The Shivagrha inscription: the Shiva temple of Prambanan is consecrated
An inscription of 856, issued by order of Dyah Lokapala after Rakai Pikatan had given up the throne of Mataram, describes the completion of a great temple compound of Shiva, the Shivagrha (‘House of Shiva’), and the consecration of the god’s image on 12 November 856. Historians identify the compound with Prambanan, the largest Hindu temple of ancient Java, which rose close to the Buddhist temples of Sewu and Kalasan built under the Shailendras.
- Date
- 12 November 856exact dateDate in the Julian calendar
- Place
- Prambanan (Loro Jonggrang)today: Prambanan, on the border of the Special Region of Yogyakarta and Central Java, Indonesia · Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Participants
- Mataram kingdom, Rakai Pikatan
- Threads
- Southeast Asia and Oceania (1st–10th c.)
- Also known as
- Prambanan; Loro Jonggrang; Rara Jonggrang; Shivagrha; Siwagrha; Candi Prambanan; Dyah Lokapala; Rakai Kayuwangi; Прамбанан; Лоро Джонггранг; Шиваграха
The inscription, now in the National Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta, was translated by J. G. de Casparis; its first stanzas are illegible. It tells of a young Shaivite king whose queen was of another faith, mentions in a damaged passage stones heaped up by the hundreds as a refuge and the word bālaputra, and relates that King Jatiningrat abdicated in favour of Dyah Lokapala. It then describes a sanctuary of Shiva with its own wall, gateways and rows of small shrines, completed by hundreds of builders; the image of the god was inaugurated on a Thursday in the bright half of the month Margashirsha of Shaka 778 — 12 November 856. After this the course of a river was changed to run along the temple grounds, and rice fields were granted to the temple; the river is identified with the Opak, which now flows past the western side of the Prambanan compound.
De Casparis identified Jatiningrat with Rakai Pikatan and the rival with the Shailendra Balaputra, who would then have withdrawn to Sumatra; the queen is usually identified with the Buddhist princess Pramodawardhani. Some later historians think the rival was rather the Javanese lord Rakai Walaing pu Kumbhayoni. The name Pikatan, painted in red on the Shiva temple, supports the view that Pikatan began the building, which later kings of Mataram enlarged. The central temple of Shiva, flanked by those of Brahma and Vishnu, rises 47 metres and is decorated with reliefs of the Ramayana; around it stood 224 small shrines. Not every account accepts the early date: George Coedès still ascribed the Prambanan group to the early 10th century, and UNESCO, which inscribed the temples on the World Heritage List in 1991, also dates them to the 10th century in its short description. The temple marked the turn of the Mataram court’s patronage from Mahayana Buddhism to Shaivism.
Connections
Related events
- The Canggal inscription: Sanjaya and the rise of Mataram6 October 732 · Southeast Asia and Oceaniathe Shaiva tradition of the kings of Mataram goes back to Sanjaya’s Canggal inscription of 732
- The Kalasan inscription: a temple of Tara under the Shailendras778 · Southeast Asia and Oceaniathe Buddhist temple of Kalasan stands a few kilometres away in the same Prambanan plain
- Dharmapala founds the monasteries of Somapura and Vikramashilabetween 770 and 821 · South Asiascholars compare the cruciform shrine of Paharpur with the temples of the Prambanan plain in Java
- Building of Borobudurc. 780 – c. 833 · Southeast Asia and Oceaniaafter the great Buddhist monuments of the Shailendras, the Mataram court turned to the cult of Shiva
- Devapala’s Nalanda charter for the monastery of Balaputrabetween 844 and 860 · South AsiaJ. G. de Casparis linked Balaputra’s departure for Sumatra with the war mentioned in the Shivagrha inscription
Adjacent events in the thread
- Nanzhao plunders the Pyu kingdom832 · Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Nanzhao takes Songping and holds Annam863–866 · Southeast Asia and Oceania
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Aghlabid conquest of SicilyJune 827 – 1 August 902
Eastern Europe
- Saltovo-Mayaki culturec. 750 – between 900 and 950
- The Khazar rulers adopt Judaismbetween 740 and 861
Balkans and Anatolia
- Leo the Mathematician heads the school of the Magnaurabetween 843 and 866
Middle East and Egypt
- The House of Wisdom and the translation movement in Baghdadc. 800 – c. 900
Africa
- Ifriqiya under the Aghlabids800 – March 909
- Founding of the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fezbetween 857 and 877
- Igbo-Ukwu: bronze casting in the West African forest800–899 – 1100–1199
Central and Northern Asia
South Asia
- Mihira Bhoja and the Pratihara empire of Kannaujc. 836 – c. 885
- Devapala’s Nalanda charter for the monastery of Balaputrabetween 844 and 860
- The tripartite struggle for Kannaujbetween 783 and 790 – between 915 and 918
North America
- Plum Bayou Mounds: a planned ceremonial centre in the Arkansas valleyc. 650 – c. 1050
- Pueblo I: villages of surface rooms on the Colorado Plateauc. 750 – c. 900
- The Late Woodland period in eastern North Americac. 500 – c. 1000
Latin America
- Classic Maya collapse in the southern lowlandsc. 800 – c. 950
- Rise of Chichén Itzá in northern Yucatánc. 800 – between 900 and 1000
- Wari culture and the Middle Horizon state in the Central Andesc. 600 – c. 1000
- Tiwanaku culture at its height by Lake Titicacac. 600 – c. 1000
- Cacaxtla and Xochicalco: the Epiclassic cities of central Mexicoc. 650 – c. 900
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Prambanan
- Wikipedia (English): Shivagrha inscription
- Wikipedia (English): Rakai Pikatan
- Wikipedia (Russian): Прамбанан
- Casparis J. G. de. Prasasti Indonesia II: Selected Inscriptions from the 7th to the 9th Century A.D. — 1956.
- Coedès G. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia / Ed. W. F. Vella; transl. S. B. Cowing. — Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1968. — P. 108, 125–126.
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Prambanan Temple Compounds