Reviving Prambanan, Renewing Ties

The restoration of Indonesia’s Prambanan temple signals a new phase in India’s Act East policy, with heritage conservation as an instrument of diplomacy.

Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto announced the collaborative project of conservation and restoration of Indonesia’s 9th century Prambanan temple complex during the former’s three-day state visit to Indonesia. The said project is about putting back into shape around two hundred ancillary temples around the main complex. This event made many Indians aware of the thousand years’ existence of Prambanan, world’s second largest Hindu temple in Indonesia. That also made many Indian tourists aware about the existence of lesser known but equally rich Hindu heritage in Indonesia, other than that in Bali which they were familiar with. Since Modi chose to announce the project personally, standing alongside President Prabowo at Prambanan rather than leaving it to a routine diplomatic statement, the gesture merits closer scrutiny. It invites an examination of India's record of heritage conservation in Southeast Asia and the strategic context behind this latest initiative. But first, it is worth considering the name Prambanan itself.

Sanskrit Roots

It is a settled fact that many place names of major cities, towns and heritage sites in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, are rooted in Sanskrit. Originally a thriving religious place and now a heritage site, Prambanan, is not an exception to that rule. However, it is also well known that many Sanskrit proper nouns and other vocabulary have undergone change in spellings and pronunciation under local conditions in this region, over centuries of unmonitored usage. An apt example is that of the present-day Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, which originally, since mid-16th century, was Jayakarta, which itself was a locally changed form of Sanskrit words ‘jaya-krita’ meaning ‘act of victory’. On similar lines, going by the patterns of such changed usage, as observed and documented by world scholars who simultaneously possessed mastery over Sanskrit and in-depth knowledge of the archipelagic languages, Prambanan could originally have been Brahmanand (or Brahmananda, accurately speaking). Looking at the sprawling layout and the grand temple structures built within, Prambanan complex appears to have indeed been designed to generate the feeling of ‘Brahmananda’, the ‘divine joy’ among the visitors, especially devotees.

This India-assisted restoration is special because it is happening in Indonesia for the first time. India has been contributing to the efforts of conservation of Indic heritage structures, partially or fully, elsewhere within Southeast Asia region, in combination with those of the respective governments, for long. The best and the biggest example of that kind is of Angkor Wat, the 12th century Vishnu temple of Cambodia and the world’s largest Hindu temple. However, a major thrust in the Government of India’s efforts towards these tasks or ‘civilizational duties’ was brought in post announcement of the Act East Policy (AEP) in 2014. From thereon, not only substantial efforts were noticed through announcement of new phases or extensions in the case of older or continuing projects like Wat Phou, the 5th century Shiva temple of Laos (in 2018-19) and Ta Prohm, the 12th century Brahma temple of Cambodia (in 2019-20), but even newer projects like those at My Son, the Hindu temple complex of Vietnam (in 2018-19) that was constructed between the 4th and the 13th centuries, and Prasat Preah Vihear, the 11th century Shiva temple of Cambodia (in 2020-21) were commenced. While all this action was taking place elsewhere within Southeast Asia, nothing of that sort was so far, that is, twelve years past AEP’s announcement, noticed in case of Indonesia.

Treading Softly

Was India reluctant because Indonesia is a Muslim-majority nation, unlike the Buddhist-majority countries where it had previously undertaken similar projects? That question informed the recommendations in my Ph.D. dissertation, India’s Soft Power in Indonesia from Its Act East Policy Perspective, submitted last October. I argued that India should contribute to the restoration of the Jago temple in Central Java’s Malang Regency, a project already underway under the Indonesian government.

All those doubts and apprehensions have now been put to rest by India taking up the job for the most prestigious project of Prambanan, a UNESCO-recognized world heritage site, within a year’s time. And, since this project was in the pipeline, India’s Ambassador to Indonesia, Sandeep Chakravorty, had prepared the ground by celebrating the Maha-Shivaratri of 2026 five months back inside the Prambanan complex, along with some members of Indian diaspora and those of native Indonesian Hindu community, the first time in history.

This project is special for one more reason, which is about the clear Hindu character of the heritage site. While all the above-cited examples of projects in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam too pertain to Hindu temples, many of them are often spoken about, especially in the Western media and literature, as Buddhist. The base reason is the fact of all the said countries having turned decisively and officially Buddhist after the 13th century, thanks to a renewed wave of Buddhism sweeping across the region that time. As a consequence, after the passage of a few centuries, the local populations, not well conversant with the details of their past, started generally identifying those temples as Buddhist temples, which started reflecting in the plethora of tourism-promotion literature outside the region. In Prambanan’s case, the host country Indonesia being Muslim-majority, while being particularly aware of and proud about its past, there was no scope for any such mix-up or confusion.

(The writer is a Ph.D. researcher in international relations. Views personal.)