Mysterious
Nobody knows who built one of the most beautiful Buddhist monuments in Asia. Nobody knows why either. But we do know Borobudur was built around 1,200 years ago. It sits in the centre of Java, an island in Indonesia.
Borobudur is so mysterious nobody is even sure that is really its name. The first time the name appeared was in a book about Javan history by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles in 1817. Raffles was a famous British colonial official who founded Singapore.
A three-level monument
Borobudur is built on three levels. To climb to the top, you have to walk in circles. Each level depicts a different Buddhist world, and they are shown in stories carved on panels as you walk. There are 2,672 panels. The first level is the world of desire. The second is the world of forms. The third is the world without forms.
At the top of the monument, a dome is surrounded by 72 seated Buddhas. There are no records of how it was built. But experts today think it probably took 75 years. The stones had to be carried from nearby rivers and then precisely cut. Like the pyramids, the mathematics used in planning the building were very complex.