The towering wax gourd trees that have wound their roots around the ruins of the Muarajambi temple complex in Sumatra, Indonesia, are the only living witnesses to what has happened here over the years.
Once the biggest and most important center for Buddhist learning in Southeast Asia, the crown jewel of the Golden Isle lay partially burned, buried and forgotten for centuries. Now, with the imminent opening of a new education center, ongoing excavations and sustainable tourism initiatives, this abandoned gem is set to shine once more.
How the Muarajambi temple complex was lost
Lying 26 kilometers east of the city of Jambi, the Muarajambi temple complex covers 12 square kilometers of land beside the muddy banks of the Batang Hari River. While only 12 of at least 82 ruins have been unearthed so far, archaeologists have determined that the compound was built and in use from the 7th to the 13th century CE.
Dubbed Asia’s “oldest university,” Muarajambi was once home to thousands of monks who lived and studied behind high city walls. The monastery’s influence spread far and wide across the Buddhist world, largely thanks to some notable students. Chinese master teacher Yiching studied here for six months in the 670s before returning home to share his translations. In the 11th century, Master Buddhist Atisha also spent more than a decade at the monastery before returning to India, where his teachings on Mahayana Buddhism spread to Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal and Cambodia. It is estimated that 300-400 million people still practice this branch of Buddhism around the world today.
Thought to have been the original capital of the Srivijaya kingdom, which reigned supreme in this area around a thousand years ago, it is likely that the site was abandoned in 1278 when Java’s Singhasari kingdom attacked the city and captured members of the royal family. Thick jungle and vegetation then advanced on Muaro Jambi, leaving the once-grand city shrouded for more than 500 years until its rediscovery by British soldier S.C. Crooke in 1824. Dutch colonialists conducted the initial excavation and survey of the site in 1920, but large-scale restoration efforts did not begin until local archaeologists took the project into their own hands in the 1970s, 25 years after Indonesia gained independence.
Unearthing Southeast Asia’s oldest center of education
The onsite team today is made up of a handful of Indonesian experts and scores of enthusiastic locals, working together to painstakingly uncover, record and restore the forgotten city brick by brick. In recent years, they have discovered the charred remains of a temple entrance, metal and ceramics workshops and the bronze head of a Buddha statue. They have also unearthed canals and parts of boats that transported citizens around the city, though the wooden dwellings they are believed to have lived in have disappeared without a trace.
By working on a brand new Swarnadwipa Education Center, the Muaro Jambi Temple National Cultural Conservation Area (KCBN) hopes to reinstall the site — now a protected national monument — as a world-renowned hub for learning and enlightenment. Slated to open by the end of 2024, the onsite museum, classrooms and laboratory — developed in partnership with Indonesia’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology — will offer local students the opportunity to study the flora, fauna and waterways of the site, as well as the customs, architecture and skills of their ancestors.
“Our vision is for a revitalized Muaro Jambi to inspire our next generation, showing that we have strength, dignity and identity,” says Head of Restoration Angus Widiatmoko, who first visited the practically unknown complex in 1996 and knew it was something special even then. ”We can be great like before, as a nation that gives, not a nation that asks.”
A new era for Muarajambi (and its surrounding community)
Interest is steadily growing in the site, which now welcomes thousands of devotees every year on pilgrimages that retrace the steps of Master Atisha. However, Widiatmoko cautions that restoration and rehabilitation efforts must seek to honor the Buddhist philosophy of mindfulness. “We shouldn’t fall into tourism fever,” he insists. “Muaro Jambi will be damaged if we use it as a tourism object. We need to flip the concept.”
For Widiatmoko, flipping the concept means developing Muaro Jambi into a center for “village tourism,” where locals celebrate and showcase their traditional customs, rather than allowing it to become a “tourist village,” in which economics are prioritized over preservation.
The PADUKA marketplace is another manifestation of the “village tourism” concept. Staffed by dozens of local women who previously sold instant noodles, popsicles and soft drinks on the streets, the wooden stalls now offer an array of traditional homestead staples made from ingredients grown onsite.
“It started with the revitalization of the area around Muarajambi, which aims not only to revitalize the physical environment, but also to empower the community,” says Nurul Nazpia, part of the PADUKA management team.
Nazpia explained that the PADUKA recruits were initially skeptical about the initiative, feeling their traditional cuisine was “old-fashioned and unworthy to be served to guests.” However, after receiving training from the Ministry of Education and Culture and the province’s Cultural Preservation Centre (BPK), and embarking on a field trip to Pasar Papringan — a similar market in the south of the country — they felt empowered to cook the dishes of their youth.
“The concept of PADUKA is to preserve the local food culture,” says Nazpia. “We want to grow our love for local cuisine so that our children and grandchildren can still taste what raised us.”
Now proud ambassadors of “Old Jambi,” women adorned in traditional attire serve up their offerings on banana leaf plates as part of efforts to keep the evolution of Muarajambi environmentally friendly. As such, botanists have also been brought in to ensure biodiversity is maintained and protected while excavations and development take place.
The huge bodhi tree that still stands tall as a Swarnadwipa Education Center hall is built around it is a testament to this ethos. Incorporated into the architecture of the new building, the tree will remain here, undisturbed, watching over the next phase of this hallowed ground’s ongoing legacy.
18 December 2024
