The Borobudur collection is composed of approximately 4,000 color and black-and-white slides depicting the Borobudur temple. The collection contains slides from the Southeast Asia Art Foundation (SAAF) Archive and from Patrick Young's expedition to the Buddhist temple in 1983. The slides depict general views of the temple and the complex from different directions. The collection also contains individual views of the reliefs on the balustrades and walls, as well as the stupas and the Buddhas.
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Borobudur is a tiered Buddhist temple located in Central Java and built during the 8th and 9th centuries C.E. during the Syailendra dynasty. The monument is located in the Kedu Valley of Java and is constructed out of five concentric square tiers, followed by three circular platforms, and topped by a monumental stupa. For a time Borobudur was buried under volcanic ash and jungle growth but it was rediscovered in approximately 1814 and the monument was finally completely unearthed in 1835. The monument underwent its first renovation between 1907 and 1911 under the Dutch East Indies government. In 1973 the Indonesian government and UNESCO created a master plan for the second renovation of Borobudur. The project continued until 1982 and included improvements to the drainage system. UNESCO named Borobudur a world heritage site in 1991.
The temple of Borobudur is composed of five concentric square tiers, three circular platforms, and all topped by a monumental stupa. The walls and balustrades of the five square tiers are covered with reliefs which depict the progression of the soul's journey towards redemption, as well as episodes from the life of the Buddha, Jataka and Awadana. The Jataka are stories about the Buddha before he was Prince Siddhartha, while Awadana depict saintly deeds attributed to other legendary people. A pilgrim to Borobudur is supposed to travel clockwise through the various levels of the temple, always keeping the monument on the right. The main walls are meant to be read from right to left, while the balustrade reliefs should be read from left to right.
In 1983 Walter Spink, a professor for the Department of the History of Art at the time, received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The grant was for a project to photograph Borobudur, so Spink sent photographer Patrick Young on a five week campaign to document the monument. Young's photographs were added to the Visual Resources Collections' pre-existing collection of materials on Borobudur from the SAAF Archive.
