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About Shasra Adhi Pura

We Are A Javanese Hindu Temple, located in the rice fields of Central Java, 7 kilometers outside the city of Surakarta.

We Operate as a traditional Hindu temple, observing the rituals and ceremonies on temple sacred days and Hindu holy days, joined by members of the community (of all religions) as well as Hindus who pilgrimage here from Jogyakarta, Jakarta, Bali, Flores and abroad.

Ceremonies take place in our traditional Javanese roofed and unroofed, open-air pavilions. The temple houses the full pantheon of Hindu deities and an antique Gamelan (the traditional Indonesian musical gong, xylophone and percussion orchestra) to accompany ceremonies, meditations and other events.

Sahasra Adhi Pura is laid out according to the precepts of archeoastronomy (meaning the positions of the stars and planets are reflected in the architecture) and sacred geometry (the proportions and shapes are related to sacred numbers and forms.)

A deeper look at the Temple plan reveals the purpose encoded into the structure and layout:

Click for a larger image

The body of the temple is in the shape of a woman, with her spine or central axis running east to west, her legs spiraling outwards, in a position of giving birth. An initiate entering through the Eastern Gate, (at the first or Muladhara Chakra of our Goddess) can walk up the central axis, ascending the Chakras, from the base to the crown of the Goddess' head (the Sahasrara Chakra) at the Western Gate. Statues of the Hindu Gods are positioned near their corresponding Chakras and directions, from four-headed Brahma in the east to a white stone relief of the Thousand-Petalled Lotus at the western gateway.

1. To understand each section of the temple, we begin in the area of Goddess' Head. This section, as could be expected, is a large oval pavilion, beside which are our traditional Javanese roofed Pendopo and the Gamelan house. This is where the main, monthly and yearly ceremonies take place.


2. Next, we descend to the Heart area of the temple, currently being built. The heart of the temple functions similarly to the human heart, unifying the entire body of the Goddess. It comprises of a six-pointed star (hexagram) on the floor, (which is also a symbol for the heart Chakra) covered over by a dodecahedronal dome. In Hinduism, the dodecahedron represents Prakriti, all manifestation, just as the geometric form of an icosahedron represents Purusha, unmanifest reality.


3. Descending further to the Goddess' Solar Plexus (Sun center) we see a story in black volcanic stone, of the Hindu Creation Myth: In Hindu legend, Ananta (The serpent on which Visnu sleeps between his human incarnations) is wrapped around Mt. Meru (the world axis) which is resting on the back of a great sea turtle - a form of Lord Visnu. At the two ends of the snake are the Asuras (demons) to the south and the Gods to the north, in a cosmic tug-of-war. Treasures as well as poison for mankind emerge from this famous "Churning of the Ocean" event in Hindu mythology. At Sahasra Adhi Pura, you see the Yoni/Linga in its peak-roofed shrine (Mt. Meru), encircled by the great serpent, Ananta, atop the back of a giant stone Sea Turtle (Kurma, Visnu's 2nd incarnation.)


4. The lower part of the temple, the Belly of the Goddess is egg-shaped and encloses its own small temple complex which we call: ARGO, The 1000 Temples Project. As you can read in the 1000 Temples section, ARGO contains 50 scaled replicas of sacred sites from all over the ancient world. In the Argo Complex, you find examples of the four main stages of development of sacred structures in the ancient world: Natural sites such as sacred mountains, rivers or caves; Minimal stone shrines, trails rock carvings and paintings left by Nomadic Cultures; Earthworks and stone monuments of the Megalithic cultures; Temple structures of all sorts from primitive to classical. (See section III on Thousand Temples.) So, our Temple Goddess holds the sacred works of man from many millennia inside her belly.


5. Lastly, the Goddess' Legs curving outward in the shape of two sine waves, each foot resting on its own circular pavilion. All of the circular pavilions (the head, solar plexus, and feet) as well as other structures throughout the temple serve as platforms for our sun meditations, both at sunrise and midday. There are many water pools and ponds surrounding the goddess used for our water meditations, known in Java as 'kungkum,' during the nighttime hours.

Through the ages people used temples and sacred sites to maintain order in their universe, to record and preserve sacred wisdom, and to support and celebrate the cycles on all levels from personal to cosmic. The tradition of relating to the cosmos through the temple structure and other sacred art forms is an ageless one, evidenced in every country, over hundreds of millennia, from Megalithic Europe to the island cultures of Oceania, to the plains of Peru, the deserts of Africa and buried beneath the Arctic ice. The layout of a temple often marks the cardinal directions and/or the rising and setting of the sun over its yearly journey, provides spaces for community gathering and inner sanctuary and preserves the ancient sacred traditions of the ancestors. In both function and form, the temple has served to order the years, months and days, provide a calendar for life and worship, moon calendar for harvests and act quite literally as the beating heart of its area. And again, it was the temple, in all its various forms that was used to create a pathway to the ancestors and Gods thus serving as both anchor and doorway to the Divine. See a photo tour of different parts of the temple Note to visitor : You must scan from right to left to see the full panorama.