Prambanan Temple

Interesting facts

• An inscription dated 856 records that the builders diverted a river, now the Opak, away from the main shrine and levelled its old bed to make room for more temples.
• The compound originally held 240 temples, including 224 identical small shrines laid out in four concentric square rows of 44, 52, 60 and 68.
• Only six of the 224 small shrines have been rebuilt, and since each takes eight to twelve months, finishing them all would take at least two centuries.
• Restorers rebuild a shrine only if at least three-quarters of its original stones can be found, because villagers and colonial collectors carried much of the masonry away.
• A short red-painted inscription reading 'pikatan' on a finial of the Shiva temple helped confirm King Rakai Pikatan as the founder of the complex.
• A 5.75-metre shaft beneath the Shiva temple held a stone casket with coins, jewels and gold leaves cut into the shapes of a turtle, a serpent and a lotus.
• The Ramayana is carved in relief around the Shiva temple galleries and continues on the Brahma temple, read by walking clockwise from the east entrance.
• The 47-metre Shiva temple houses a three-metre statue of Shiva, which some archaeologists believe portrays the deified King Balitung.
• After 1755 the ruins and the Opak River were used to divide the sultanates of Yogyakarta and Surakarta, a line that still forms a provincial boundary.
• In 2019 Hindus held the great Abhiṣeka purification rite here for the first time in 1,163 years, reclaiming the temple as a living place of worship.