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This research was funded by ASEA-UNINET, Project ASEA 2023-2024 /Uni Wien/6.
Space has been part of religious practices since times immemorial. In the recent urbanized (Davis 2007 for the dimensions of slums in global cities) world this holds:
„Religious practices always respond to certain spatial constellations and territorialize themselves within them. In the process, religiously motivated strategies of appropriation or recoding alter urban spaces and everyday life.“ (Metrozones 2012: 8)
The following remarks will document the findings of a visit to Yogyakarta in February 2024. To start with spaces near Yogyakarta but part of the larger region we find two significant locations. The temple complex of Prambanam is the first complex we will look at.
Prambanan (Indonesian Candi Prambanan; Javanese: Rara Jonggrang) designates Hindu temple compounds close to the city of Yogyakarta in southern Java. The central temple is dedicated to the veneration of Trimurti, i. e., the Hindu trinity consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
„It is one of the most important temples in Indonesia due to it being the largest Hindu temple (second largest after Angkor Wat) and the highest temple built during the heyday of the Sanjaya dynasty. This family is well-known as the ruler of the ancient Mataram kingdom in Central Java in 9th century.“ (Parlindugan/Sukwika/Mandurung 2021: 39-40)
Theologically speaking,[1] Prambanan has been a Śivagrha, a location of venerating, esp., Śiva as the Parabrahman, the highest deity (Surpi 2020).[2] Buddhist temple compounds surrounding the Hindu temples are part of the larger group of compounds. As a
„world culture heritage site, the Prambanan temple has a unique characteristic compared to other temples. The architecture is tall and slender shape in accordance with Hindu architecture in general with the Shiva temple as the main temple has a height reached 47 meters towering in the middle of the smaller temples cluster.“ (Rif’an 2016: 2)
Contemporary visitors to Prambanan include many Indonesian Muslims understanding the site as a source of positive power.
The core group of the Prambanan temple compounds[3]
Another temple complex close to Yogyakarta is the Buddhist temple of Borobudur (cf. Cirtek 2016, Dumarçay 1986, Kandahjaya 2004). Borobudur was built around the 8th/9th century CE and abandoned in the 11th century CE but not completely forgotten. By Europeans it was discovered in 1814 CE.
„By the 1850s, just four decades after Borobudur was reclaimed from the jungle, the Javanese were once again performing rituals here. They burned incense and carried offerings of flowers to the buddhas on the upper terraces and to the „unfinished buddha“ which then lay inside the shattered central stupa. They also daubed the statues with rice powder which young women traditionally put on their faces to make them more attractive.
These visitors came to request specific boons: to obtain protection from sickness, to ask for blessings after a marriage and on other important domestic occasions. The most popular statue was that just to the right of the stairway on the east side of the first terrace, which they called Kakek („Grandfather“) Bima, the second of the Pandava brothers in the Hindu Ramayana epic. Childless women in particular stretched out their fingers toward him in an attempt to touch him as he sat motionless in his „cage,“ or sometimes spent the night in a gallery or on the terrace near him, believing that by doing so they had gratified Kakek Bima.
On the first day after the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, large crowds of people, Javanese as well as Chinese, formerly assembled at Borobudur. ‚The galleries and terraces become completely full and the buddha, who is at other times so lonely, visited by very few viewers or worshippers, is completely engulfed by crowds who wander around either merrily bantering or even shivering in fear. They stare at the bas-reliefs, where they rediscover so many familiar objects and faces; they bring offerings and let off fireworks in front of the latticed beehives, as if the time had come again when Buddha fulfilled desires, when he sat on high enthroned in majesty and glory!‘“ (Miksic 1990: 18/29)
After many years of rekonstruction the temple (cf. Balai Vol. I, II, and III) is now well conserved and is listed by the UNESCO as a world heritage site[4] and part of larger landscape management plans (Nagaoka 2016). Borobudur is now a place of pilgrimage for Indonesian Buddhists and a popular outing for Javanese Muslims who regarded it as part of the Javanese heritage.
Batik Ciptoning by an artist in Yogyakarta (Collection of the author, acquired Yogyakarta 2024)
It has been discussed if it is the most important existing stūpa (Kandahjaya 2004: 1) or another structure that may be a maṇḍala (Snellgrove 1996; cf. Mishra 2022 and Kandahjaya 2022, Situngkir 2010, Utami 2020), a temple mount, etc. We won’t delve into the speculations about the character of Borobudur, its ‚mystic‘ (Kandahjaya 2022) and call it a stūpa with many smaller stūpas. The most impressive[5] part of the temple are the panels and reliefs (Metusala 2020) presenting stories from the Buddhist narrative and ikonographic (Idris/Sepriady 2017) universe (Gifford 2011).
Prambanan and Borobudur can be regarded as integral parts of the religious landscape of Yogyakarta. A larger element of this landscape is, however, another structure far beyond mere architectural aspects. This structure is known as the cosmological axis of Yogyakarta and its landmarks, another Indonesian UNESCO World Heritage site since 2003.[6]
One of the rituals related to the cosmological axis of Yogyakarta was the labuhan. In 1921 a report on this ritual was described as follows:
„It was an annual procession in which offerings were given by the sultan to Ratu Kidul followed by an ascent up the southern slope of Merapi to provide offering to deities in the volcano. The labuhan explicitly acknowledged that the spiritual geographies of the volcano and the ocean were bound together. By providing offerings to both topographies, the sultan recognized that his power was constituted by the deities in both locations and acknowledged that they were in relationships of exchange with each other.“ (Bobette 2023: 59)
The pivotal location on the axis is the Kraton, the palace of Yogyakarta. Consequently the founding sultan of the dynasty was called Hamengkubowono I, Nail of the Cosmos I, who held the earth and the universe together. Nyai Ratu Kidal, the goddess-queen of the Indian Ocean, is the other actor, the deities of the volcano the others.
Sultan’s Mosque
This spiritual topography is Islamized by having the great Mosque in traditional architectural style (Wiryomartono 2023), situated close to the Kraton, integrated into the axis.
„The traditional Javanese society, particularly the Kraton, recognizes a distinctive spatial structure, which is a settlement preserved for the mosque caretakers named Kampung Kauman. This type of area exists in almost every traditional Javanese administrative structure and is considered vital for the Javanese leaders who resort to Islam as the official religion; it is also habitually located behind the Kraton mosque. Kauman Yogyakarta was established around 1775, after the founding of Kraton Yogayakarta after the Giyanti treaty (1755) and after the completion of the construction Mesjid Agung Yogyakarta by Sultan. It has been through various social, cultural, and political events with the strong influences from the Kraton Yogyakarta, the Dutch occupation, Muhammadiyah in 1912, and the modern days’ globalization. Kauman then develops into a settlement for santri (students of religious school) community with the religious and kinship bonds due to the village endogamy and can be distinguished by the mosque as the center of the district.“ (Rianingrum 2012: 152)
The Kauman Great mosque[7], officially Mesjid Gedhe Kauman Karaton Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat, has been established by Hamengkubowono I in 1773 CE in the process of establishing the sultanate Yogyakarta and his located close to the kraton, the palace.[8] The mosque itself may become a site for negotiating identity (Prihantoro 2024).
Gedhe Kauman Mosque, Yogyakarta[9]
[1] For the astronomical aspects of Prambanan cf. Khairunnisa 2021 and for the hydro-architectural consecration of water in Prambanan Sundberg 2022.
[2] For the representation of Sītā at Candi Prambanan cf. Jordaan 2022.
[3] Flying Pharmacist – Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4207701.
[4] https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/592
[5] Personal note by the author based on several visits to Borobudur.
[6] https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1671/
[7] https://mesjidgedhe.or.id/
[8] For the kraton being tied to the cosmos cf. Behrend 1989.
[9] By Aisha Tanduk, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
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RaT-Blog Nr. 5/2025