2 - Mapping the Mandala: Buddhist Bronzes from the 'Mountain of the Gods' (Surocolo Village, Central Java, Indonesia)

Around the tenth century, artisans in central Java, Indonesia, fashioned in bronze several groups of Buddhist deities that together formed mandalas, maps of the cosmic universe. Unparalleled elsewhere in the Buddhist world, these three-dimensional bronze mandalas are a unique product of Java. The sculptures are tiny in stature—most standing a mere ten centimeters high—yet they are richly detailed with jewelry, patterned textiles, ritual objects, musical instruments, and slender, dynamic bodies that are consistent with the finest of central Javanese art. Although their style and manufacturing techniques are undeniably Javanese, the systems of knowledge the deities embody are described in Sanskrit texts that circulated widely within the highly connected maritime networks of esoteric Buddhist practitioners.

This paper focuses on seventeen esoteric Buddhist goddesses that originally comprised a portion of a mandala, which were accidentally unearthed in 1976 when a farmer was digging in his field in the village of Surocolo (Javanese: ‘mountain of the gods’). Situating these little-studied sculptures within the history of three-dimensional mandalas in Java (e.g. the Nganjuk and Kunti bronzes), we address their possible ritual usages around their time of production, as well as their later histories and reasons for burial. We demonstrate how such mandalas constitute material evidence for the circulation of religious systems—and their transformations—throughout the Indian Ocean world.

 


Co-Author 1
Mathilde Mechling, École Pratique des Hautes Études, PSL University

Co-Author 2
Emma N. Stein, Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art