纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 059婆罗浮屠佛陀头像（8）（在线收听）

I'm now standing in front of the one of the reliefs at Borobudur that gives us the best possible, and most vivid, evidence for this kind of seaborne contact. It's a superb carved panel, showing a ship of around 800, and it's one of several you can find here at Borobudur. It's an image of great vigour and skill, deeply carved, with a lot of energy, and indeed humour - because right at the front, at the bows under the figurehead, you can see a sailor grimly clinging on to the anchor. But above all, it offers us visual evidence for the kind of ship that was able to make these long sea journeys, with multiple sails and masts - a kind of ship perfectly able to make those long sea runs from China and Vietnam to Java, Sri Lanka and India.

I suppose it's true of all great religious buildings, but at Borobudur I was particularly struck by what I think is a universal paradox: you need huge material wealth, acquired only through intense engagement with the affairs of the world, to build monuments that inspire us to abandon wealth and to leave the world behind. Here's the Buddhist teacher and writer Stephen Bachelor: