MENAPO: THE GARDEN OF WISDOM

Or the Refuge of the Deer during the Floods of the Batanghari River

MUARA JAMBI SUMATRA INDONESIA
The conjunction of archaeological excavations and Chinese and Tibetan manuscripts seems to
indicate that the huge site of Muara Jambi, spanning on more than 2,600 acres along the
Batanghari, the longest river in Sumatra, has been from the 7
th
to 13
th
century the largest center
of Buddhist knowledge from Southeast Asia. It was the confluence of knowledge where
Indians and Chinese came to study or trade by sailing through this sea route of Buddhism,
much less known than the continental silk road. A road that could be called as well the gold
road because merchants from all over Asia came here to seek this precious metal. Hence the
name of Svarnadvipa, which in Sanskrit meant the island of gold, was used to refer to the now
Sumatra island.
Its 84 temples in red brick, of which only eight are being restored, might have been faculties
interconnected by a huge network of canals. When one walks along the paths of the undergrowth
covered with debris of Chinese ceramics from the 7th or 9th century, one begins to dream of the
first green university at the crossroads between India and China that has included on its
campus the rain forest as an orchard, a library, a living pharmacy and a haven of meditation. This
archaeological site has been inscribed by the Indonesian government as cagar budaya (cultural
heritage) and on the tentative list of candidates for UNESCO World Heritage.

Today, in the heart of Muara Jambi, along the Batanghari river, stands a village on stilts whose
inhabitants are Muslims. Several young villagers occasionally work on excavations alongside
archaeologists. They know how to talk to each stone, each mound of red earth, each tree in the
forest where their parents still have small huts to watch at night the fall of the durian fruits. For
these young people, the ancient knowledge is still alive among the ruins. They feel deeply and
naturally infused and inspired by it so they collect and read many history books. Theyve
founded a community center and a green school, Saramuja, to excavate in their own way the
ancient history of this forgotten site and transmit to the village children the local culture and the
sense of respect for the environment. In recent months, theyve organized themselves into a
larger community center, the Padmasana foundation (denoting the lotus-shaped base upon which
some Buddha statues stand) with 60 adult villagers as members, to professionalize their research
and share it more widely. Among their many notable works and actions are:
nursery and plantation of trees and plant of endangered species,
gathering in the bed of the Batanghari river over 6,000 ancient Chinese coins dating back
as far as the first century BC and their classification according to their respective
dynasties,
preservation of mantras in old Malay, Javanese and Sanskrit engraved on metal plates and
informal cooperation work with Arlo Griffiths, director of the French School of Far East
(EFOE) Jakarta, to transliterate and make them talk again,
collecting stories, seloka (a traditional form of 4 verses poetry about local wisdom) and
knowledge told by their grandparents: local legends, medicinal plants
revival of local dances, music, and crafts,
in progress: a book about the past and present of Muara Jambi in 4 languages
(Indonesian, Chinese, English and French) with illustrations made by children of Muara
Jambi Village, and
a Muara Jambi-Indonesia dictionary, still in progress as well, which comprises some
two hundred words sounding so pleasant that one has the feeling to hear onomatopoeias
whereas they express complex situations and feelings and subtle actions.

All those canals that in the past allowed the students and professors to move from one edge of
the university to this other edge, are called today by archaeologists kanal, explained the
members of Padmasana foundation. But kanal is a Dutch word, and its not the Dutch who built
these canals. They are more than a thousand years. We in the village call them buluran. And for
newly dug canals, we have another local word, sakean.
The language of Muara Jambi village has already established itself in the international world of
archeology with a word grown on its own land: menapo. This is how the villagers refer to the
mysterious temple complexes surrounded by walls and canals, many of which are still piles of
ruins and earth mounds in the middle of their orchards and cocoa plantations. Archaeologists
have not yet been able to unravel the mystery of these temples, so theyve adopted the local
term menapo. napo in the language of Muara Jambi is the deer, and me is the location. During
the annual floods of the Batanghari river that is submerging the village under more than a meter
of water, the menapo is the high location where wild animals from the forest take refuge like on
Noah's ark.
To continue their research on the history of the site and make it a place of training, meetings and
exchanges of knowledge of yesterday and today, with visitors from cities and villages, local and
international, young and old, Saramuja and Padmasana foundations plan to build a Garden of
Wisdom in the heart of the site, on a plot of 800 square meters which they recently acquired. To
this miniature replica of what was the ancient green university will be added two bungalows to
accommodate researchers, academics and passionate visitors worldwide. This garden of wisdom
named Pondok Menapo will be built entirely of wood on stilts by the villagers themselves,
according to local architectural traditions.





The Pondok Menapo or Garden of Wisdom of Padmasana will host several groups
activities:
- SARAMUJA (Sekolah Alam Muara Jambi The Green School of Muara Jambi)
environment educational program for the children and teenagers of Muara Jambi and also
for the formal schools, pesantren (muslim boarding schools) of the surrounding villages,
of the city of Jambi and young visitors from Indonesia and all over the world.
- DWARAPALA (the name of the local gate keeper of the temples, see below) training
program for the adult villagers, women and men, about micro-economy, health,
environment, historical researches in cooperation with national and international
academics, interfaith and cross-cultural dialogues.
- MFI (multimedia center) production of films, websites and photos about Muara Jambi
- USAHA MANDIRI (sustainable micro-business) tourism, restaurants, souvenirs, rain
forest products (honey, chocolate/see below the project) and production of films,
websites commissioned by the private or public sector.

These micro-businesses could help support part of the operational costs of the Pondok
Menapo .
For the village economy to develop parallel to its culture, a project to manufacture chocolate is in
study. Since 2005, villagers have planted 10,000 cacao trees; each family cultivates hundreds of
them in his orchard. The beans are sold to a wholesaler in the city of Jambi 20,000 rupiah per
kilogram. Located along the Batanghari river, these extraordinary orchards benefit from annual
floods that fertilize the soil. Unlike the winemaker who always plant the vine and produces his
own wine, cocoa farmers do not produce their own chocolate. Although fancy chocolate makers
in the West brand their expensive products as vintages, cocoa remains in the world a colonial
plant cultivated by underpaid labor. The project would be to produce an authentic Muara Jambi
vintage: chocolate planted, cultivated and manufactured on the very location by the villagers of
Muara Jambi themselves within a cooperative. This activity would provide considerable added
value to agriculture and could be a world unique example of chocolate produced by a community
of farmers on a world heritage site. The first phase of this project would be to benefit from the
expertise of agronomists, experts in cocoa, so they can analyze existing beans, orchard soils, and

train villagers to improve the quality of the cocoa trees. In a second step, experts to train the
villagers into the various stages of manufacturing chocolate will be needed.
The villagers of Muara Jambi are both guardians of the site and explorers of its past. Legends,
local wisdom and the inner eye are their excavation tools. Their symbol is the Dwarapala, the
gate keeper of Hindu or Buddhist temples which is traditionally presented in a scary appearance.
But the statue of Dwarapala discovered in a temple of Muara Jambi, if properly armed with a
small shield and a broken mace, is smiling and wearing a flower on his ear.


Elisabeth D. Inandiak