It must be considered a miracle or evidence of the native masons possessing a higher developed artistic sense than their employer, that the bas-reliefs have suffered less than this extraordinary process of restoration and preservation portended, though much detail has been destroyed, thanks to their vandalism under orders from Batavia as understood by the Philistine of Blitar. In the first place we find again, divided by medallions with representations of animal life, a sculptural delineation of the _Ramayana_, the artist’s buoyant fancy, blending the celestial with the human, shedding a divine light on acts of most common daily occurrence by making gods and semi-gods partake of man’s estate in deeds sublimely natural. The _Ramayana_ was a great favourite for the decoration of temples, as proved by the _chandis_ Panataran, Toompang, Surawana and Prambanan; the _Mahabharata_ or, rather, its Javanese version, the _Brata Yuda_, came as a good second; the _Arjuno Wiwaha_ of the poet Mpu Kanwa has been put to use for the embellishment of the _chandis_ Surawana and Toompang; the _Kersnayana_ for that of the _chandis_ Toompang and Panataran. We might do worse and, in fact, we are doing worse with our insipid epitaphs and tasteless lapidary pomposity in our cemeteries, than adorn the tombs of our great departed with imagery taken from our poets, tellers of good tales and fabulists, the life they knew so well aiding us to fathom death with its mysteries and promises. The promise most cherished by the Hindu Javanese was that personified in Siva: death to make new life grow and increase in beauty among mortals feeding on happiness, by reason of Kala’s breath destroying the misery of tottering old age, raising man to equality with the gods. That is what the people, for whom the marvellous ancient monuments of Java were built, loved to read in the masterpieces of their literature, carved for their benefit on the mausoleums of their kings, heeding the wise lessons for whoso chooses to reflect, of their _Canterbury Tales_, _Faerie Queene_, _Paradise Lost_ and _Paradise Regained_; their _Narrenschiff_, _Dil Ulenspigel_ and _Faust_; their _Divina Commedia_ and _Decameron_; their _Romancero del Cid_ and _Conde Lucanor_; their _nouvelles_ and _joyeux devis_, their _vies très horrifiques_ of their Gargantuas and Pantagruels. Life in their thought being intimately connected with death, which consequently inspired nothing of the abject terror the practice of western Christianity clothes it with, in curious contrast to the saving hope of its eastern origin, we discern cheerfulness, the effect of serene meditation, the true _amrita_, the rejuvenating nectar of self-existent immortality, as the keynote also to sensible earthly existence in the infinitely varied forms inviting our examination on the walls of the _chandi_ Panataran. _Greift nur hinein ins volle Menschenleben!_ If the beholder be a philosopher or an artist, or both, desirous to grasp the full life