Borobudur
Sitting between twin volcanoes in “the garden of Java” – the Kedu Plain of Indonesia – is a ninth century Buddhist temple: Borobudur. One huge stupa (shrine for the Lord Buddha), it also contains seventy-two smaller, bell-shaped stupas; each pierced with many decorative holes that make the bells to resemble cages. Inside each of the smaller, cage-like stupas sits a statue of Buddha, but in total there are actually 504 statues of Buddha here. Borobudur (Ground-level photo) The temple, known as a candi (chan-dee) in Javanese, was re-discovered in 1814 when then-British ruler, Sir Thomas Raffles, was advised…