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KEDULAN TEMPLE
Address: Kalasan, Sleman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia GPS Coordinate: S744'12.7" E11028'13.2" (view map)
Kedulan temple was discovered in 1993. The finding of this temple and two inscriptions in the excavating location raises a question on the existence of an old village named Pananggaran and a dam nearby.
20/02/2013
Central Java since it looks to have a jaw. There are also reliefs of deities, ivory decorations, rose-like decoration, and batik motif on some parts of the temple walls. After walking around, YogYES interviewed a staff named Haryono. He told the difficulties of reconstructing the destroyed building. There are hundreds of stones to be matched in order to make the temple stands firmly as before, whereas there is no single indicators for the reconstruction. One worker can even match only one pair of stones in a week because of the difficulty. That's true; it's like composing a giant puzzle! If we get into the information room close to the excavation location, we can see the design of expected Kedulan temple. From the design, we can notice the height of the main temple will be 8 meters, composing of the foot, body, and roof. The temple body consists of 10 stone layers as high as 2,4 meters, with some cavities for Ganesha, Agastya, Durga, Nandaka and Nandiswara statues, with narrow verandah that is predicted only certain people can go inside. The temple roof consists of 13 layers of stones. From the above information, it can be predicted that its architecture is entirely similar to Sambisari temple. In the information room, too, we can see ruins of decorated bowls and earthenwares that were supposed to be utilized during the ceremony rituals in this temple. Besides, there is also wood originating from the trees growing in the time of the temple construction. Haryono told that once there was someone took some of the wood to make a sculpture but then the person returned it back since he experienced unlucky occurrence. Photographs of other goods found during the excavation can be seen in the information room. There is a photograph of deity statue from bronze and photographs of Pananggaran and Sumudul inscriptions that were discovered in 2003. On the wall of the room, there are descriptions of the soil layers were the temple was discovered, and photographs depicting the excavation process that lasted for years. On 12 June 2003, two inscriptions were found in the excavation location. The inscriptions that were written in Pallawa characters in Sanskrit language have been read by two epigraphs from Archeology Department of Gadjah Mada University, namely Dr Riboet Darmoseotopo and Tjahjono Prasodjo MA. Dated 791 Saka (869 AD, or around 10 years after the construction of Prambanan temple), it contains land tax holiday in Pananggaran and Parhyangan villages, construction of irrigation, and foundation of a holy building called Tiwaharyyan and curse threat for anyone who did not comply with the rules. Some archeologists predicted that those inscriptions are related to the foundation of Kedula temple. The Tiwaharyyan holy building is predicted to be Kedulan temple itself. Pananggaran village in the inscription is predicted to be situated around the temple area, as it is to be of the ancient dam. The dam was possibly constructed in Opak River that is 4 kilometers from the temple location, or possibly in the river that now is not seen anymore because of the volcanic mudflow resulted from the eruption of the Merapi Mountain a thousand years ago. Many puzzles waiting for solving and the enchantment of the temple components make the tour to Kedulan Candi worths doing. The condition of the temple under reconstruction even adds to our pleasure. Text: Yunanto Wiji Utomo Photo & Artistic: Agung Sulistiono Mabruron English Translation: Emanuel, Downhill English Services Copyright 2007 YogYES.COM