23-05-2025
Vesak Day underlines recovery of historic Indonesian Buddhist temple
MAGELANG, Indonesia -- Towering high over the countryside in central Java's Kedu Valley, the Borobudur temple complex is one of the world's biggest and most revered Buddhist monuments. These days, however, it rarely sees crowds as big as the 45,000 who flocked there in early May for the annual Vesak Day celebration of the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death.
Built in the eighth and ninth centuries during the Shailendra Dynasty, which ruled Java for around five centuries until the 10th century, the temple was abandoned sometime between the 10th and 15th centuries, according to UNESCO, which added it to the World Heritage List in 1991.
