n of the ashes of Buddha.

[Illustration: BAS RELIEF--BARA BUDUR.]

[Illustration: BAS RELIEF--BARA BUDUR.]

It is difficult to describe it briefly, but the following extract from
Miss Scidmore's book seems to us to convey the best idea of the
structure in general terms:--

"The temple stands on a broad platform, and rises first in five
square terraces, inclosing galleries or processional paths
between their walls, which are covered on each side with
bas-relief sculptures. If placed in single line, these
bas-reliefs would extend for three miles. The terrace walls hold
four hundred and thirty-six niches or alcove chapels, where
life-size Buddhas sit serene upon lotus cushions. Staircases
ascend in straight lines from each of the four sides, passing
under stepped or pointed arches, the keystones of which are
elaborately carved masks, and rows of sockets in the jambs show
where wood or metal doors once swung. Above the square terraces
are three circular terraces, where seventy-two latticed dagabas
(reliquaries in the shape of the calyx or bud of the lotus)
inclose each a seated image, seventy-two more Buddhas sitting in
those inner, upper circles, of Nirvana, facing a great dagaba,
or final cupola, the exact function or purpose of which as key
to the whole structure is still the puzzle of archaeologists.
This final shrine is fifty feet in diameter, and either covered
a relic of Buddha, or a central well where the ashes of priests
and princes were deposited, or is a form surviving from the
tree-temples of the earliest primitive East when nature-worship
prevailed. The English engineers made an opening in the solid
exterior, and found an unfinished statue of Buddha on a platform
over a deep well-hole."

[Illustration]

We read this description among others before we visited the Boro Budur,
and must confess that from none of them did we get a correct idea of
what we were to see. It must be seen to be realised. Not even
photographs give a true conception of the ornate character of the
decorative stonework--the hard but freely-worked lava stone having lent
itself easily to the chisel. Like Cologne or Milan Cathedrals, it must
be examined minutely to grasp the elaborateness of the sculptured work,
but, unlike either of these, it does not produce an immediate impression
of grandeur and religious elevation. It is unlike any of th