contrived for ornament, present flat surfaces, has led to the conjecture of a catastrophe which surprised the builders and made them suspend their labours as in the case of the Bimo temple of the Diëng plateau. [Illustration: X. PRAMBANAN RELIEFS (Centrum.)] One of the salient features of the decoration at Prambanan, indeed of all ancient Javanese art, Sivaïte and Buddhist, is the representation of animal life as an important factor in human destiny. If the Buddha was called the Sakya Sinha, the Lion of the Sakyas, and his sylvan embodiment adorns in many reproductions the Boro Budoor, his stateliest temple, at Sivaïte Prambanan we find the king of the desert extensively utilised in the general decoration, together with the beasts of the field under the bo-trees and fanciful combinations of man and his lowly friends, not dumb but of different speech, like the _kinnaris_, the bird-people. The _Ramayana_ bas-reliefs echo the kindness[46] shown to those humble companions in Indian myth, history and present-day asylums for the aged and infirm among them. Attending the monkey warriors with whose help the simian deity Hanoman restored King Sugriva to the throne of his forefathers at Kishkindhya (an allusion, it is thought, to the doughty deeds of the aborigines of the Deccan), _bajings_[47] and _bolooks_[47] are gambolling round the house of the Most Awful and Mysterious, once worshipped here by great nations whose very names are lost, but whose art, giving a place to all creation in symbolic expression of the divine, still teaches us the lesson that the animals are also children of the gods, endowed with life not to be exterminated to serve our pleasure and our vanity, or to be abused for our profit, but to enjoy the fullness of the earth and the good gifts of heaven as we do ourselves, or might do if we were wise. Mother Nature, Siva’s _sakti_ Doorga, nurses at her bosom all her husband’s offspring, without distinction, and at Prambanan she superintends the growing world, as the mistress of his household, in the highly finished form the artist has given her: Loro Jonggrang, daughter of Ratu Boko of the Javanese legend. Not in her outward character of the demon-steer subduing virago does she attract her worshippers here, nor in that of the woman of the golden skin riding the tiger, full of menace, but in that of Uma, the gentle goddess who sheds light on perplexing problems of conduct, to whom one turns in distress. Ideal of high-born loveliness, Loro Jonggrang is especially venerated by those of her own sex who are in trouble or have a desire to propound in the fumes of incense they burn: barren matrons praying for issue from their bodies to their lords and masters, like the wives of King Dasharatha; virgins anxious to get married; pseudo-virgins who have trusted too much in the promises of their lovers, following the _hadat_ established by herself at Prambanan and diligently observed