Digital Preservation of Borobudur World Heritage and Cultural Treasures Hary GUNARTO Abstract In 1972 UNESCO adopted World Heritage Convention, aimed at identifying, protecting, and preserving the worldﾕs cultural and natural treasures. Today there are 851 World Heritage Sites in 184 nations, and Indonesia currently has 7 heritage sites, including Borobudur temple. Borobudur is also known as one of the Wonders of the World, besides the great-wall of China, Egyptian pyramid, and others. Considered as the biggest ancient temple of the world, this famous Buddhist shrine was built in the 8th century in central Java of Indonesia during the Golden Age of Sailendra dynasty (old Mataram or Medang Kamulan kingdom). This magnificent stepped pyramid style of volcanic stone monument has an overall height of 42 meters, and dimension of 123 x 123 meters (15,129 square meters) with overall 2500 meters length of stone relief. This magnificent monument is not well known to many English speaking people, because most of the documentation is written in Indonesian and Dutch languages. The main purpose of this paper is to identify, and gather research works on Borobudur as well as to study on archived projects related to manuscript, text and images of relief on this world heritage. A combination of digital archiving and virtual reality technology will be proposed as a concept of “Digital and Virtual Borobudur” which will help preserving this cultural heritage site and objects by taking this temple and its relief into the virtual world. With such technology, the original masterpieces and site will be preserved and protected from subsequent destructive human influence, and at the same time it will be available through the Internet to all audience and “global virtual tourists”. Key words: Borobudurtemple, Cultural Heritage, digital archive 1. Introduction Natural and cultural world heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts around the world that are inherited from our past generations, and need to be maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. Due to various reasons such as climate change, natural disasters, wars, etc, these valuable world heritages are continuously destroyed from time to time. Natural －263－ 立命館言語文化研究19巻２号 heritage such as rain forests with its valuable flora and fauna, for example, are being damaged in one way or another because of very dry climate, because of huge number of tourists which comes to visit them, or as a result of other human activities for city planning and developments. Once those natural and cultural heritages are destroyed, they cannot be recovered or restored back to its present state. Therefore, it is important to preserve them for the benefits of our future generations. UNESCO, in 1972, adopted World Heritage Convention to identify, protect, and preserve the world’s cultural and natural treasures. The cultural and natural heritage covers the qualities and attributes of places that have aesthetic, historic, scientific or social value for past, present or future generations. Worldwide, there are currently 851 heritage sites located in 184 countries (state parties) up to June 2007. Of these, 660 are cultural, 166 are natural and 25 are mixed properties. All of these sites are classified into 5 geographic zones: Africa, Arab States (northern Africa and Middle East), Asia-Pacific (including Australia and Oceania), Europe and North America (USA and Canada), and Latin America & the Caribbean. Out of 851 sites, 174 are located in Asia-Pacific area, as shown on Table 1. Most of natural heritages are places related to countryside and natural environment, including flora and fauna that are irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration. Whereas, cultural heritage sites include buildings and historic places, ancient monuments, artifacts, etc., that are considered worthy of preservation for the future. The cultural sites also comprise objects significant to the archaeology, architecture, science or technology of a specific culture. Both kinds of heritage treasures often serve as an important part for country’s tourist industry that contributes and attracts many local visitors as well as tourists from abroad. Table 1: Statistics of World Heritage Sites (WHS) in Asia-Pacific Region * Source: http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31 Country Natural WHS Cultural WHS Mixed WHS Total Afghanistan 22 Australia 11 1 4 16 Bangladesh 12 3 Cambodia 11 China 423431 North Korea 11 India 521 26 Indonesia 43 7 Iran 17 8 Japan 311 14 Kazakhstan 22 －264－ Digital Preservation of Borobudur World Heritage and Cultural Treasures（GUNARTO） Laos 22 Malaysia 22 Mongolia 11 Nepal 22 4 New Zealand 213 Pakistan 66 Philippines 23 5 South Korea 77 Solomon Islands 11 Sri Lanka 16 7 Thailand 23 5 Turkey 729 Turkmenistan 22 Uzbekistan 44 Vietnam 23 5 TOTAL = 174 The basic concept and criteria for world heritage (both natural and cultural) is exceptional and universal in nature. These world heritage sites in general belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located. In Indonesia, as an example, natural and cultural world heritage sites include Borobudur Temple Compounds (1991), Komodo National Park (1991), Prambanan Temple Compounds (1991), Ujung Kulon National Park (1991), Sangiran Early Man Site (1996), Lorentz National Park (1999), and Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra (2004); number inside the parentheses represents the year when the site is recognized by UNESCO. Although these sites are located in Indonesia but they represents past history and culture of the region, especially in South East Asia zone. When we look at Japan, 11 cultural and 3 natural heritage sites have been recognized for a total of 14 locations on June 2007. The complete list is shown here: - Buddhist Monuments in the Horyu-ji Area (1993) - Himeji-jo (1993) - Shirakami-Sanchi in northern Honshu (1993, natural) - Yakushima in the south of Kyushu (1993, natural) - Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities) (1994) - Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama (1995) - Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) (1996) －265－ 立命館言語文化研究19巻２号 - Itsukushima Shinto Shrine (1996) - Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara (1998) - Shrines and Temples of Nikko (1999) - Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Ryukyu Kingdom (2000) - Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range (2004) - Shiretoko in the northeast of Hokkaido (2005, natural), and - Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine and its Cultural Landscape (2007). 2. Borobudur Buddhist Temple Borobudur temple in Indonesia is one of the greatest Buddhist monuments in the world, located about 40 km north of Jogjakarta city in central part of Java island. This colossal relic of Borobudur was built by Sailendra dynasty between 778 to 842 AD; 400 years before Cambodia’s Angkor Wat and any other works on great European cathedrals were created. Little is known about its early history except that a huge workforce - sculptors, artists, statue and carving experts - must have been labored to move and carved tens thousands cubic meters of volcanic stone and lava-rock. Therefore Borobudur temple is an outstanding cultural heritage and legacy and becomes major sources of Indonesian history and culture nowadays (Miksic and Tranchini, 1990). Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles first revealed the temple in 1814. He found the temple in wined condition and buried under volcanic ash. He ordered an archeologist, H.C. Cornelius to excavate and clear the site from undergrowth and do thorough investigation. More than 200 laborers were occupied for 45 days to uncover and remove earth, bushes, and trees which buried the historic temple. Raffles, motivated by his admirer of history and culture of the country, laid the foundation for actual archeological research. Many theories and works were written on the subjects, including “The History of Java” by Raffles himself, “The Borobudur Monograph” by C. Leemans and J.F.G. Brumund, and many other publications (Dumarcay, 1978). Figure 1. Top view of candi Borobudur －266－ Digital Preservation of Borobudur World Heritage and Cultural Treasures（GUNARTO） Most Buddhist temple was built and dedicated to Buddha in the need for peoples to make concrete worship and relationship to the God (Tamura, 2000). The word temple is derived from templum, the Latin word for a sacred place, or worship/ ceremonial space. Around these the ceremonies of worship were elaborated, and in many societies the attendant priests became very powerful. Temples or candi (in Indonesian term) were often built in a magnificent size to accommodate all their priests and followers to gather and worship. As Buddhist center, candi Borobudur was built as a single large stupa, and when viewed from above it takes the form of a giant tantric Buddhist mandala, with 123 m by 123 m in size. It is erected on a hill in the form of a stepped-pyramid of six rectangular levels, three circular terraces and a central stupa forming the summit. The whole structure is in the form of a lotus, the sacred flower of Buddha (Krom, 1927). Some detail facts and figures of candi Borobudur is shown here: ● Monument base: 123 m by 123 m ● Height: 42 m ● Narrative reliefs: 1,460 panels ● Decorative reliefs: 1,212 panels ● Buddha Statues in open niches: 368 (originally 432) ● Buddha statues on the terraces under circular stupas: 72 ● Number of galleries: 4 (each has 2 wall panels: main wall and balustrade) ● Total length of visual panels: circa 2500 meters ● Hidden basement: circa 13,000 cubic meters of stone ● Total volume of stone used: circa 55,000 cubic meters ● Time to build Borobudur: perhaps 66 years, and ● Usage period: almost 200 years. As one of major centers of Buddhist scholarship in South and South-East Asia during that time, Borobudur temple was built with an overwhelming mass of images and galleries on its walls depicting the activities of Gods (Swearer, 1995). There are more than 1,400 narrative panels illustrating the life of Buddha and Buddhist texts, the largest and most complete collection of Buddhist relief in the world.