Monumental JavaScheltema, J. F. (Johann Friedrich )
History
Monumental Java
Scheltema, J. F. (Johann Friedrich )
Indonesia -- Antiquities; Java (Indonesia) -- Antiquities; Monuments -- Indonesia -- Java
fate of Pajajaran, are several ungainly images and impressions of the
feet of Poorwakali, the spouse of one of that realm’s petrified kings,
who mourned him with such copious tears that she softened the very rock
she stood upon, according to one legend; and, according to another
legend, of the feet of a certain Raja Mantri who tarried so long in
contemplation of the inscribed stone already mentioned, pondering over
the meaning of its strange characters, that he sank gradually into the
hard ground. There are more impressions of more feet and a coarsely
carved _linga_, Siva’s fecundating attribute, transformed by Muhammadan
piety into the miracle working staff of a Moslim santon. Hardly greater
interest is awakened by the primitive statues Kota Batu derives its
appellation from, “city of stones”, which form a sort of _Ruhmes Allee_,
lining the path from the main road to the bath-house, with many of the
same pattern scattered to right and left. All of them are petrified
worthies of Pajajaran, which their own mothers would not recognise,
though the natives know each of them by praenomen, nomen, cognomen and
title. King Moonding Wangi, _i.e._ the nice-smelling buffalo, looking
perhaps a trifle more human than the rest. Of a similar nature are the
_archadomas_, a collection of about eight hundred blocks of stone on
the estate Pondok Gedeh, which need a vivid imagination in the beholder
to pass for the figures of men and animals. A good specimen of the
Pajajaran type of sculpture, if it deserves that name, is the lachrymose
Poorwakali already referred to as standing, petrified herself, at a
little distance from the Batu Tulis where she solaces her widowhood by
keeping company with Kidangpenanjong, forgetting her royal husband,
after her paroxysm of grief, in a plebeian flirtation. Such is woman!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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