Java’s Ancient Buddhist Masterpiece — intelligenttravel.nationalgeographic.com

Two hundred years ago, British statesman Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles rediscovered the sprawling temple of Borobudur on a remote hilltop in Java, Indonesia, hidden under a tangle of thick jungle. Today the shrine endures as a symbol of quiet resilience—the world’s largest Buddhist temple, located in a country with a Muslim majority. If the UNESCO World Heritage site seems to rise above political unrest and economic instability like a lotus blooming in muddy water, that’s by design. Eighth- and ninth-century builders laid out the complex to mirror the form of the sacred flower.

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