Rambatan inscription
Photo Anak Sago · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The Rambatan inscription is a stele inscribed under King Adityawarman and dated by chronogram to the year 1291 Saka, or 1369 CE. It was found at Rambatan, in Tanah Datar, about 6 km from Batusangkar, in West Sumatra, Indonesia.
The text is written in Kawi script in Old Malay and consists of six lines.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Article
Rambatan inscription
The reading used here is that of Boechari, and it begins with the invocation Om subhamastu.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Indonesian): Prasasti RambatanCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Indonesian): Prasasti RambatanCC BY-SA 4.0
The inscription is one of the surviving inscriptions of King Adityawarman. Its six lines are in Kawi script and in the Old Malay language. The reading used here is that of Boechari, and it begins with the invocation Om subhamastu.
InterpretationSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Indonesian): Prasasti RambatanCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Indonesian): Prasasti RambatanCC BY-SA 4.0
The meaning of the text is not yet entirely clear. It names Adityawarman and mentions a place of worship in honour of the footprint of the Buddha (Jinapada).
A. Griffiths renders the text as follows. In the Saka year 1291, in the dark half of the month of Karttika, on the 8th day, a Monday, a very beautiful and splendid refuge of the Buddha was completed. Those who came here had travelled several roads and rested, if only for a while. King Adityawarman, a king full of radiance and good conduct, steadfast in a former life, and a royal official made a porch, whose pair of lotus feet cannot be matched by other lotuses, all for the feet of the Buddha. Parts of the text are lost.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Indonesian): Prasasti RambatanCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Indonesian): Prasasti RambatanCC BY-SA 4.0
Indonesia is one of the few places where megalith-building is still a living tradition. Menhirs, dolmens, stone tables and ancestral stone statues are found at sites in Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, the Lesser Sunda Islands and New Guinea.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Megalith traditions of Indonesia
Indonesia is one of the few places where megalith-building is still a living tradition. Among the Nias of North Sumatra, the Batak of the interior of North Sumatra, the people of Flores and Sumba in East Nusa Tenggara, and the Toraja of the interior of South Sulawesi, megalithic cultures remained preserved, isolated and undisturbed well into the late nineteenth century. Menhirs, dolmens, stone tables and ancestral stone statues are also found in sites in Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, the Lesser Sunda Islands and New Guinea.
On Sumba, the megalithic burials found in the central regions of the island go back thousands of years. This stone-based burial tradition is still kept alive by the Sumba people, and has become a "living ancient tradition" that scholars can observe today. The megalithic remains on the island include dolmen tombs, upright stones, megalithic statues, stone enclosures and levelled terraces, built and carved to a high standard. Quadrangular adzes unearthed in the Anakalang area are among the notable finds. Nias is best known for its festivals, including stone jumping, a manhood ritual in which young men leap over stone towers about two metres high; some historians and archaeologists have called its culture one of the few remaining megalithic cultures in existence, though this point of view is hotly debated.
Because the tradition has not stopped, it is hard to give a single date to a monument. Megalithic culture still flourished in places such as Nias and Toraja when other parts of Indonesia had already begun their historical periods, and script was unknown there. The Atlas gives such sites a broad range, and dating is often impossible without excavation.
When visiting, remember that these are the burial places and ritual landscapes of living communities. Ask permission and do not move stones.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Megalith, Wikipedia: Sumba, Wikipedia: Nias, Wikipedia: Prehistoric Indonesia · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1291
Prasasti Rambatan adalah salah satu prasasti peninggalan Raja Adityawarman bertanggal candrasengkala 1291 Saka atau 1369 Masehi, yang ditemukan di Rambatan, Tanah Datar, kira-kira 6 km dari Batusangkar, Sumatera Barat.
Source - 1291
Griffiths, sbb.: Pada tahun Saka 1291, pada paruh gelap bulan Karttika dan pada tanggal 8, hari Senin, tempat perlindungan Buddha yang sangat indah dan penuh gemerlap telah selesai.
Source
Photographs
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
Where it stands
Indonesia
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 0°28′48″ S, 100°32′46″ EFor a GPS or map app: -0.48008, 100.54600
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
.jpg){kind=link}
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
1 source behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q26487379wikidata.org
Image files
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Prasasti Rambatan" (Indonesian), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (Indonesian): Prasasti RambatanCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q26487379CC0