Borobudur relief, no. O 109, Java, located on the northern side of the Borobudur and according to N.J. Krom derived from sutras 27 and 28 in the Mahakarmavibhangga (Great Exposition of the Law of Karma)

In 1885, the engineer J.W.IJzerman, who was tasked with constructing the railway on Java and was an avid amateur archaeologist, unintentionally discovered the ‘hidden base’ of the Buddhist sanctuary, the Borobudur. Taking the degree of subsidence of the Borobudur into account, he calculated that roughly 300 reliefs were underground. He applied to the Archaeological Society in Yogyakarta for permission to conduct further research. He was
not short of ideas when it came to the technical aspects of the investigation. A narrow ditch had to be dug first, so that a few of the reliefs would be exposed. These had to be photographed and then the ditch had to be filled in to prevent subsidence or the collapse of the Borobudur. All four sides could be dealt with in this way.

The Archaeological Society in Yogyakarta referred the request to the colonial government, which rejected it. The Minister of Colonial Affairs eventually made 9000 guiders available in 1890. Kassian Céphas (1845–1912), a photographer active in Yogyakarta, received this technically complicated commission in 1890. He worked according to IJzerman’s guidelines. There was very little distance between the camera and the reliefs; furthermore, the reliefs had to be cleaned.
Céphas took 164 photographs between 1890 and 1891: 160 of the reliefs (one of each relief) and four photographs from each corner to create an overall impression of the hidden base. As agreed, he made fifteen prints of each photograph.
Thirty years later the entire series was published in the large, standard work on the Borobudur, Beschrijving van Barabudur, by N.J. Krom and Th. van Erp (1920), where it was included as ‘relief series O’. Unlike the original glass negatives, only the reliefs are reproduced in the book. Céphas’ original photographs, now part of the Tropenmuseum collection, show more of the surroundings.
The meanings of the representations became clear in the 1930s. The reliefs of the hidden base represent passages from the Mahakarmavibhangga, a text that explains the doctrine of karma.The sermons are attributed to Buddha and are about the causes and consequences of human actions. Good deeds have good results, but bad deeds produce bad results. Thanks to efforts of Th. van Erp the original glass negatives became part of the Colonial Institute collection in 1929.

Dijk, J. van, The hidden base of the borobudur. In: 'Photographs of the Netherlands East Indies at the Tropenmuseum'. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2012, p.105

18 x 24cm (7 1/16 x 9 7/16in.)

Source: collectie.tropenmuseum.nl