This temple was discovered by a villager in 1966, but was not entirely excavated until 1987. It has the peculiarity of standing 6m under ground level, perhaps due to an eruption of Mount Merapi. Today the site is an agreeable place resembling a public park where students, lovers, or mothers go for a walk. The site is composed of a sanctuary and three secondary temples (perwara) facing it. The principal sanctuary faces west and its shape on the ground is a perfect square of 13.65x13.65m, 7m in height. The temple is rare for not having a proper foot; the base was its foot. It is surrounded by niches with Kala heads above tham, all housing the statue of Durga (at the north), Ganesha (at the east), and Agastya (at the west). At each side of the entrance, the empty niches once housed the statue of the guardians Mahakala and Nandiswar, now stolen. In the interior, a yoni (facing north) with ornaments of a naga and its lingga stands intact.
In front of the sanctuary, the secondary temples have lost their roofs, but a pedestal ornamented of a lotus flower is still visible in two of the temples. Notice, at the terrace, the presence of twelve stones in the form of flat mounds around the sanctuary (8 rectangular and 4 round ones) that could be the plinths of wooden pillars.
The temple is surounded by two entourages of white stone. The first, of a dimension of 50x48m, has four doors (the one facing north was discovered closed, without it being known why) and the terrace that it forms is girded by 8 linggas. The second entourage is not entirely unearthed, but we can see the whole of its north face. It is estimated, considering the statuary, that the temple is of the Shivaist Hindu religion and that the construction was in the IXth or Xth century, which makes it a contemporary of the Prambanan, Plaosan, and Sojiwan temples. Finally, don’t miss the very beautiful fragments of statues conserved at the pavilion at the left of the park’s entrance. The temple is until today used as a place of worship for the Hindu of the region.
It is said that a kyai (Muslim priest) appears in thr dreams of a villager named Karyowinangku, saying,”There is stone in your land”. A week afterwards the villager plowed his land and found seven stones. After observation by specialists, these stones was found to be part of the temple, Karyowinangku is of the opinion that the kyai was the spirit of his grandfather.
Source: Situs-Situs Marjinal Jogja (Sanctuaires Retrouvés/ Sites Out of Sight) - M. Rizky Sasono, Jean-Pascal Elbaz, Agung 'Leak' Kurniawan (Enrique indonesia, Yogyakarta: 1997).
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