feature in Javanese ornament, enters largely into the decorative design and its frequent repetition bestows on the sculpture of the _chandi_ Sewu, otherwise so very similar to that of Prambanan, a character all its own. [Illustration: XXII. DETAIL OF THE _CHANDI_ SEWU (Archaeological Service through Charls and van Es.)] It has already been remarked that the interiors of the structures which together form this group, are almost bare of decoration. The recesses of the central temple, whose external ornament surpasses in luxuriance everything met elsewhere in Java, three small interconnected apartments projecting on the west, north and south, while the eastern front is broken by the porch, have only empty niches[122] framed by pilasters with flowery capitals. The inner chamber, no less soberly decorated and stripped of the statuary it possessed, _en négligé_ as it were, _Belle sans ornement, dans le simple appareil D’une beauté qu’on vient d’arracher au sommeil,_ has on its western side a raised throne of ample dimensions, once perhaps occupied by the large image without head and right hand, dug out of the debris and carried off to the “museum” at Jogja. It still awaits identification and the difficulty is increased by the impropriety of speculating on the likelihood that representations of the universal spirit were admitted in a temple built for the ritual of a creed which acknowledges neither a god nor a soul aspiring to communion with the divine essence in prayer, desiring nothing but annihilation. Yet the Buddhists did learn to pray and to give transcendental ideas a tangible expression in human shape, though they never sank to idolatry. And in Java, mixing freely with Brahmanism, not impermeable to the Sankhya doctrine, Buddhism seems to have swerved occasionally from its longings for extermination in the Nirvana to entertain vague, confused notions of something more hopeful, witness the oft repeated Banaspatis. Herein lies, perhaps, the explanation of otherwise embarrassing peculiarities observed in the conception, the attributes and attitudes of many Buddhist statues in the island which, for the rest, are distinguished by great simplicity of execution. So is the throne which extends over half the floor of the inner room of the central temple of the _chandi_ Sewu, and the same applies to the few headless Dhyani Buddhas lying round, sundered from their stations where they faced the cardinal points, the four quarters of the world, and the first of them, the very elevated, facing the sky. A gigantic finger of bronze, found in the chapel of the throne, supports the theory that the principal statue was of that alloy, an additional incentive to plunder--ancient images of bronze have become scarce indeed: the form of the cushioned pedestal in the _chandi_ Kalasan too betokens a captured metallic Tara, to the further detriment of the domiciliary rights there claimed for the homeless Lady of Mystery in the residency grounds at Jogja.