History

The period of history that concerns us here is that which resulted in the construction of the temples that form the subject of this site. These temples were constructed by adherents of the Buddhist and Hindu religions. The earliest traces of Buddhism in the Indonesian archipelago were found in the 4^th  and 5^th Centuries AD on Kalimantan and Sumatra. Java comes into the picture only in the 7^th C. For roughly the next nine centuries Buddhism and Hinduism remained actively practised on Java, resulting in many temple remains. 

In the initial stage until about the 10^th C the centre of political power, and hence, temple construction was on Central Java. Thereafter it moved to East Java, reaching its peak during the kingdom of Singasari and the first century of the Kingdom of Majapahit. The power of the Majapahit kingdom weakened at the end of the  14^th  C, and from then on it also lost control of trade to Islamic traders active on Java's North Coast. The successor kingdom to Majapahit, Demak was Islamic. Most adherents of the by then syncretic Hindu-Buddhist religion had moved to Bali, and on Java, adherents could only be found in remote mountain communities where temple construction continued until in the 16^th C.

Link to the political history of Central Java/ East Java.