Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Lost Temples!


Ancient Temples of Malaysia

Temples have long been part of the local landscape of South East Asia, with great monuments such as Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Borobudur in Indonesia built by the Hindu and Buddhist Kingdoms of the Pre-Islamic era. Having said so, one would wonder why no monuments were built in the Malay Peninsular of modern day Malaysia.Perhaps a little correction should be made there; no monuments have been discovered yet.It is generally accepted by historians that a Hindu civilisation was established in the Bujang Valley up north in the ancient Kingdom of Kedaram. Tamil traders established settlements in the Bujang Valley as early as the 3rd century AD.Over 50 Buddhist and Hindu temples have been excavated from various sites in the valley.

An Ancient Ruin of the Bujang Valley

Over many centuries these temples were lost swallowed by the jungles of Malaya. Though almost 30 sites were discovered, none of them have matched the collosal size of those discovered in neighbouring countries. However it is widely believed that deep in the jungles of Malaysia lay hidden monuments which will enrich the Pre-Islamic history of Malaysia.

more from malaysiantemples

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

ohhhh how exciting we have our own angkor wat!! where did you find this amazing news?

wonder how long it will last before some nattan will go and destroy it. :S

Puravin said...

Hey thanks...Yeah, we certainly have many lost monuments hidden in our jungles just waiting to be discovered.Its sad that no one is interested in enriching our country's history :(

Did you see the post on the Jelapang Ruins? It is now a waterfall....strange feature for a waterfall...

Check it out if you haven't...

http://malaysiantemples.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

We actually discovered this place in jelapang by accident about 15 years ago when our uncle took us out for a picnic :)

Anonymous said...

yeah. Apart from Kedah, I think there are similar pre-Islamic sites in Beruas Perak and somewhere in Johor.

The name Cheras in KL is derived from an old Tamil Kingdom in India, Chera Dynasty.

A lot of the culture and Malay Language is in fact from Tamil origin, yet some of the big morons we know in this country refuse to acknowledge it....

Anonymous said...

Kedah and Perak are Malaya's older states, not Melaka!

Anonymous said...

True buddy....in fact we could go on giving examples with no end to the list...Kerinci for example comes from the tamil word Kurinji (mountain). South East Asia on the whole so so fused with Indianness......along with other later influences,such as from the chinese, arab and portugese etc.

VASANTARAO APPALASAMY said...

Puravin, keep on posting such historical article... try to post about the origin of Hinduism, and how it spread and the fundamental of Hinduism..

Anonymous said...

Maybe, more there 100 ruin of ancient temples which burried.

Indonesia have much ruins of temple.

Nice post my friend.

Anonymous said...

Well said arto,100 or even more and yes indeed i'm very sure Indonesia is home to even more hidden monuments and secrets waiting to be uncovered, camouflaged by nature:)

Anonymous said...

Sure vasan i will try my best to post info on the ancient :)

Satish said...

interesting :D