a hill which keep it safe from the floods plaguing the alluvial plain. The Anyar River flows a few hundred meters to the east and is still used today as anchorage point for fishing boats. It is also possible that, during the Hindu- Buddhist period, the Kuto River, which is now at a distance of 2500 m, followed another course, slightly closer to Balekambang. The Anyar and the Kuto Rivers provide access to the interior valleys and, in particular, to the areas of Tersono , Bawang and Sejomerto , which are also rich in archaeological remains. The zone of Balekambang is actually almost the only one in the region to offer all these advantages (easy access to the sea and the hinterland, freshwater, dry land, anchorage place) and it would not be surprising that the surroundings saw the development of a port in ancient times.

Early Traces Hindu-Buddha influence at Batang Distric

            It is interesting to note that the Hindu-Buddhist culture is already settled on the coast and along the main tributaries of the Kuto in the seventh-eighth century. This is at least what seem to suggest the first palaeographic studies. The inscription of Balekambang dates indeed back to the seventh century (Soekarto Atmodjo in Goenadi Nitihaminoto e.a. 1978: 19; Griffiths 2012: 474-477) . Inscriptions from the hinterland would date back to the seventh century for Sojomerto ( Boechari 1966, 2012:355 ) , and the eighth-ninth century for Indrokilo and Banjaran (Griffiths 2012: 479). The inscriptions of Deles (Griffiths 2012: 473-474 ), and Kepokoh ( Machi Suhadi & Soekarto 1986 : 3; Griffiths 2012: 479 ) are also dated from a relatively early period : seventh - eighth century. It is possible that some sites that have not yielded inscriptions date from the same period but, in the absence of data from excavations, it is still impossible to confirm. The site Pejaten with its atypical Ganeśa and its statue of Visnu / Hari- Hara is perhaps an example of such early sites. It is also difficult to determine the duration of the use of most sites. However, one thing is certain : the region is a center of Hindu- Buddhist culture throughout the Central Javanese period. The possible move of the Sailendra's from Batang to the plains of Kedu and Yogyakarta did not cause the abandonment of the region. Religious foundations  continue to be established at least until the second half of the ninth century, as evidenced in particular by artefacts found at Balekambang, Klenteng and Deles.

            Regarding the period after the ninth-tenth century data are insufficient. A bronze mirror discovered at Kanyaran shows that the site was still used in the eleventh-twelfth century. Besides, ceramics from surface survey show that Balekambang was still in activity in the fifteenth-sixteenth century and Cepit in the seventeenth century, which does not bring much to the discussion. More interesting perhaps is the mention of several places of the region in the fifteenth-sixteenth Sundanese poem recounting the trip of Bujangga Manik (lines 750-754; Noorduyn & Teeuw 2006: 257). Three of the names mentioned in the text can still be localized (Noorduyn 1982: 423): Kupang (region Watu Gajah), Batang and Tumerep (Tumbrep, the village was discovered the inscription of Wutit).

            Among the sculptures from the Hindu-Buddhist era found in the district of Batang, the vast majority follows unsurprisingly the tradition of Central Java. Some of these sculptures may seem rude, like the bull from Sidomulyo, but others, far from being second-class provincial productions, show great artistic skills. This is among others the case of the makaras and the sculpture of Śrī from Balekambang and of a lintel from Deles. This implies that those responsible for these religious foundations had the taste and financial means to afford the services of skilled craftsmen, trained in the sites of the Progo Valley and of the southern plains. The monuments that they built in Batang did obviously not pale before the temples erected in the regions close to the political and cultural center of the kingdom of Mataram.

            Some deviations from the Central Javanese model appear as poorly controlled attempts. We see this lack of mastery, for example, in the bull fragment from Sigit, where there is certainly an effort in the ornamentation, but whose square appearance is somewhat unfortunate. Contrariwise, the statue of Durga from Klenteng, which was discussed above, may be the oldest representation of Durga with his hand on the head of Mahisa and may therefore constitute an important step in the development of the iconography of goddess, foreshadowing the masterpieces of the Singhasari period.

            Apart from the sculptures belonging to the Central Javanese tradition, we find, among the statues from the district of Batang, representations that have little parallels in Indonesia. We will not dwell here on the case of two Ganesa and of the Visnu / Hari-Hara from Pejaten , which  seem to have affiliations with India and the coasts of Mainland Southeast. We wish here to draw attention to an equally atypical work, discovered in Kupang (Wonotunggal ) and whose iconography has already been studied by Sri Soejatmi Satari (1978 : 5-8). It is a carved stone block in which the Indonesian archaeologist recognized a representation of Visnu delivering Gajendra. The largest part of the stone is occupied by an elephant. Between the legs of the elephant, one can see the body, arms and legs of a kneeling figure. On the left side of the stone, one can clearly distinguish a wing, hence the identification of this figure with Garuda. On the shoulders of Garuda, whose head is missing, we see a second figure, seated, in which one must undoubtedly recognize Visnu. As noted by Sri Soejatmi Satari although the iconography is Hindu, the style recalls the megalithic tradition, especially the sculptures from Pasemah. We are not facing a naturalistic representation, or even a logical one: Garuda, who is supposed to fly above Gajendra, is visible on both sides of the elephant. This particular sculpture may need to be considered into the broader context of interactions between the megalithic and the Hindu- Buddhist cultures. The same goes for the site of Batur, where the tradition of punden is mixed with the Hindu religion. Both sites seem to suggest that the megalithic culture, whatever its age, coexisted with Hinduism, at least in the western part of the district of Batang.

Conclusion

            The region of Batang was an important center of Hindu-Buddhist culture in the seventh century.  The inscriptions in Old Malay, the India-influenced sculptures and the statues recalling Cibuaya suggest that Batang was part of a larger network, that probably went from Bali to Sumatra, heir of the network that yielded the famous mitred Viṣṇus. Close to the mountains and their resources in timber and other valuable products, rich of a hinterland suitable for wet-rice cultivation, the region offered benefits that were probably crucial for its development. Perhaps do we glimpse the answer to the question asked by Wolters (1967). Perhaps is Batang one of these Javanese rivals that the nascent kingdom of Srivijaya was trying to submit in the late seventh century.

Références

Baskoro Daru Tjahjono. 2000.    Budaya Marginal Masa Klasik di Jawa Tengah. Yogyakarta: Balai Arkeologi Yogyakarta.

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