This accounts for the sad desolation, more pitiful since _soi-disant_ archaeologists got their hands in, shone upon at the _chandi_ Sewu as at the _chandis_ Plahosan, Sari, Kalasan, Panataran, to restrict myself to one name from East Java,--shone upon by the sun, the egg of the world, whose yolk holds the germ of creation, Surya, the solar orb personified, is a companion wonderfully, grandly suggestive among the “thousand temples” of life accomplished, decaying into new birth, whether he scorches the earth and withers the drooping flowers, or climbs a dim, hazy sky to attract the vapours that descend again in precious showers when the clouds collect and cover the stars, charming from darkness the lovely dawn and budding day. The meditations he disposes the mind to are mostly directed to the future, dreams of coming happiness, and even the contemplative Buddhist images under the Banaspatis seem agitated by their knowledge of a promise excelling the hope of Nirvana, which cannot satisfy the aspirations of the children of this island, full of the joy of existence. What will the future bring to them, the people cradled in tempest, who were taught forbearance by a creed profoundly imbued with the inner nature of things, and submission when misery of war and pestilence came as the harbingers of bondage to an alien race? Too trustful, they sacrificed their birthright for a mess of pottage and after the encroachments of the Company, past ages crowding on their memory, the felicity of the _jaman buda_ assumes to their imagination a tangible shape in the ancient monuments founded by the rulers of their own flesh and blood, edifices so widely different from the meretricious Government opium-dens and Government pawn-shops in which the predatory instinct of the present masters manifests itself--_layin dahulu, layin sekarang_.[123] Resigned to fate, which wills the mutability of earthly relations, the Javanese philosopher--and all Javanese are philosophers in their way--takes the practical view of the Vedantins, considering that calamities mean purification to the victor in moral contest, and looking for a serene morning after a night of distress. He has more beliefs than one to draw upon when seeking refuge in his cherished maxim, his phlegmatic _apa boleh buwat_,[124] and doubts not the possibility of obtaining a Moslim equivalent for the Buddhist _arahat_, the perfect state, irrespective of outward conditions, by the help of a Hindu deity, Ganesa, who knows what is to happen and, as Vinayaka, the guide, conquers obstacles hurtful to his votaries in the course of events preordained according to their Islāmic doctrine--syncretism yet more complex than that of their forefathers of Old Mataram! Watch well the heart, commanded the master. As to the watched heart dominating the senses, the Javanese, rather a mystic than an ascetic, and predominantly a child of nature, whence he proceeds and whither he