Skip to main content

Banyunibo Temple

Candi Banyunibo or Banyunibo Temple or 'falling-dripping water' is a Buddhist site built in the 9th century in the era of the Medang Kingdom in Cepit Hamlet, Bokoharjo Village, Prambanan District, Sleman Regency, Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia.

Banyunibo Temple is located in a valley of the hills of Kewu Plain which is rich in archeological sites within the Gread Prambanan formation. This temple stands not far from the Ratu Boko Palace complex, Barong Temple, and Ijo Temple, even around the temple found many sites of temples and other statues scattered in several surrounding villages.

Dlium Banyunibo Temple

Banyunibo was found in ruins, then began to be excavated and examined in the 1940s. The main temple was fully restored in the 1970s. At the top has a stupa as a distinctive feature of Buddhism and this temple is a Buddhist sacred building rich in ornaments.

The temple stands in a narrow valley surrounded by two kilometers of rice fields. Almost every part of the temple is filled with various decorations and reliefs, although parts of one another often have the same motives.

Each side on the foot wall of the temple is divided into several fields and filled with carvings from the flower pot. The staircase and gate or gapura are decorated in the style of Kala-Makara as a characteristic of ancient Central Javanese temples in that period.

Banyuniba temple consists of one main temple facing west and surrounded by three stupas in the south and three stupas in the east. None of the small temples left. In the backyard of the temple there is a hole like a well. Banyuniba has a width of 11 m and a length of 15 m.



The structure stands on a 2.5 m high runway in the middle of a stretch of andesite. The difference in the area of ​​the foundation with the temple forms a hallway. The walls and seams on the runway were filled with ornaments of tendrils and leaves sticking out of a container like a jar.

Every corner of the foot has a Kala headdress that serves as a rainwater drain. The roof of the pyramid shaped temple is like dagoba with a stupa at the top. The stairs are 1.2 m wide to reach the temple grounds in front of the entrance of the viewer room. The base of the stairs is decorated with the head of a pair of dragons with their mouths wide open.

The entrance is equipped with a curved roof that protrudes about 1 m out of the body of the temple. The front side is filled with tendrils. Above the doorway has a Kalamakara decoration without a lower jaw. Inside the wall has a sculpture depicting the goddess Hariti sitting cross-legged flanked by two peacocks. Around the woman are small children.

On the south wall the viewer room has a relief depicting Kuwera or god of wealth, sitting with his right hand resting on his thighs. On the left is a waiter holding a coffin containing money. On the walls on the four sides of the temple has a fake window is a hole like a window but does not penetrate into the inside of the temple.

Above the fake window sill is the decoration of Kalamakara, while on the left and right are niches containing sculptures of heavenly figures including kinara, kinari, hapsara, hapsari, Hariti and Avataka. Between the kalamakara and the temple over the hidden window sill carved the figure of the man sitting as if looking down.



There are no statues in the rooms in the temple, but the walls are decorated with child and male figures in various positions. The sculpture depicts a child hanging from a tree branch, a row of people sitting in a hug, a man sitting cross-legged and so on.

In the courtyard of the temple there is a pair of ox statues in a sitting position. There is no information on whether the statue is indeed located in its original place or has been moved from its original place.

Popular Posts

Thomas Sutikna lives with Homo floresiensis

BLOG - On October 28, 2004, a paper was published in Nature describing the dwarf hominin we know today as Homo floresiensis that has shocked the world. The report changed the geographical landscape of early humans that previously stated that the Pleistocene Asia was only represented by two species, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens . The report titled "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia" written by Peter Brown and Mike J. Morwood from the University of New England with Thomas Sutikna, Raden Pandji Soejono, Jatmiko, E. Wahyu Saptomo and Rokus Awe Due from the National Archaeology Research Institute (ARKENAS), Indonesia, presents more diversity in the genus Homo. “Immediately, my fever vanished. I couldn’t sleep well that night. I couldn’t wait for sunrise. In the early morning we went to the site, and when we arrived in the cave, I didn’t say a thing because both my mind and heart couldn’t handle this incredible moment. I just went down...

Bitter vine (Mikania micrantha)

Sembung rambat or bitter vine ( Mikania micrantha ) is a plant species in Asteraceae, crawling or wrapped around trees, perennial that grows up to 27 mm per day in tropical climates, branched stems where heart-shaped or triangular leaves are arranged in pairs and a plant can cover more than 25 square meters in a few months. M. micrantha has square-shaped stems or longitudinal bones, light green, many branches and has fine hairs. The stems have segments for lengths of 75-215 mm, each segment has a pair of leaves, new shoots and flowers. New roots grow when the segments come in contact with the soil. The leaves are in pairs and facing each other. Strands do not have hair, heart-shaped or triangular with jagged edges, length 30-125 mm, width 15-60 mm. Petiole is 1-6 cm long and has fine hairs. The flower panicle grows from the armpit of the leaf and the tip of the stem, having 3-15 mm long stems. Each flower head has 4 minor flowers. The crown is greenish-white, tubular and measures ...

Cogon grass (Imperata cylindrica)

Alang-alang or cogon grass ( Imperata cylindrica ) is a plant species in Poaceae, annual grass, sharp leaf, long buds and scaly, creeping under the ground, very adaptive and grows in all climates which often become weeds on agricultural land. I. cylindrica has a sharp pointed tip of the bud and emerges from the ground, height of 0.2-1.5 m but in other places it may be more, short stems, rising up to the ground and flowering white or purplish, often with wreath of hair under the segment. Leaf strands in the form of long ribbons, lancet-tipped with a narrow base and gutter-shaped, 12-80 cm long, very coarse edge and jagged sharply, long hair at the base with broad, pale leaf bones in the middle. The flowers are panicles, 6-28 cm long with long-haired and white-colored ears for 1 cm which are used as a tool to blow off the fruit when ripe. Cogon grass breeds quickly with seeds that spread quickly with the wind or through rhizomes that quickly penetrate the soil. Alang-alang does...