Indonesia VII: Expedition 2011 - Visit Prambanan Temple, Hinduism And Its Philosophy

In the morning Wudy got us we into the van and we went on a tour of Prambanan - the biggest, for change a Hindu temple on the island. After the journey at first we stopped at a bird market. According to the range and amount of various offered birds and cages, the breeding of birds in homes for the local inhabitants apparently of great importance. Besides these, she put on the market seen at least four meter snake, rabbits and chickens colourfully painted. Next stop was the workshop for the production of silver objects. They made them from thin silver wire. What it could create was really surprising - from copies Borobudur to small earrings. I work there but did not. And even if I wanted to, I could not. Such pedantry and concentration would not be able to. We bought some little things there, and we got a "huge discounts". Long waved us when leaving.

                                               

The Temple and its gods

After visiting the market and the workshop we got to the main point of today's program - to visit Prambanan. At the time of its establish had much more temples then today, but the territory in which it stands, a large earthquake hit, and so were many temples destroyed. UNESCO, which has funded the restoration in the last century, let fix only the main temples and several secondary, because the other had not kept a sufficient number of parts. Prambanan is a Hindu temple, about as old as Borobudur. At the same time, thus grew up not far from each other massive Buddhist Borobudur and Prambanan Hindu as big. Hinduism was called by Muslims, who thus described the unbelievers those who lived beyond the River Indus. It is an ancient religion, worshiped by millions of people long before Christianity or Islam. Unlike of Buddhism, has the gods. It has a huge number, each family has its own, as well as a settlement. The main gods are three - Brahma - the creator, Vishnu - the sustainer and Shiva - the destroyer. To this trio of the gods is dedicated Prambanan. Brahma is depicted with a head with four faces, each facing a different direction. It is logical, the creation of the world was endless work, had to oversee everything, so when you do not ever look back, got better four faces looking in all directions. It really created a lot, so Shiva the destroyer appears often with four hands. Probably to prosecute destroy what Brahma created. In general, the Brahma temple at least, his work is over, you need to be on good terms with the maintainer of Vishnu and destroyer of Sivas. In Prambanan is the largest temple in the middle of Brahma.

Hinduism and its philosophy

Hinduism is known for his system of castes. In terms of stability of society it is make up almost perfectly, even if it goes bad. Whether a person is born in a privileged or low caste is the result of his previous life, his karma in life achieved. Because death is just a comma in a long sentence, his life is just a continuation of a previous life in another form. If behaved extremely badly, it can reincarnate as a dog. And this fate must endure a lifetime. There is no escape from it. Only in the next life can change for the better, really, if it is well behaved in the present life. And that was immediately clear who from which caste comes, the name is made from the first word of its name. The second name is given by the order in which they are born who, for example, the first son is always Vajan. Well, and in third place is family name finally. If I had this system put forth recently past period of socialism, I named Prac. int. Vajan Lupták, the eldest son of a working intelligence Luptak. And so the show is no longer clear who they belong. Another important element of religion is a principle of predestination. Everything's written somewhere and let a man does what he does, even so, you get what you want to happen. It is not too independent on him. All life is suffering interrupted by death, followed by rebirth. Come out of the cycle can only members of the highest caste of achieving moksha. Buddha caste system and rejected predestination and promised nirvana everyone who deserves it. It was one of the reasons the great success of his studies.

Farewell and departure in Bali

After visiting the temple we went there for dinner. We said Wudy that we will prefer their normal restaurant, no hype for tourists. A Wudy did not disappoint us. He took us to a nearby restaurant on the banks of the river, lost in the woods away from the main roads. As always, nice service and probably the best fish I've eaten during the holiday - for the surprisingly low price.

And then we just went to the hotel for things parted with Wudy, Yogyakarta and ,in my opinion, with the most beautiful of all our inhabitants of the residence and sat on the plane, we landed in Bali, in a new time zone and a new religion. Moderate Islam we exchanged for even friendlier Hinduism - friendlier, more colourful and different. Our watches we set for 1 hr forwared, the difference between Slovakia and Bali was already six hours.

Text/photo: Stanislav Lupták