Prambanan Temple

Prambanan Temple

Candi Prambanan (Prambanan temple) was built in the ninth century and becoming the biggest Hindu temple in Indonesia. In South East Asia, it becomes one of the largest temples. Its existence cannot be separated from the myth about it, a myth about Princess Roro Jonggrang and Prince Bandung Bondowoso. The myth is very popular until every visitor must know when they come to this magical temple. These myths and other historical facts about it are so amazing that they always attract the attention of visitors from outside and inside the country.

Prambanan’s Brief History

In the ninth century, Prambanan candi was built by Rakai Pikatan in 850 CE, a century after the development of Borobudur. This becomes a moment where the Hindu era was back in the Sanjaya dynasty after the Syailendra dynasty that holds Buddha as the main religion. The architecture inspired by the Shivaite Hinduism. It is because the temple is dedicated to Shiva as the greatest gods in Hindu and the Trimurti (Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma). That is why, the main temple consist of three temples that each temple is dedicated to each gods.

Prambanan is also called as Shivagrha temple and is located in the northeast area of the central Yogyakarta city. It is included as one of UNESCO world heritage sites. According to Prambanan Wikipedia, the temple is passed by Opak River in the western side.

In the reign of Mpu Sindok (930s), the royal central was moved to East Java. Merapi volcano eruptions become the main reason why the center of his kingdom was moved to other region. The temple was then left and abandoned like it never existed. In 16^th century, it was known that the temple collapsed due to some earthquake. The rediscovery was just started at 1733. Before that, local people only know about the ruins of it and gave some mystical story, make it has great origin of Prambanan.

Knowing the brief history about this exotic site is not enough. There is still other interesting Prambanan temple story about Roro Jonggrang princess. This is a marvelous folktale inspired by the ruins of Prambanan itself which was found by local people at that time. The story goes from time to time, from generation to generation. The folktale said that Roro Jonggrang was a beautiful princess and a daughter of King Boko. Her kingdom is what people called now as Ratu Boko temple. Once upon a time a young prince named Bandung Bondowoso fell in love with her and proposed to marry her. But Roro Jonggrang refused the offer. She refused it by her wishes to Bandung Bondowoso to build her a majestic 1000 temples as a sign of his sincerity love. She also said to finished it before the dawn.

Roro Jonggrang thought that Bondowoso cannot fulfill her wish and will cancel their marriage, but in fact Bandung Bondowoso agreed, and he asked for help from demons and other spiritual being to finish the 1000 temples. Roro Jonggrang knew this and she find other way to deceive Bondowoso’s work that was soon be finished. The dawn was come and the temple still has one building left. He then knew that this was the idea of Roro Jonggrang. The dawn was actually not yet coming. Bondowoso is angry and throw his curse that to fulfill the one temple that is still remained unfinished Roro Jonggrang must be a statue inside this 1000^th temple. Now the 1000^th temple is known as the Roro Jonggrang temple and is located in one of the rooms inside the Shiva temple. The statue which refers to Roro Jonggrang is actually a statue of Durga, the wife of Shiva.

Read also:

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• Borobudur Temple 10 Things You Should Do
• Yogyakarta Day Tours
• Yogyakarta Transport Service

Entrance Fee and Opening Hours

To enjoy the trip in this magical temple, here is information about the Prambanan temple entrance fee 2023. For the regular Prambanan temple entrance fee is USD 25 (adult) and USD 15 (kids). This ticket is included sunset panorama in Prambanan. This Prambanan opening hours start from 6 a.m until 5 p.m and after that is continued with the sunset session. Prambanan sunset is another way to spend your trip to see sunset in Yogyakarta.

Other than the regular package, there are Prambanan and Borobudur package which has entrance fee of USD 45 (adults) and USD 30 (kids), Prambanan and Ratu Boko package which has the same entrance fee with Prambanan and Borobudur package, and the last is Prambanan, Plaosan, and Sojiwan package which has entrance fee of USD 30 (adults) and USD 20 (kids).

Ramayana Ballet and the Temple Sunset

As stated before, in this exotic site, visitor can also see sunset in the temple. Enough with sejarah Prambanan that the visitor will get from the guide book or tour guide, they can add memorable trip to Yogyakarta by seeing the magnificent sunset panorama in Prambanan sunset tour starting from 5 p.m. The entrance ticket has included with the regular ticket. Here, the temple will invite the visitor to feel such magical atmosphere of Prambanan which will combine with beautiful sky above it.

Not only the temple sunset, the special thing about this Prambanan, is that visitor can also see the performance of Ramayana ballet. What is this Ramayana ballet? Ramayana ballet is a traditional dance performance which tells the story of Rama and Shinta, a husband and wife who were driven into the forest. Rama was a prince of the Ayodhya kingdom. Together with his wife and younger brother Laksmana, Rama stepped out into the woods to avoid the throne fight that could lead to civil war. Inside the forest, a giant named Rahwana fell in love after saw Shinta, and kidnapped her from Rama. Rama then tried to reclaim Shinta from Rahwana’s hands with the help of Laksmana and also Anoman, the monkey king. Anoman deployed his entire monkey army and made the giants army of Rahwana defeated. This story is inspired by the famous Hindu religious story of Rama and Shinta.