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

Kakizoe darkling beetle (Microblattellus kakizoei) is the second species after Microblattellus lecongmani Ferrer 2006

NEWS - Kakizoe darkling beetle ( Microblattellus kakizoei sp. nov) collected from a mushroom-growing termite nest of Macrotermes gilvus (Hagen, 1858) in Cambodia was established as the second species in the enigmatic tenebrionid genus Microblattellus Ferrer 2006. Microblattellus was established by Ferrer in 2006 as consisting of a single morphologically peculiar species represented by Microblattellus lecongmani Ferrer 2006 from Vietnam. The genus is characterized by a very distinctive pronotum shape, in which the head is completely hidden beneath the anterior margin, and the absence of eyes. M. kakizoei is easily distinguished from M. lecongmani by its more elongate and less robust body, looser antennal segments, distinct and transverse scutellum, rather than the reduced and absent one in the latter, distinctly formed humeral angles of the elytra, finely arranged and irregular strial punctures on the elytra, and less prominent body surface. The holotype is taken from the fungus Ma...

Ralph Holzenthal caddisfly (Rhyacophila lignumvallis) from Corsica in Rhyacophila tristis (Schmid 1970) group

NEWS - Ralph Holzenthal caddisfly ( Rhyacophila lignumvallis Graf & Rázuri-Gonzales, sp. nov.) from the island of Corsica (France) was established as a new species in the Rhyacophila tristis (Schmid 1970) group based on morphological analysis and the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (mtCOI), including sequences from 16 of the 28 species in the group. Rhyacophila Pictet 1834 with 814 living and 30 fossil species is the largest genus of caddisflies in the world, distributed mainly in the northern hemisphere, but also in temperate and tropical India and Southeast Asia. One of the groups is the R. tristis group in the branch Rhyacophila invaria . R. lignumvallis is most similar to Rhyacophila pubescens Pictet 1834, Rhyacophila tsurakiana Malicky 1984, Rhyacophila ligurica Oláh & Vinçon 2021, Rhyacophila harmasa Oláh & Vinçon 2021 and Rhyacophila abruzzica Oláh & Vinçon 2021. However, R. lignumvallis differs in the shape of the X tergum, the dorsal arm ...

Three new species of Huntsman spider (Pseudopoda Jäger 2000) from Qizimeishan National Nature Reserve

NEWS - A spider survey in Qizimeishan National Nature Reserve in Xuan’en County, southwest Hubei Province, adjacent to the northeastern edge of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, discovered three new species: arc huntsman spider ( Pseudopoda arcuata ♀), Qizimeishan huntsman spider ( Pseudopoda qizimeishanensis ♂ ♀) and Mian Wei huntsman spider ( Pseudopoda weimiani ♂ ♀). The reserve covers a total area of 345.5 km2 and the highest peak is about 2010 meters. It mainly protects the central subtropical mountain evergreen broadleaf forest and subalpine sphagnum swamp wetland area. The reserve is rich in wildlife resources and has been listed as a key biodiversity area in the China Biodiversity Conservation Action Plan. Pseudopoda Jäger 2000 is the largest genus of the Sparassidae Bertkau 1872 with 256 species. Currently, 155 species of Pseudopoda are known in China. This genus is a small to large spider that lives mainly in leaf litter and less frequently in plants. P. arcuata derives its spe...