Dieng Plateau

The Arjuna group at Dieng — Arjuna, Semar, Srikandi, Puntadewa and Sembadra — are the oldest standing Hindu temples in Java, built in the seventh and eighth centuries, before Borobudur and before Prambanan. They are small and plain, and the wayang characters' names by which they are known were given later, not originally.

What is most striking about the complex is not the buildings but the earthworks. Dieng is a flat, waterlogged plateau, and to build on it a subterranean drainage system was cut, carrying water off the plateau through tunnels hewn in rock. Parts of it can still be traced. The capacity to build so in the eighth century is evidence of mobilised labour and engineering knowledge seldom mentioned when Dieng is presented as a cluster of small temples.

Dieng is an active geothermal field with craters, coloured lakes and gas-emitting fissures. In February 1979 the Sinila crater released a large volume of carbon dioxide which flowed down the valley and killed some one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty people who were evacuating from a preceding earthquake. Gas heavier than air flows like water and pools in low ground, and that is what makes the hazard at Dieng different from ordinary volcanic hazard.

On this plateau too is known the ruwatan rambut gimbal: some Dieng children grow hair that mats of itself, and its cutting is done through a ceremony whose condition is a request made by the child, which must be met before the hair is cut. The ceremony is now held collectively as part of an annual culture week, and the difference between a rite held when a child is ready and one held on a fixed date is a difference recorded repeatedly in this encyclopedia.