The Megalithic Village of Orahili Fau

The second historic village we visited on our trip to South Nias was Orahili Fau. While it is not quite as impressive as Hilisamaetano, let alone Bawamataluo, this is still a first-rate traditional village with a large cobbled square, rows of traditional houses and numerous interesting megaliths and carvings. If this village was in mainland South-East Asia, it would probably be a major tourist attraction. However, on the remote island of Nias, it rarely sees a visitor.

The houses of Orahili Fau are arranged lengthwise along the main square

The village of Orahili Fau is located on a flat-topped hill at an elevation of around 150 metres above sea level. This means it is considerably lower than its nearby cousin of Bawamataluo. The locals clearly close it for its defensive position. It is surrounded on all sides by steep slopes and ravines and originally it had only a single gate on the western side. In addition to its defensibility, the site is also blessed with a wealth of water sources. There are seven springs or wells in the vicinity of the village and a small river called Sungai Batu Buaya (Crocodile Rock River!) is located only a kilometre away.

An ornament on one of the houses

As you might expect, this village has a fascinating history. One of the oldest villages in South Nias, it is the ‘ancestor’ village of Bawamataluo, the most famous village on the island. According to oral tradition, Bawamataluo was founded by people from Orahili Fau who broke off to form a new village on higher ground. The two villages are so closely interconnected by familial links and intermarriage that their histories cannot be untangled. According to oral tradition, Orahili Fau is actually the older village, and at some point a group of its residents broke off to found the new settlement of Bawamataluo. In 1864 the Dutch attacked the village of Orahili Fau and burnt most of its buildings to the ground. However, its citizens regrouped and rebuilt their village on the same site. This means that most of the timber buildings we see today do not predate the 1860s. (However, we may assume that many of the stone megaliths we see are of a much greater age.) One of the finest of the current timber houses is a large structure which is raised on massive wooden supports. Out front there is an unusual guardian figure which is part deer and part snake. It is colourfully painted and sports large, tusk-like fangs (see picture).

A lichen-splotched megalith with a traditional weapon motif

Yet there is more to Orahili Fau than just old houses. The village is also notable for its wide range of megaliths. There are six different types of stone megaliths in the village, include stone tables and chairs, megaliths shaped like the gendang (a percussion instrument) and an excellent example of the batu lompat, a jumping stone. In the picture at the top of this article you can see a row of stone slabs in front of the houses. Many of them have interesting motifs, ranging from the peaceful (fern fronds) to the decidedly war-like (shields, swords and spears). While the locals preserve these ancient artefacts, they aren’t exactly treated with reverence. It is common to see laundry drying on top of them.

The ‘batu lompat’ of Orahili Fau

The megalith which will be most interesting to visitors is probably the batu lompat. In the Nias language it is known as the fahombo or batu hombo. These megaliths, which are built from a numerous of irregular stones and topped with a capstone, are one of Nias’s most famous cultural artefacts. The example at Orahili Fau is one of the taller examples, reaching a height of approximately two metres. In pre-colonial times, Niassan men had to jump over this monument not only to prove their athletic prowess but also that they were ready to become a soldier and a husband. From around the age of ten, Niassan started their training to jump the batu hombo. This showed how much traditional Niassan society was imbued with a military mentality. Before the Dutch invasion, everything focused around readiness for war.

The Royal Graveyard of King Sidabutar

One of the most impressive natural sights in Indonesia is Lake Toba, the world’s largest crater lake. Apart from spectacular vistas, groves of pine trees and mountain mist, the area is home to the Toba Batak, one of three main groups of the Batak ethnic group. They have rich weaving traditions which may be of interest to textile enthusiasts. Alternately, you might be more interested in their vernacular architecture, which includes magnificent timber houses, various megaliths and stone tombs. One of the best places to see Batak tombs is in the village of Tomok, which has a beautiful hilltop graveyard.

Before you enter the innermost courtyard of the royal cemetery, it is worth looking at the large group of humanoid figures which is gathered in a sort of public square below the uppermost terrace. These figures, now thickly encrusted in lichen, have small bodies and large heads, somewhat like a miniature version of the statues on Easter Island. They are one of the largest and best-preserved collections of statuary anywhere in the region, though it is hard to find any specific information on these statues. At a guess, they might have been some sort of guardian figure originally.

A large group of humanoid statues alongside the royal graveyard

This graveyard commemorates King Sidabatur, who remains a revered ancestor in this part of the world. His reign is said to date to the second half of the sixteenth century. According to legend, he was the first man to set foot on the Pulau Samosir, the huge lake island which is found inside the Lake Toba. He is also claimed to have mystical powers which were embodied in his long, thick hair. A belief in the mystical powers of long hair in men is a common belief amongst the different ethnic groups of Lake Toba. It is further claimed that King Sidabatur carved his own tomb before his death. It can still be seen today. It looks rather like a Sphinx with a long, mask-like face at one end. At the time of our visit, there were betel leaves left on top of it as offerings. The king is still honored in these parts, with elements of ancestor worship co-existing with Christianity.

The tomb of King Sidabatur is still an object of veneration today

The graveyard also contains many other tombs, including that of other members of the royal family and valued members of his entourage. His loyal bodyguard is one of the people who is entombed in the complex. Another is Anteng Melila Senega, a woman who the king is said to have loved for many years, without her returning his affections. The most interesting of the tombs are generally those with a ‘sphinx-like’ appearance. There has even been conjecture that there might be a direct influence from Egypt, as the Batak traded as long ago as the 3rd century BC with ancient Egypt. Camphor from the island of Sumatra was used in mummification rituals during the New Kingdom. The Batak, a highland people, would take camphor down to the West Coast port of Barus, which was visited by Indian and Middle Eastern traders.

Stone megaliths jostle with Christian-style tombs

Whatever the origin of their design and form, the tombs are certainly arresting pieces of sculpture. They are a testimonial to an ancient megalithic culture, variants of which flowered in all the fertile highland regions of Sumatra. Though the style of each region is markedly different, megaliths can also be found in the Pasemah Highlands of South Sumatra, the Kerinci Valley from the middle part of the island, in the beautiful Minang highlands, and even on the offshore island of Nias. The Toba Batak megaliths and tombs in Tomok compare favorably with the best megalithic art from the island. They are one of the best historical offerings from North Sumatra, and should be seen by any culturally focused traveller who is visiting the Lake Toba area.

The Astonishing Village of Hilisamaetano

During the 1990s, the remote island of Nias became well-known on the surfing circuit. It also started attracting backpackers who were interested in its extraordinary hilltop villages, with their remarkable collections of traditional houses and megaliths. Its isolation meant that mass tourism remained a long way off, but Nias drew a steady trickle of curious travellers. Further development of tourist infrastructure and services seemed inevitable.

These hopes were dashed by the earthquake of March 28, 2005, which killed at least 915 people and devastated the island’s towns and villages. For the next decade, the most common foreigners on Nias were neither surfers nor backpackers but relief agency workers trying to rebuild the shattered island. During this time, numerous bridges had to be rebuilt and travel around Nias became painstaking. Few travellers were willing to brave the difficult conditions on the island. The reports we heard of misfortune and hardship were enough to keep us away. However, in early 2019, we finally made it to Nias to see its remaining villages. Over the next few months I intend to post multiple posts on Niassan villages, starting with the often-overlooked village of Hilisamaetano.

Traditional houses with laundry on the roofs

The ‘showcase’ village of South Nias seems to be Bawomataluo, which will be featured in a later post. However, if you’ve gone all the way to Nias, you might as well see more than one village. While Bawomataluo is deservedly the most famous, preserving the best range of ancient houses and megaliths, Hilisamaetano is also no slouch. With more than 100 traditional houses surviving, as well as numerous other antiquities, it repays leisurely exploration. It is also very much a living village; its cobblestone main street is thronged with people doing laundry, drying rice, chatting with friends, chewing betel and flying kites. If you want to see a workaday village with a rich architectural legacy, you won’t do better than Hilisamaetano.

Stone megaliths can still be on the main square

For the historically minded tourist, the village offers some vestiges of its megalithic past. There are stone slabs, tables and carvings outside many of the houses, some of the modern reproductions and others antiquities in various states of repair. The village also has the obligatory jumping stone (batu lompat), which young men were once expected to leap in displays of acrobatic prowess. The best of its stone antiquities is probably a ceremonial staircase at the far end of the village. It also includes a small canon as part of the display. While earthquake damage is plainly evident on the staircase, it still retains a hint of its former glory.

The ornamental staircase with a small cannon and stone adornments

Nearby is a modern version of a chief’s house (omo hada) with a narrow, soaring roof. The original was completely destroyed, probably either in an earthquake or a fire. In fact, there are only five remaining examples of omo hada on the entire island. As a general rule, these chiefly houses were not rebuilt after they were destroyed. As far as I know, this modern reproduction is a one-off in Nias.

The chief’s house in Hilisamaetano, South Nias- a modern reproduction

Candi Kembar Batu: The Temple of the Chinese War Gong

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There are seven main temple complexes at Candi Muara Jambi that are still in reasonable repair; one of these is Candi Kembar Batu (literally “The Twin Rocks/Stones temple”). Overall, it is not a particularly impressive ruin, which is probably why it is much less photographed and written about than the two ‘star’ candis here: Candi Tinggi and Candi Gumpung. In articles or blog posts about Candi Muara Jambi, it is usually passed over or discussed perfunctorily; even the most detailed posts rarely do more than give its measurements and then move on to the next temple. But there are really precious few ancient candi (Hindu/Budhdist temples) left in Sumatra, so each one offers valuable clues as to the past. It is worth raking over this temple for as much information as we can get about it.

Like the other major remains at Candi Muara Jambi, this one is surrounded…

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The Komering River: A Highway of Sriwijaya

It wasn’t until the 1990s that it was decisively proved that Palembang was the site of the capital of Sriwijaya, the legendary kingdom which had appeared in the historical records at the end of the 7th century. If the capital of the kingdom remained in obscurity until comparatively recently, than the potential upstream sites of this kingdom are virtually unknown. Their names are barely mentioned outside the occasional field report from Indonesian archaeologists- most of these stored in archives somewhere, still unpublished years after they were written.

Yet a few sites associated with ancient Sriwijaya have been identified and they may appeal to intrepid pioneers or adventurers. One of these is the site of Candi Nikan (Nikan Temple), which is, until now, the most promising site on the Komering River, a tributary of the Musi. This unexcavated temple site can be found 150 kilometres upriver from Palembang at the confluence of the Komering with the small Sungai Nikan. Like many old communities in South Sumatra, the village of Nikan consists of beautiful timber traditional houses set high up on stilts. These traditional houses would make it worth a quick look in its own right.

However, the main importance of Nikan for historians is the fact that one of the houses is built right on top of an archaeological mound, which is thought to contain the ruins of an ancient candi (temple). Some bricks have been uncovered here with carved decorations that are consistent with the structure’s identification as a temple. Further evidence of a religious use for the site is a weighty lotus-stand (padsamana) which was found in the village and which is now stored in a kramat (shrine) in a wooden shed overlooking the mouth of the Sungai Nikan. Ceramic finds from the village indicate that the area was importing trade porcelain during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This suggests that Nikan may once have been an inland entrepot in the Sriwijaya kingdom, at least during its final phase. However, more recent evidence suggests that the Komering was tied into trade networks much earlier than that.

A traditional house along the Komering River

In 2014 sand miners on the Komering River discovered a twenty-five kilogram hoard of Sung Dynasty coins while dredging the river for sand. Soon thereafter they discovered a kind of ceremonial dagger known as a keris. These coins were thought to date back to the 10th century, a few hundred years before the Candi Nikan site was occupied. Having a square-shaped hole in the centre and bearing Chinese characters on them, these copper coins numbered in the thousands. Were these a sign that Chinese traders had been active on the Sungai Komering towards the end of the tenth century? The archaeological team from Palembang does not consider it likely. They suggested that the Chinese did not venture any further than Palembang. However, lacking a local currency, Sumatran traders used Chinese coins while buying jungle products along the banks of the Komering River. It is thought the local area produced resins, rattan and herbal medicines which made their way downriver to the Sriwijayan capital. This hoard is yet more evidence that the Komering River was part of the Sriwijayan mandala.

Ko-Ying: The Kingdom of the Tidal Swamps

According to the Chinese records, the oldest kingdom in Eastern Sumatra was not the now-famous Sriwijaya, which rose to power on the Musi River in the seventh century. It had some predecessors in the region which dated back the early centuries of the first millennium. Bearing names such as Kantoli, Poli, Holotan and Ko-ying, these early polities were long known to the world only by the scant Chinese sources. They were protohistoric, mercantile states whose relative prominence was due to their commercial relationships with Indian, Funanese and Chinese traders. They provided Indonesian commodities such as gold, areca nuts and sandalwood in exchange for porcelain, glass beads and semiprecious stones.

The most powerful of these kingdoms is thought to have been Ko-ying, whose heyday may have been between the second and sixth centuries. It was long thought to be in Eastern Sumatra, probably near Jambi or Palembang, but the famous historian Wolters had also argued it might have been in the Taruma River basin in West Java, an area which had produced Vishnuite temples by the middle of the first millennium. However, archaeological research from Sumatra over the pat quarter century suggests that it was probably located on the eastern seaboard of Sumatra after all, downstream from the current location of the city of Palembang. The most important area archaeologically has proven to be along the banks of the Air Sugihan, a short river with many tributaries which flows into the Bangka Strait. Here amidst the tidal swampland and brackish water, the remnants of various habitation sites, perhaps even the ‘capital’ of Ko-ying, have been discovered.

The area was first resettled by trans-migrants in the 1980s and canals were drug at this time, which has dramatically changed the flow of water in the area. However, the former water courses can still be discerned based on vegetation patterns, and it appears that the people of Ko-ying were once settled in up to forty settlement sites along the banks of the former rivers. The main remains of these settlements are traces of wooden posts on which wooden houses would once have been perched about the tidal water; these are mostly posts cut from nibung wood. There are also some posts from selumar putih as well as gelam wood. These are all species of trees which grow well in peatlands or coastal marshlands, indicating that the environment two thousand years ago was similar in many ways to that we find today. Even today in the Musi River basin, you will find many post-houses made of the same type of wood. This kind of wood endures well in the brackish conditions, enabling people to build communities in an area which is regularly inundated by salt water.

In addition to these ancient houses, there have been many chance finds of pottery, beads, intaglios, gold items and metal items, many of them attesting to connections with international sea commerce. For example, some of the intaglios (a kind of carved semi-precious stone) feature images of a hamsa (goose) or a cakra (a Buddhist wheel), images which are associated with the Buddhist and Vishunite religions. Many of these intaglios are made from carnelian, an orange-colored stone which was a trade item in ancient South-East Asia. Furthermore, many of the gold items are similar in their direction to those found at Oc-Eo, which was a major early trade entrepot in South-East Asia. It is believed that the inhabitants of Ko-ying were accomplished seafarers who probably travelled to Oc-Eo (in Southern Vietnam), exchanging Sumatran commodities for luxuries such as carnelian intaglios and gold items. Parts of ancient seagoing vessels have also been uncovered in the area. It is thought that sewn-plank cargo boats up to fifty metres long were being built in Indonesia as far back as the early centuries as the first millennium AD.

The posts of a former house in an excavation pit.

While we cannot know for sure whether the settlement at Air Sugihan was a major settelment of Ko-ying, let alone whether it is was the ‘capital’, it was clearly a mercantile-based settlement with trade links with the Mekong River Delta and beyond. These discoveries prove that important polities existed in southern Sumatra that predated the historic kingdom of Sriwijaya, which is what the Chinese sources suggested all along. This ‘polity’ was already exposed to foreign religious ideas, as shown by the presence of Buddhist and Hindu religious symbols, proving that parts of Indonesia’s exposure to Hindu-Buddhist iconography and ideas began long before they were formally adopted as the state religion of Sriwijaya. Air Sugihan may have been the unlikely site of one of Sumatra’s first outward-looking trading communities.

The Vernacular Buildings of Muara Jambi

Muara Jambi is the largest archaeological site in Sumatra and Indonesia’s best surviving example of ancient temple complex outside Java. However, we know this city mostly from its religious monuments, in particular its eight extant temple compounds, all of which are spread out along the river flats at the edge of the Batang Hari. It is well-established that this site was the ceremonial centre of Malayu,  a polity which at times enjoyed independence from the Palembang-based Sriwijaya kingdom but which at other times fell under the suzerainty of Sriwijaya. The surviving temples are thought to date from the between the ninth and twelfth centuries, which was the city’s heyday as an international trading centre. What is much less clear is whether Muara Jambi was merely a religious centre or also the site of a large urban settlement.

On the Sumatran lowlands, people still tend to build houses from perishable materials, so none of the residential buildings of this ancient site have survived until the present day. Therefore, it has remained a matter of conjecture whether Muara Jambi’s ruins were the ceremonial core of a larger urban area. Furthermore, presuming Muara Jambi was a city, it had long remained a mystery what its residential buildings might have looked like. However, during Indonesian excavations at the city during the 1970s and 1980s, nine inscribed bricks were located which depicted architecturally accurate building designs for various forms of vernacular architecture. These offer unique insights into the ancient residential dwellings of the Muara Jambi elite.

There are a number of different designs sketched on the bricks, which can be presumed to be the likenesses of real buildings. This conclusion is supported by the fact that they resemble known architectural types from the island of Sumatra. It is also supported by the fact they their weight-bearing beams are marked with double lines. These inscriptions are no mere doodles; they were made by someone with a working knowledge of the construction principles of wooden buildings. Once we have accepted this much, we can readily see the importance of these bricks: they are the only surviving visual representations of one of one of the most important ancient cities in Indonesia. What then do they tell us about Muara Jambi in its prime?

A sketch which resembles a Minangkabau house

The sketches depict a variety of buildings. While the multi-levelled houses resemble types familiar from the vernacular architecture of modern Jambi, some of other designs come from further afield. There is an elaborate house with a horned roof, with immediately brings to mind the houses of the Minang highlands. Intriguingly, the Minang Highlands are the source of the Batang Hari river which runs by the site; yet they are located some eight hundred kilometres upriver. There is also one house with a steeply sloping pyramid-shaped roof. This structure resembles the rumah limas houses which can still be found along the banks of the Musi River in Palembang. Another design has architectural features which are known from Aceh. Based on these resemblances, it has been suggested that Muara Jambi was a multi-ethnic trading port with a broad network of commercial links.

This is an interesting conclusion, and it is one that is supported by the finds of Chinese and Thai porcelain at the site, but what has not always been emphasized is that the houses types all have a Sumatran origin. Perhaps Muara Jambi’s resident population was more a melting pot of ancient Sumatran ethnic groups than a truly international metropole. We can assume that Acehnese, Minang, Sriwijayan and Malayu traders once lived alongside one another here, all profiting from the rich trade in ancient Sumatra’s jungle products.In this sense, perhaps it really was a precursor of the multi-ethnic cities of modern Indonesia.

Candi Gumpung and Candi Tinggi

Muara Jambi was ‘discovered’ by an English captain called S.C.Crooke in the 1820s and partially excavated by the Dutch in the 1930s. Yet in 2003, it looked as if it was hacked out of the jungle the week before. The great majority of the site has still yet to be cleared and there are said to be numerous unexcavated mounds scattered through the vegetation along the edge of the Batang Hari River. By one report the total site covered twelve square kilometres and contains seventy-two temples and archaeological mounds. By most measurements, this makes it the most extensive archaeological site in the country and one of the largest in the whole of South-East Asia. However, for the casual visitor the main sights are concentrated in the immediate vicinity of the caretaker’s cottage and a visit to Muara Jambi need not prove a time-consuming affair. We set off at once for the first temple compound, Candi Gumpung, keeping an eye out for snakes!

For us, the most impressive temple at the site was the first one we visited: Candi Gumpung (Gumpung Temple). Like most of the main sanctuaries at Muara Jambi, it was enclosed by a brick perimeter wall; with a breadth and width of about 150 metres, this wall enclosed a large compound, which was covered at the time of our visit by grass lawns. The temple itself, like almost all the remains at Muara Jambi, was built from red bricks. Roughly square in shape, it measured approximately 18 metres along each side and rose to a height of about three metres. Apart from the bright red colour of the brickwork, the temple was rather plain, giving it a markedly different appearance from the ornately worked appearance of most ancient Javanese temples. This may have been a function of the available building materials. Unlike the temple-builders of Central Java, who had large quantities of volcanic rock at their disposal, there are no volcanoes in the swampy Sumatran lowlands. Therefore, the temple-builders at Muara Jambi had been forced to build their temples from bricks, which accounted for their divergent appearances. It had also meant that the Muara Jambi temples were constructed on a much more modest scale.

Small brick stupas at Candi Muara Jambi

Nonetheless, some attempt had been made to distinguish the eastern wall of the temple. On that side was a gateway which penetrated into the interior of the temple; this had been the only way in to inner sanctum, where a holy image had almost certainly been enshrined. On either side of this entrance were two vertical bands of bricks, which had been fashioned to resemble columns. Apart from these false columns, there was a shallow staircase which jutted out from the body of the temple. Sitting on the foot of these steps is the only piece of statuary remaining at the temple- the head of a makhara, a kind of sea-demon. Though in terms of decorative detail, it couldn’t compare to even the most minor of Javanese temples, this was the most photogenic façade at Muara Jambi.

That left the question of whether it was a Hindu or Buddhist temple- a question which we promptly answered. Evidently, Candi Gumpung was a Buddhist temple, a fact which we deduced from the numerous, small, brick stupas that were lined up beneath a nearby tree. Furthermore, we soon read that archaeologists had found Buddhist mantras inscribed on artefacts found within the temple. The Buddhist identity of the temple was further reinforced by the fact that it was here that archaeologists had discovered a beautiful statue of Prajaparamita, the Buddhist goddess of knowledge. We read that this statue was still housed on site at a small museum and immediately started to look forward to seeing it. The suggested dates for the temples of Muara Jambi vary widely between sources, but it was thought that it had been first built during the ninth century and then renovated or restored during the eleventh or twelfth centuries. These were dates that we were to ponder at much length later. But first we kept moving, not wanting to keep the taxi driver waiting all day.

Located in front of Candi Gumpung was a large, man-made pool. According to our booklet, the pool measured one hundred by one hundred and twenty metres and was usually at a depth of two to three metres. We rapidly concluded that the rulers of Muara Jambi had had a large supply of human labour at their disposal; digging such a pool would have required quite an army of workers. We also recalled the association of pools with royal dynasties throughout Southeast-Asia; at Angkor in Cambodia there are a number of massive reservoirs. We had also seen a huge, man-made reservoir at Trowulan in East Java, which was the site of the capital of the great Majapahit Empire. The name of this pool was Kolam Telagorajo, which means the King’s Pond in Melayu, a title which reinforced the royal connections of the pond.

From we there proceeded to the other largely intact temple at the site: Candi Tinggi (the tall temple). With a height of seven metres, it may be the tallest structure at the site, but in another sense the name seems a misnomer; Candi Tinggi is in fact much wider than it is tall. Like many other Hindu-Buddhist monuments in Indonesia, this temple made use of terraces, which would have provided a platform for important religious ceremonies. It is the main terrace of the temple which explains its considerable width, and it is also these projections to the sides which give it a cruciform shape. Its tallest point is in the middle. Here you find a narrow, walled space, which would presumably have enshrined some sacred image. Similarly to Candi Gumpung, it was approached by a long staircase which jutted far out to the front of the temple. There was little decoration to speak of, but the brickwork itself was beautiful, having a kind of striped look.

By the time we had reached Candi Tinggi we had become a tourist attraction in our right. Two village youths had come across to see the foreigners. They followed us about, answering the odd question, and strumming a chord or two on the acoustic guitar they had brought along. They wore the flip-flops, tight jeans and brightly coloured T-shirts that are the unofficial uniform for young men in Indonesia. We made several attempts to talk to them, but they answered the questions as briefly as possible and then sank bank into silence, interspersed with the odd burst of sound from the guitar. This was not due to any lack of friendliness of their part. Indeed, they had approached us and followed us around the site, signaling just the opposite. It is just that the ‘art of conversation’ as we understand it seems to have no place in the culture of ordinary Indonesians. What they really seemed to want to do was watch us.

Candi Tinggi is one of the main shrines at the site

Their eyes took in our appearance, our clothes and followed every movement we made. We were the subject of occasional whispered comments between them, but for the most part they didn’t talk to each other either. They had no commentary to add about the temples, but they knew which paths to follow to the lesser ruins. They pointed out the way and watched us as we wandered about the remains, a cheerful enough presence for all their silence and staring. The next ruin they directed us to was Candi Kembar Batu, a ruin which was only mentioned in passing in both the guidebooks we were carrying. Nor was there any information about it in any of the essays I had read. But thankfully, once we had made the 250 metre walk across from Candi Tinggi, there was a signboard which gave some basic information.

Candi Astano: The Temple of the Kings of Malayu

One of the lesser discussed and photographed temples at Candi Muara Jambi is definitely Candi Astano. This temple is set about a kilometre and a half away from the main temples at the site, which is one reason why not every visitor bothers making the walk over there. The other reason is that its appeal is not as obvious as some of the other ruins. The architecture is not as impressive as Candi Gumpung and Candi Tinggi. Nor has the site yielded the sorts of interesting archaeological finds that we associate with some of the other lesser temples; there is nothing here that compares with the dwarapala of Candi Gedong I, for instance, or the war-gong of Candi Kembar Batu. Yet the temple had an interesting function that is hinted at its name, which makes it worth visiting for those wanting to get as full a sense of the site as possible. The leisurely twenty minute walk over to the site is also quite pleasant, with lush shade trees on either side of the trail.

These modest ruins have royal associations

Like all the other temple complexes at the site, Candi Astano was surrounded by a brick perimeter wall which delineated the sacred space. As elsewhere too, the walls form an approximate square- this one measuring 48 x 52 metres. Pleasingly, the red hue of the bricks contrasted strongly with the surrounding green foliage of the jungle, making it appear more vivid, as if the brickwork were aglow. Apart from the reddish walls, the second surprise was that the area within the fence was noticeably higher than that outside. To be exact, the inner space is about 1.7 metres higher than the surrounding area, which would have had an obvious symbolic meaning to the ancients. The temple, representing the religious world, existed on a higher plane to the temporal world outside. If, as is widely thought, the temple enjoyed royal patronage, this greater height would have also reinforced the superior position of the royals within the social hierarchy.

The main temple within was basically a large brick rectangle, measuring approximately 8 x 20 metres, with a square extension on one side and a second, much smaller, terrace on top of the main body of the temple. Yet the majority of the temple came to only chest high to us, making it seem on a rather human scale. As with many other temples at Candi Astano, it can be presumed that only the brick base of the temple remains and there was once some sort of superstructure of timber and thatch. (These organic materials would have been plentiful in ancient Sumatra, and timber remained the preferred building material throughout much of the island until well into the twentieth-century) . In losing its timber and thatch roof, the temple clearly become a diminished thing. With the former grandeur of the building largely lost , the most interesting thing about Candi Astano was its function.

The word in modern Indonesian for palace is istana, but in Sumatran dialects words ending in an -a are often changed to an -o. Therefore, tua meaning ‘old’ becomes tuo and apa meaning ‘what’ becomes apo. Furthermore, in the Minangkabau Highlands, the word for palace is still istano, which is very close to astano. Therefore, it is assumed that the name of this temple means Palace Temple and that it was reserved for use by the Malayu royal family. In a video made by the Jambi Department of Culture, they suggested that the flat terrace of Candi Astano was used, in particular, for funerary ceremonies for royalty. That suggestion makes a lot of sense, as the large flat surface would have been able to accommodate many monks, priests and court functionaries for the elaborate court rituals. The final rites of many of the Malayu kings may once have been performed here, atop the little-visited temple of Candi Astano.

The Dwarapala of Muara Jambi

During 2002 on an archaeological dig at Candi Gedong I, a temple at Muara Jambi, the researchers uncovered a complete and undamaged 1.5 metre sandstone statue. Not used to finding large artefacts intact, the archaeologists were greatly surprised and excited by their discovery. Because of the location of the statue (near the entrance door to the temple), it was immediately presumed that they had found a dwarapala (a door guardian in Hindu-Buddhist mythology). The function of the statue would have been to prevent evil spirits from entering the sacred space of Candi Gedong I.

Standing with his legs in a unusual, buckled position, the dwarapala holds a small shield in his right hand and a cudgel in his left hand. The broken cudgel is perhaps the only feature of the statue which is seriously damaged. While it is customary for dwarapalas to have a rather fierce countenance, this once has a pleasant, smiling expression. The difference with the better-known Javanese dwarapalas doesn’t end there either. This specimen doesn’t have the protruding fangs which are such a feature of his Javanese cousins. Nor does he have the bulging eyes, which served to make the faces of your typical dwarapala all that more gruesome. Finally, while the dwarapalas from East Java are guaranteed to have skulls for ear-rings, this example has a blossom for an ear-ring. Overall, the monstrous elements of this figure have been played down, giving the statue a more kindly and welcoming aspect.

The friendly face of the Muara Jambi dwarapala

In fact, the statue is so different from all other dwarapalas that it remains a bit of a mystery. Some commentators have noted that it bears some resemblance to figures from megalithic cultures elsewhere in Southern Sumatra, such as the Pasemah Plateau and Lampung. Perhaps this statue bears some trace of the megalithic cultures which inhabited the hinterland of the Malayu kingdom. Others have noted that the way the cloth exposes the back and thighs of the statue is similar to clothing worn by the worker and slave class. This is interesting enough in itself, but it leaves us with the question of why this statue alone would have used a slave as a model for a temple guardian. The discovery of this unusual statue has raised some interesting possibilities and prompted some spirited conjecture, but for the time being it remains something of an enigma.