I am pleased to see Indonesia Highlighting and restoring the Hindu Temple, they are indeed following Islam, which forbids one to desecrate a place of worship. I commend Suwarsono Muhammad for this initiative, it is time we live the will of God; Co-existence and harmony with life and matter.
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — As if on cue, the two Buddhist monks in saffron robes appeared one late afternoon recently, seemingly out of nowhere, to complete the picture of Indonesia's religious past and present.
The visitors stood at the edge of a large fenced-off pit where a ninth-century Hindu temple had recently been unearthed here on the campus of the Islamic University of Indonesia. On the other side of the pit, where a mosque's large dome rose in the backdrop, the muezzin would soon call the faithful to the sunset prayer.
The discovery of the nearly intact Hindu temple was a reminder of the long religious trajectory of the country that now has the world's largest Muslim population. In few places on earth have three major religions intermixed with such intensity and proximity as in Indonesia's island of Java. If the sultan of Yogyakarta's palace lies at the heart of this city, Java's spiritual center, the world's largest Buddhist monument, Borobudur, and one of its largest Hindu temples, Prambanan, stand in its outskirts.
About 90 percent of Indonesians are now Muslim, with only pockets of Buddhists and Hindus left. But Hinduism and Buddhism, Java's dominant religions for a much longer period, permeate the society and contribute to Indonesia's traditionally moderate form of Islam.
For more than a decade, proponents of a more orthodox version of Islam have gained ground in Indonesia. More women are wearing head scarves and more Indonesians are adopting Arabic-style religious rituals as fundamentalists press for a purge of pre-Islamic values and ceremonies. But Indonesia's traditional Islam provides a counterpoint.
"This is Indonesia," said Suwarsono Muhammad, an official at the Islamic University. "In the long history of Indonesia, we have proven that different religions can live peacefully."
In that spirit, Mr. Muhammad said, the university planned to showcase the Hindu temple prominently in front of a library to be built around it, in the shape of a half-circle.
It all began last August when the private university decided to build the library, "the symbol of knowledge of our religion," next to the mosque, Mr. Muhammad said. In the two decades the university had occupied its 79-acre campus outside Yogyakarta, no temple had ever been found. But chances were high that they were around. Most of the nearby villages had the same prefix in their names: candi, meaning temple.
By Dec. 11, a construction crew had already removed nearly seven feet of earth. But the soil proved unstable, and the crew decided to dig 20 inches deeper. A backhoe then struck something unusually hard.
The crack the backhoe left on the temple wall would become the main sign of damage on what experts say could be the best-preserved ancient monument found in Java.
Researchers from the government's Archaeological Office in Yogyakarta headed to the campus the next day, excavated for 35 days and eventually unearthed two 1,100-year-old small temples. In the main temple, 20 feet by 20 feet, a perfectly preserved statue of Ganesha, the elephant-headed deity, sat next to a linga, the symbol of worship for the god Shiva, and a yoni, the symbol of worship for the goddess Shakti.
In the adjacent secondary temple, about 20 feet by 13 feet, researchers exhumed another linga and yoni, as well as two altars and a statue of Nandi, the sacred bull that carried Shiva.
"The temples are not so big, but they have features that we haven't found in Indonesia before," Herni Pramastuti, who runs the Archaeological Office, said, pointing to the rectangle-shaped temple, the existence of two sets of linga and yoni, and the presence of two altars.
Researchers surmised that the temples were preserved in pristine condition because they were buried in a volcanic eruption a century after they were built. The lava from Mount Merapi, about 7.5 miles to the north, is believed to have filled a nearby river before flowing over the temples, minimizing damage.
Indung Panca Putra, a researcher at the Archaeological Office, said the temples' walls and statues contained refined details not found in the dozen small Hindu and Buddhist temples discovered in this area.
Officials moved the most valuable artifact, the statue of Ganesha, to the Archaeological Office. For further protection against thieves, workers erected a fence on the campus, and guards limited access inside.
The two Buddhist monks, though, had had no trouble getting inside. They had traveled from their monastery, about an hour away by car, to visit.
"These are our ancestors, so we have a sense of belonging," said one monk, Dhammiko.
Historians believe that Hinduism spread in Java in the fifth century, followed three centuries later by Buddhism. Kingdoms hewing to both Hindu and Buddhist beliefs flourished in Java before they were eclipsed by Islam in the 15th century.
But Islam itself incorporated beliefs and ceremonies from the other two religions. Just as some unearthed temples in east Java have a Hindu upper half and a Buddhist lower half, some early mosques had roofs in the shape of Hindu temples, said Timbul Haryono, a professor of archaeology at Gadjah Mada University here and an expert on Hinduism in Southeast Asia. Early mosques faced not in Mecca's direction, but west or east in the manner of Hindu temples.
"Things didn't change all of a sudden," Mr. Haryono said. "Islam was adopted through a process of acculturation."
In Indonesia's arts, like the wayang shadow puppetry that dramatizes Hindu epics, or in people's private lives, traces of the earlier religions survive, he said. Food, flowers and incense still accompany many funerals for Muslims, in keeping with Hindu and Buddhist traditions.
"Hinduism was Indonesia's main religion for 1,000 years," he said, "so its influence is still strong."
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I am glad to see our state passed the bill to recognize Holocaust and Genocides. I hope Dallasites will take the time to attend the program and learn and reflect upon the terrible things that we humans have inflicted upon each other.
The Jewish community has borne the suffering of the Holocaust for over sixty years; it is time for us to share it. No community should bear the suffering alone; we all have to stand up, and be there for each other.
Thank God the awareness is increasing; from one event in 2006 by the American Muslims, it has grown to three events this year; the III Annual Reflections on Holocaust and Genocides on 24th, the Gay and Lesbian commeration on 27th and now this event by the Holocaust Museusm in collobration with the Memnosyne Foundation.
Holocaust was a major human tragedy and a failure of humanity.
And perhaps the first time in our history that we acknowledged the genocides of the indigenous Americans and Native peoples of Americas in a public forum along with other tragedies.
I want to applaud the people of Dallas for attending the event. They were Atheists, Bahai, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Wicca, Zoroastrians and from sevral ethnicities and nationalities.
It was an educational program, where 7 speakers reflected on 7 topics for 7 minutes each. Then 7 commentators made comments about 7 different situations. The topics ranged from the Holocaust to Genocides, massacres and tragedies.
Among Genocides, Massacres and other tragedies we reflected upon the Indigenous American people such as the Mayans, the Toltecs and the massacres of the Native people right here in Dallas, we touched upon Darfur, Polpot, Congo, Armenia, Rwanda, Falun Dafa, Burma, Tibet, Bosnia, India, Gaza and the transatlantic slave trade. Through these representative events, our goal was to reflect upon every human tragedy. The words do not describe the sufferings of people in full, we have to work with the limited choice of words, but have a big heart to feel the pain and suffering of every human being, not just my people or my tribe, but every one. Let there be one negative energy of suffering that we are part of, together we can work on getting out of it.
There is a shameless cruelty in us, either we shy away or some times refuse to acknowledge the sufferings of others, worrying that it will devalue our own or some how it amounts to infidelity to our own cause, and shame on us for justifying massacres that the victims deserved it or they asked for it.
We learned a few simple things that we can do to prevent such tragedies. It was a purposeful event to learn, acknowledge and reflect upon the terrible things that we humans have inflicted upon each other. We also learned that our safety hinges on the safety of all others around us.
We learned to see each other with dignity, and honor the otherness of other. Gatherings such as this offer hope and opportunity for a secure and a safer world.
Of the several acknowledgements, a few notable ones are;
1. other peoples suffering is as legitimate as ours;
2. some one related to us through faith, ethnicity, land mass or race has been a butcher too,
3. it takes courage to see ourselves as perpetrators, while it is easy to ourselves as victims;
4. we can see the light at the end of the tunnel when politics is stripped;
5. we can value others suffering without lessening our own;
6. the overriding desire to highlight my own gets softened, when we value others pain;
7. the sense of responsibility for creating a better world was present in us.
It is an initiative of American Muslims striving to build responsible civic societies. The event was organized by the Foundation for Pluralism, where co-existence is our value. We appreciate the sponsorship by the Center for Spiritual Living, all the three are Dallas based Organizations.
And to every community that has endured holocaust, genocides, massacres, bombs, annihilation, land mines, hunger, rape, torture, occupation and inhuman brutality, the least we can do in the process of healing is to acknowledge every one's pain in one room, as one people. We have to teach tolerance and acceptance.
We have begun the process of coming together as one people, to stand with you, we are indeed one world and one humanity, and caring for each other brings safety and peace to all of us. I cannot be safe if the people around me are not, and I will not have peace if people around me don't. It is in my interest to seek a peaceful world for one and all.
A full day conference is planned for Wednesday, January 26, 2011 to discuss every human tragedy, please submit a thoroughly researched 500 word abstract about the event you'd like to discuss to -HolocaustandGenocides@gmail.com
Mike Ghouse, Chair
Holocaust and Genocides
www.holocaustandGenocides.com
Good to hear about this fantastic initiative!
Indeed, more education and information about these tragedies is of utmost importance. Without such, the possibility that these horrific events can occur again is real. I hope that along with the history, a great deal of attention is placed on what allowed these events to occur, mainly, that people watched and did nothing. When we see people being persecuted, when we see people denied basic human rights, we must raise our voices and say "no!" The mantra associated with The Holocaust is "Never Again", yet to be true to the to the call, requires first that we even know about what happened, and second, that each of us take responsibility for our role.
I applaud these educational and participatory events, I encourage all to attend, and to speak out and speak up, for these atrocities still occur in our world today.
Len Ellis
Dallas Peace Center
Yes, we will attend. Sikhs are those who suffered because of religious and ethnic hatred. They like to join all to make it sure that the hatred is transformed into understanding of the human suffering all over the world. The idea of sharing the suffering of the world is a powerful one to move the world where such atrocities are never inflicted on any human being, and if and when it ever happens again, it may be shared by all.
Harbans Lal,
DFW Sikhs for Interfaith Understanding
As a Kashmiri Hindu, I applaud the mention of our plight at the reflection program on January 24, no one cares about our issue, it was a relief to see them mention it.
It is our duty, a moral obligation to acknolwedge the pain and suffering of all people. There is a shameless cruelty in us, either we shy away or some times refuse to acknowledge the sufferings of others, worrying that it will devalue our own or some how it amounts to infidelity to our own cause.
We all have to learn to see eye to eye, face to face, some one related to us via land mass, faith or race was a butcher, it does not mean, you and I are. We have to bring about a change by simply being human - feeling the pain of other no matter who it is, that is what makes us human.
We are looking forward to All day conference in January 2011 to acknowlege every human suffering, whether they are technically genocide or not. LIfe is precious and must be valued.
Mike Ghouse, Chair
Holocaust and Genocides
Dallas, Texas
www.HolocaustandGenocides.com