These temples of the three gods who are but one, always reminded me in their pathetic desolation of the _capellas imparfeitas_ of Santa Maria da Victoria; what is incomplete, however, unfinished at Batalha, has run to decay at Prambanan--there the budding promise and arrested blossoming of an artistic idea, here the scattered petals of the full-blown flower rudely broken off its stem. [Illustration: VII. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS (C. Nieuwenhuis.)] Siva is the keynote of the Prambanan group, Siva, the Jagad, the Bhatara Guru, according to his prevalent title in the island. In the temple which bears his name, he appeared as the leader in the exterior chapel looking south; his wife, Doorga, looks north; their first-born, Ganesa, looks west. The latter, sitting on his lotus cushion, is represented as the Ekadanta, the elephant deprived of one of his tusks when fighting Parashu Rama; a third eye in his forehead betokens his keenness of sight; he wears in his crown the emblematic skull and crescent of his father; one of his left hands brandishes his father’s battle-axe; one of his right hands holds the string of beads suggesting prayer; his father’s _upawita_, the hooded snake, is strung round his left shoulder and breast. Doorga, his mother, born from the flames which proceeded from the mouths of the gods, stands on the steer she killed when the terrific animal had stormed Indra’s heaven and humiliated the immortals; her eight hands[45] wield the weapons and other gifts bestowed upon her by the deities at their delivery: Vishnu’s discus, Surya’s arrows, etc. etc., while her nethermost right hand seizes the enemy’s tail and her nethermost left hand the shaggy locks of the demon Maheso, who tries to escape with the monster’s life. This magnificent piece of sculpture, highly dramatic and yet within the limits of plastic art, the unknown maker having instinctively obeyed the rules formulated in Lessing’s _Laokoon_, some thousand years after his labours were ended, is the petrified Lady Jonggrang, victim of Bondowoso’s revengeful love. It does not matter to the native that Siva has always claimed her as his consort, if not under the name of Doorga then under that of Kali or Uma, ever since she, Parvati, the Mother of Nature, divided herself into three female entities to marry her three sons, who are none but he who sits enthroned as Mahadeva in the inner chamber, looking east, with his less placid personifications, the _dvarapalas_ (doorkeepers) Nandisvara and Mahakala, the wielders of trident and cudgel, guarding the entrance, supported by demi-gods and heroes. The colossal statue of their heavenly lord, broken into pieces by the falling roof, has been restored and replaced on its _padmasana_ (lotus cushion). In this shape the god wears the _makuta_ (crown) with skull and crescent, has a third eye in his forehead and a cobra strung round his left shoulder and breast; his body, decked with a tiger’s skin, rests against the _prabha_, his