mental erection shows the
mystic value attached to the sacred Sign so frequently encountered in
Buddhist shrines, and known as the _Shvastika_. The numerous chapels
of Chandi Sewon contained the galaxy of Tirthankas or Buddhist saints
which the materialism of the Jains added to the impersonal subtleties
of esoteric Buddhism. The blank emptiness and desertion of this vast
sanctuary produces an impression of unutterable desolation. The
weed-grown courts, the ruined altars, and the moss-blackened arches,
encumbered with indistinguishable heaps of shattered sculpture, lack
all the reposeful charm of Boro-Boedoer, still a sermon in stone which
he who runs may read. The degenerate creed memorialised by Chandi
Sewon, has failed to impress itself on the colossal pile which bears
melancholy witness to the evanescent character of the heretical
offshoot from the parent stem. Jungle and palm-forest in Central Java
contain innumerable vestiges of pyramidal temples, palaces, and
shrines; vaults hidden beneath the shrouding trees have yielded a rich
store of gold, silver, and bronze ornaments, household utensils, and
armour. For many years the peasants of the region between Samarang and
Boro-Boedoer paid their taxes in gold melted from the treasure trove
turned up by the plough, or dug from the precincts of some forgotten
sanctuary, buried beneath the rank vegetation of the teaming soil. The
discarded Hindu gods still haunt the forest depths, and the
superstitious native, as he threads the dark recesses of the solemn
woods, gazes with apprehensive eyes on the trident of Siva, or the
elephant's trunk of Ganesh emerging from the trailing wreaths and
matted tapestry of liana and creeper, veiling the blackened stone of
each decaying shrine. Nature has proved stronger than Art or Creed, in
the eternal growth beneath an equatorial sun, of the kingdom over which
she reigns in immortal life. Silently and insidiously she undermines
man's handiwork, and realisation of his futile conflict with her
invincible power enters with disastrous effect into the popular mind,
lacking that immutable force without which the spiritual temple of
faith rests on a foundation of shifting sand. Kawi literature,
popularised by translation, and familiar through the medium of national
drama, interprets Javanese creeds and traditions. This "utterance of
poetry" derived from Sanskrit, fell into disuse after the Mohammedan
conquest, though a few Arabic words became inco