Violence and Serenity: Late Buddhist Sculpture from Indonesia

the building.)47 Chandra interprets the disappearance of the Buddhist image
to mean that the Śiva statue once wore a detachable Aksobhya crown that was
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removed and melted down.48 We have no evidence of such jewelry, but it is
possible that such a precious item would have been later melted down. Nevertheless,
Chandra’s theory does seem unlikely, as most statues from this period
have elaborately designed headdresses carved in stone. In fact, remnants of a
large Śiva image were discovered at the site. The carved headdress of this statue
contained a small skull, a characteristic attribute of Śiva.
In summary, the Nāgarakr tāgama seems to describe five statues that
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were associated with Krtanagara: a Śiva-Buddha at Singasari,49 a Jina and an
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Ardhanāri at Sagala, and a Śiva and Aksobhya at Candi Jawi (Jajawa). Could
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one of the two known “Aksobhya” statues, the Joko Dolok or its cousin in
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Malang, be one of the statues mentioned by the Nāgarakrtāgama?
The prov-
˙
enance of both of the statues is still in question. The inscription states that
Joko Dolok was initially consecrated at the cemetery called Wurare, a site
that has not been satisfactorily identified. The Dutch discovered the statue
at Kandang Gajah near the village of Bejijong in Trowulan.50 The remnants
of a stone base for wood pillars indicate that it was considered sacred and enclosed
within a temple or shelter.51 Poerbatjaraka hypothesizes that the statue
was moved to Trowulan, the new capital of the Majapahit dynasty, in the
fourteenth century, at some point before the Nāgarakrtāgama
was written.52
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This would explain why it is not mentioned in the chronicle. In the early nineteenth
century the statue was moved to Surabaya.53
Max Nihom’s arguments that the original location of the Joko Dolok image
was at Candi Jawi are unconvincing to my mind.54 He contends that there was
one image at the temple, the Joko Dolok, which is a combination of Śiwa
and Buddha. More specifically, the statue was regarded “as a representation
of Śiva-Amoghasiddhi erected after the consecration of Kertanagara whose
person in [is?] Visnu-Aksobhya as Mahāksobhya.”55 Much of Nihom’s argu-
˙˙ ˙ ˙
ment is overly hypothetical, and above all it ignores the fact that the remnants
of a large Śiva statue were found at the site.
I think it is more likely that there were two separate statues. If this were the
case, worshippers would not have been able to see the Aksobhya image, as it
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would have been placed in the completely enclosed superstructure. The tower
of the temple does contain such an empty space, without stairs or other access
to it.56 The superstructure of Candi Singasari has similar construction, with
an inaccessible chamber above the cellas.57 An important precedent for this
type of “hidden image” may be seen in the uppermost stūpa of Borobudur,
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