Candi Sewu - Indonesia's second largest Buddhist Temple is hiding some ancient secrets. Who built it? Why was it ruined? What is in the main chamber? What is behind the secret false wall?
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Hey guys, Today we're going to look at the second largest Buddhist temple in Indonesia. This is a very large temple, but nobody comes here. This temple is called the Candi Sewu Temple, which means the place of 1000 temples. And it's known for its ancient secrets. Let's go inside and see what's there.
As we walk inside, we are greeted by these two giant guardians called the Dwara Palakas. These are huge, probably ten feet tall or more. This is the guardian door keeper or the Dwara Palaka on the left side of the entrance. And you can see he's very big. He's probably about ten feet tall. And look at his mustache. And if you look into his mouth, you can see the fangs coming out.
His eyes are popping out because he's always angry. In his hand, he's holding a mace called the Gadha, which is a brute force weapon. And then you can see that he's wearing this sacred thread. But is it a sacred thread? No, he's actually wearing a snake on the arm. You can see how the snake is again, worn as an ornament.
Now, let's look at this Dwarapalaka and see what we can find. Now, on the side again, you can see the Dwarapalaka with the fangs and a large mustache. But look at his sacred thread. Here you can see the head of the snake. And again on the arm. Look at how he is wearing the snake as an ornament.
And here is another snake. He's holding another snake. And the snake has its open hood at the back. You can see an interesting detail. He's not only holding a big club called the Gadha, he's also having a sword that is put inside a sheath. You can see this flower and you see this little detail on his ankle, which is anatomically accurate.
Who was this God? Is he Shiva? Is he Buddha? Is he Mahavira? Or maybe even Jesus! Or some other God? Who is he? Can you guess who this is? It's quite difficult to identify by the statue because the face is index of the mind. And once the head is cut off, it's very hard to identify who this is.
However, we know this is Lord Buddha. We can identify him by his typical sitting posture and his hand gestures called Mudras. Many people in Indonesia claim that the head is destroyed due to nature, but that's not how nature works. Nature is going to destroy everything evenly. It's not going to just pick out the head and cut it off.
It may have been anyone who destroyed the head, but this was done willfully. Let's go take a look at another statue and see if that statue has the head intact between these ruins. There is one more temple that still looks somewhat intact. Let's go inside and see if we still have the Buddha intact. Unfortunately, you can see that his head is also chopped off.
This is a sad reality of such a fantastic ancient Buddhist temple. Out of respect for Lord, I'm going to remove my shoes because I'm going to sit here for a few minutes and tell you the history of Candi Sewu. Candi Sewu means a Temple Complex of 1000 temples. But are there 1000 temples in this temple complex? No. When archeologists started to put numbers on these individual temples, they could only find 249 temples.
However, when people first found out about the ruins, it just looked so large that people named it Candi Sewu and the name stuck with the locals. So this is why they still call it Candi Sewu, even though it only has 249 temples. Now you can see that this is an ancient statue. There is no doubt about this. However, archeologists are trying to reconstruct the head of Buddha.
Now they put some plaster of Paris on this and they started to put the metal rod inside because they're going to create or re-create the head of Buddha and then fix it on top of the shoulders. That's very interesting because there would have been 249 Buddha statues like this placed in every small temple. And if you look around, it's very, very interesting because you can imagine that this is a huge Buddhist temple complex.
Now, Candi Sewu is one of the most underrated temples in all of Indonesia. Why do I say this? Because it is the second largest Buddhist temple in Indonesia. Most of you have heard of Borobudur, which is the largest Hindu (*Buddhist Actually) temple complex in Indonesia. But Candi Sewu, is a name that nobody hears about. Why? Because it is in ruins.