Abstract

This paper takes Borobudur as a showcase in the promotion of an artifact with poor knowledge management. It indeed, one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1991, but it has been presented merely as a physical appearance. What makes it interesting is its grandeur as the largest Buddhist temple in the world during the glory of the Sailendra Kingdom in Java for five centuries, instead of the landmark of science and technological advance which should have advanced Indonesia’s achievement by now. The commodification has led Indonesia to turn Borobudur as a magnet for foreign tourists. There are numerous Buddhist sites in Indonesia which are part of the tourist destinations to trace Buddhist civilization in Indonesia, such as Buddhist temple in Jambi (Sumatra), Sleeping Buddha Statue in Mojokerto (East Java), and other Buddhist temples in Java and Bali. Yet, Borobudur has not been presented as the trail of Buddhist Civilization given the absence of knowledge conservation, let alone knowledge reproduction. Borobudur signifies the fact that Buddhism is the earliest religion that heavily influenced the incoming dominant religion later on. Much of its intangible aspect of the heritage has lost and forgotten given the poor knowledge management in the country. Ministry of Education needs to recover and reinvent the lost knowledge to make the commodification go along with meaning-making.

Keywords

Borobudur, knowledge management, physical heritage