The Way of Seeing of Ramayana Story-Relief of Prambanan Temple

Abstract

direction around the temple by using the way of pradhaksina indirectly affects the way of seeing of the reliefs, that is the reading of each scene depicted on the story-relief panels. Pradhaksina is performed by the visitors by walking clockwise around the halls of the temple, which is started from the door of the East wing. By doing pradhaksina, the viewers could read in the same direction on the relief panels sculpted into the body of the temple. The reading of the story in a direction view from right to left is, for instance, in the relief of Lalitavistara of the Borobudur Temple. The reading is certainly different from the story relief that is on the fence (ledge, lankan) of the temple, such as the Ramayana story-relief in the Prambanan Temple. When the visitors walk clockwise, the relief position is on the left side of them. Thus, the viewers do not read by pradhaksina as previously but by prasavya. Afterwards, they read the story from the left which then continues to the right, both the scenes of each panel and the series of the story from the entirety of the panels that form the story in its entirety. The way of seeing of prasavya is therefore contrived as a groundwork, notably by the researchers, in reading the scene of each panel. Following the observation on each relief panel of the Ramayana story, the sculptors allegedly use other ways of seeing in their depiction in addition to prasavya. The diversity of depictions according to various ways of seeing, thus, could be said as an indicator of the freedom that the sculptors had in expression.