For me, curiosity is killing. It was the biggest reason why I came to this place. I lived in Surabaya like, forever, and I never heard about this place. How come I never come to the biggest sleeping Buddha statue in Indonesia? Even though it was so closed from my home. That’s why, one day, I came to this place. It was located in Maha Vihara Mojopahit complex, Bejijong village Trowulan, Mojokerto, a small region near Surabaya, East Java. It was not really difficult to find since there was a gps.

Trowulan was also famous as the location of Majapahit kingdom, one of the glorious kingdom in ancient time. There were so many Majapahit heritage found here. However this statue was not from the ancient. It was made in 1993 by a profesional sculptur from Trowulan named YM Viryanadi Maha Tera.

Finally, I came to see the statue. I felt shocked. It was really big and long. All of the statue was gold and shimmering because of the sunlight. It was amazing! No wonder it was so big because the lenght was 22 m, width 6 m, and height 4.5 m. People around the area often called the statue was sleeping Buddha. However, according to thebuddhagarden.com the pose of this statue is called Nirvana Buddha or reclining Buddha. It described the last moment of life on earth, before dying and entering nirvana. In this pose, the Buddha is always depicted lying on the right hand side on top of resting table.

Under the statue, there were reliefs that described the life of Buddha Gautama. The  statue was also surrounded by a fish pond with floating lotus. As far as I knew, lotus was a symbol of life and lesson from Buddha.Formerly the visitor could touch the statue, but now the statue was surrounded by a fence. Therefore, we can only take a picture outside the fence. It was quiet crowded, although I came in a work day. Therefore, it was little difficult to take the whole statue picture without any people in frame. I can not imagine how crowded this place in weekend.

The sleeping Buddha was not only the statue in this area. If you walk around, you will find many statues. My favourite was the four faces Buddha statue. It was said that if we pray here, we can get what we want (crossing finger :p). I also found a park with many miniatur of famous buildings, such as the Borobudur temple.

Formerly it was only for Buddhis community, but later it was opened for public. Therefore, it made one of the place should be visited if we went to Mojokerto. Don’t miss it. Mywowtravel.com is your wow travel story.