Story of Bali, Indonesia

Also in the court circles of the kraton ancestor worship was important stimulus to the erection of tjandis. This is demonstrated by the changes made in the course of centuries in the form of the images and decorations. Borobudur, incidentally, should not be regarded as tjandi-, it symbolizes rather the totality of Like Cosmos according to the doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism.

Several important differences apart, tile tjandis oft lie central Javanese period more or less constitute a group, at least when they are compared with monuments of the cast Javanese period. There are both Buddhist and Shivaist monuments; the Shivaist tjandis in particular were apparently connected with the ancestor cult from their very origin, for the ashes of a deceased prince were interred in these monuments, generally in the shaft of a well in the centre of the base.

This determines the essential 'motivation' of the monument. The ashes of a deceased ancestor must have been regarded as a 'magic centre of power'; it is here that the authority of the living prince continued to be exerted. "Like the skulls venerated in earlier days, the ancestor was considered as providing tile essence of princely power; the mausoleum in which ancestors were buried became a place radiating power, now guarded and cherished in a new way by the priests. Thus a tjandi becomes, the outward symbol of the relationship deemed to exist between the, living and the dead.

In eastern Java, too, the external form of the tjandis was continually modified, and characteristic Javanese conceptions concerning the form and hierarchical arrangement of the individual parts came to the fore.

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