Borobudur, Path to Enlightenment

Aerial photographs of Borobudur convey its stupendous mass -- nearly two million cubic feet of fine-grained, mellow gray stone quarried from local riverbeds -- but fail to give a sense of the monument's transcendent beauty. Often described as the largest Buddhist monument in the world, Borobudur rises to a height of 400 feet, nearly as tall as Cheops' pyramid, in a series of concentric terraces. Its walls are lined with exquisitely carved bas-reliefs illustrating episodes from the life of the Buddha and his teachings, amounting to more than a mile of continuous sculpture -- and that doesn't include 504 life-size statues of the Buddha.

Borobudur was built at the end of the eighth century under the supervision of an architect named Gunadharma, whose name survives in the same legendary realm as that of Imhotep, Egypt's first pyramid-builder. Gunadharma erected his masterpiece around an existing hill; then the reliefs were carved in situ. The pilgrim was meant to proceed along the symmetrically arranged galleries on a symbolic spiritual journey, moving upward from terrace to terrace, each level representing a higher plane of consciousness, until he finally reaches enlightenment at the summit, which is capped by a large stupa, or dome.