Violence and Serenity: Late Buddhist Sculpture from Indonesia

figure 2.5. Seated figure
in bhūmisparśa mudrā, late
thirteenth century, Malang,
East Java, h 1.39 m
existence of these two images with similar features strengthens the argument
that they are portrait statues. An inscription on the base of the Joko Dolok
statue mentions King Kr ˙ tanagara, the last king of the Singasari dynasty, and
the image itself has long been considered his portrait.
The Inscription
Nineteen verses of Sanskrit text run in four lines around the base of the statue
(see fig. 2.2). These verses have been interpreted in light of passages from the
fourteenth-century Javanese chronicle the Nāgarakr tāgama. The inscription
˙
was originally translated by Hendrik Kern in 1910, and then reassessed by Poerbatjaraka
in 1922. In 1986, Max Nihom published an article reinterpreting
the inscription and arguing that the statue originally stood at Candi Jawi in
East Java. Almost a decade later Lokesh Chandra also examined the inscription,
questioning many of Nihom’s assertions and refuting his conclusions. 8
A chronogram in the middle of the inscription gives the date of 1289 CE.
The author, Nādajña, the head of ecclesiastical affairs, is named in the last
two verses. The rest of the text is concerned with two events. The first part
of the inscription describes the sage Ārya Bharāda, who divided Java into
˙
28 | chapter two