++

A stairway often leads up to the terrace. In the more elaborate candis there are more platforms, niches, porches and bases. Hindu-Javanese temples were often re-enlarged, their foundations replaced or annexes added on.This happened frequently and it makes for much confusion among scholars. Their technique of building made little use of pillars or true arches. One striking characteristic of classical Hindu-Javanese stone architecture is that the amount of hewn stones required for walling in space is usually very large. Often the enormous masses of stones making up the straight walled temple body contain just one small inner chamber (cella) in which is placed the cult image of the god or ancestor in whose memory the whole structure was erected (these are almost always missing). There is room for only a single priest to pray. Mass is always given more emphasis than space, the structure often piled high with heavy overlapping layers of big stone blocks. Borobudur is stunning example of this, a huge ponderous mass of stone covering the top of a hill with only a small room in its central dagob where the relics are kept.