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Sewu (, ) is an eighth-century Mahayana The Buddha or Hindus located 800 metres north of Prambanan in Central Java, Indonesia. The word for a Hindu temple or Buddhist temple in Javanese is "candi" (), hence, the common name is "Candi Sewu". Candi Sewu is the second largest Buddhist temple complex in Indonesia; Borobudur is the largest. Sewu predates it and it is located near the "Prambanan" temple at Prambanan. Although the complex consists of 249 temples, this Javanese name translates to 'a thousand temples,' which originated from popular local folklore (Roro Jonggrang). Archaeologists believe the original name for the temple compound to be Manjusrigrha.
The Manjusrigrha temple was the largest Buddhist temple in the Prambanan Plain region, predating the nearby Prambanan Shaivism temple by over 70 years and the Borobudur by about 37 years. Located in the heart of Mataram Kingdom, the temple served as the royal Buddhist temple of the kingdom. Stately religious ceremonies were held here regularly. The Manjusrigrha inscription (792) praises the perfect beauty of the prasāda (temple shaped like a tower) of this religious complex. The Bubrah temple, located several hundred meters south, and the Gana temple, located east of the Sewu temple, probably served as guardian temples for the Manjusrigrha complex, guarding the four cardinal directions around the Sewu temple. The ruins of the Lor temple to the north of Sewu and the Kulon temple on the western side are both in poor condition; only a few stones remain on those sites. Before the construction of Borobudur and Prambanan, Sewu likely served as the kingdom's main temple. The temples are arranged in the mandala layout, which symbolizes the universe in Buddhist cosmology.
Sewu temple was probably expanded and completed during the rule of Rakai Pikatan, a prince who married a Buddhist princess from the Sailendra dynasty, Pramodhawardhani. Most of his subjects retained their old religions after the court returned to favor Hinduism. The proximity of the Sewu temple to Prambanan, a Hindu Temple, suggests that the Hindu and Buddhist communities lived in harmony during the era in which the temples were built. The scale of the temple complex suggests that Candi Sewu was a royal Buddhist temple that served as an important religious site. The temple is located on the Prambanan Plain, between the southeastern slopes of the Mount Merapi and the Sewu mountain range in the south, near the present border of Yogyakarta province and Klaten Regency in central Java. The plain has many archaeological sites scattered only a few miles apart, which suggests that this area served as an important religious, political, and urban center.
In 1733, Pakubuwono II granted the Dutch merchant Cornelius Antonie Lons permission to make a sightseeing tour through the heartland of Mataram. Lons' report of this trip contains the first known extant description of the Sewu and Prambanan temples.Roy Jordaan, e Lost Gatekeepers Statues of Candi Prambanan: A Glimpse of the VOC Beginnings of Javanese Archaeology, NSC Working Paper No. 14, 2013 In the years 1806–07, the Dutch archaeologist unearthed the Sewu temples and created the first lithographs of Candi Sewu's main temple and the Perwara temple. After Britain's short-lived rule of the Dutch East Indies, Thomas Stamford Raffles included Cornelius' image of Candi Sewu in his 1817 book The History of Java. In 1825, the Belgian architect Auguste Payen created a series of Candi Sewu images.
During the Java War (1825–1830), some of the temple stones were carted away and used in fortifications. In the years that followed, the temples suffered from looting. Many of the Buddha statues were decapitated, and the heads stolen. Some Dutch colonists stole sculptures and used them as garden ornaments, and native villagers used the foundation stones as construction material. Some of the temple's best-preserved bas-reliefs, Buddha's head, and some ornaments were carried away from the site and ended up in museums and private collections abroad.
In 1867, Isidore van Kinsbergen photographed the ruins of Candi Sewu after an earthquake had caused the dome in the main temple to collapse. In 1885, Jan Willem IJzerman, revising some plans of the temple complex made earlier by Cornelius, made notes regarding the temple's condition. He noted that several Buddha heads were missing. By 1978, none of the Buddha heads had survived, all of them having been looted from the site completely.
In 1901, a new set of photographs was taken, sponsored by Leydie Melville. In 1908 initiated the clearing and reconstruction of the main temple, and in 1915 H. Maclaine Pont drew the reconstruction of a temple of the second row. It was de Haan who reconstructed the Perwara temples with the aid of Van Kinsbergen's photographs. Subsequently, the temple became a subject of study among archaeologists such as and Nicolaas Johannes Krom in 1923. In 1950 Johannes Gijsbertus de Casparis also studied the temple. Most of the archaeologists concurred that the temple was built in the first half of the ninth century. However, in 1960, inscription discovered in Perwara temple number 202 dated the year 792, meaning that the temple was constructed a few years earlier, in the late eighth century. Later in 1981, Jacques Dumarçay conducted a thorough research of the temple.
The temple was severely damaged during the 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake. The structural damage was significant, and the central temple suffered the worst. Large pieces of debris were scattered about on the grounds, and cracks between stone blocks were detected. To prevent the central temple from collapsing, metal frame structures were erected on the four corners and attached to support the main temple. Although some weeks later in 2006, the site was reopened for visitors, the main temple remained closed for safety reasons. Today, the metal frame has been removed, and visitors may visit and enter the main temple.
The Sewu Temple often hosts the annual Vesak ceremony.
The nearby temples, Gana temple in the east and Bubrah temple in the south, are suggested as part of the greater Manjusrigrha Vajradhatu mandala complex. Both temples are located around 300 metres from the Sewu main temple. There are northern and western ruins discovered around the same distance from the main temple, however, the stones were too scarce for reconstruction. These temples suggested that, indeed, the Sewu temple compound was completed with four additional temples, located 300 metres from the main temple, which corresponds with the mandala and the guardians of the directions concept.
The main temple has five rooms, one large garbhagriha in the center and four smaller rooms in each cardinal direction. These four rooms are all connected by outer corner galleries with balustrades bordered by rows of small stupas. From the findings during the reconstruction process, it was suggested that the original design of the central sanctuary only consisted of a central roomed temple surrounded by four additional structures with open portals. Doorways were added later. The portals were narrowed to create door frames on which to attach wooden doors. Some of the holes to attach doors are still visible. The doorways join the temples together into one main building with five rooms.
The central chamber can be reached from the eastern room. The central chamber is larger than other rooms, with a higher ceiling and a taller roof. Now, all five rooms are empty.Soetarno, Drs. R. second edition (2002). "Aneka Candi Kuno di Indonesia" (Ancient Temples in Indonesia), pp. 53–54. Dahara Prize. Semarang. . However, the lotus-carved stone pedestal in the central chamber suggests that the temple once contained a large bronze Buddhist statue (possibly the bronze statue of Manjusri), probably reaching a height of four meters. The statue is missing, probably looted for scrap metal over the centuries. However, another theory suggested that the main statue was probably constructed from several stone blocks coated with vajralepa plaster.
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