MONUMENTAL JAVA [Illustration] MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO [Illustration: I. THE BORO BUDOOR (Cephas Sr.)] MONUMENTAL JAVA BY J. F. SCHELTEMA, M.A. Unde etiam nunc est mortalibus insitus horror, Qui delubra deûm nova toto suscitat orbi Terrarum, et festis cogit celebrare diebus: LUCRETIUS, _De Rerum Natura_, Lib. v. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, AND VIGNETTES AFTER DRAWINGS OF JAVANESE CHANDI ORNAMENT BY THE AUTHOR MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1912 COPYRIGHT TO MY DEAR COUSIN AND FRIEND PROFESSOR AUGUST ALLEBÉ DIRECTOR EMERITUS OF THE NETHERLANDS STATE ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS AT AMSTERDAM [Illustration] If this book needs an apology, it is one to myself for taking the public at large into the confidence of cherished recollections. The writing was a diversion from studies in a quite different direction and letting my pen go, while living again the happy hours I spent, between arduous duties, with the beautiful monuments of Java’s past, I did nothing but seek my own pleasure. Should it turn out that my personal impressions, given in black and white, please others too--so much the better. In any case they must be taken for what they are: a beguilement of lone moments of leisure. Whoever find them readable, they will not satisfy, I hope, a certain class of critics; those, I mean, who extend the paltry rule of mutual admiration, _nul n’aura de l’esprit que nous et nos amis_, to any field they claim their own and “of whom to be dispraised were no small praise.” Desirous, I must confess, to stimulate their flattering disapproval, I hasten to admit in advance my many shortcomings, a full list of which they will doubtless oblige me with in due process of censorious comment. My work sets up no pretence to completeness: there is no full enumeration of all the Hindu and Buddhist temples known by their remains; there are no measurements, no technical details, no statistics--a great recommendation to my mind, as Dutch East Indian statistics go. I am not guilty of an ambitious attempt to enrich the world with an exhaustive treatise on ancient Javanese architecture and sculpture--far be it from me to harbour such an audacious design! I disclaim even the presumption to aspire at being classed as a useful companion on a visit to the island; I deny most emphatically that I intend to swell the disquieting number of tourists’ vade-mecums already up for sale, clamouring for recognition, and, _horribile dictu_, scores more coming! Be they sufficient or insufficient, qualitatively speaking, I am not going to increase their quantity.