Introduction to ARGO, Thousand Temples Project
Anthropology tells us the ancient megalithic people of Britain were able to calculate the earth’s circumference with astonishing accuracy by unifying their standard of measure for the megalithic mile to the megalithic minute, to a number of degrees of the globe’s daily rotation on its axis. Time, space and motion elegantly reconciled some 5 thousand years ago!
Ancient Egyptian, Mayan, Taoist, Cherokee, Celtic and Indonesian (to name a few) cultures integrated sophisticated knowledge of such elements as astronomical cycles, natural and sacred geometry, harmonics, the earth’s energy grid, into their sacred and mundane rituals with a simplicity we are barely able to conceive of now. Given an existence reconciled on so many levels, the individual would necessarily be integrated, in certain respects, enlightened.
Union with the universe, with the whole Divine (which is also the definition of yoga), that is to say, the Microcosm as a complete reflection of the Macrocosm would be accomplished.
Isn’t this what we are lacking – the solution, in a sense, to the problems of modern man? Sahasra Adhi Pura’s contribution to this is the Thousand Temples Project.
Thousand Temples Project constructed a temple-complex to understand and encapsulate the spiritual knowledge of many of the world’s sacred cultures for the enlightenment of this and future generations. The project, initiated by one of Java’s most highly developed Yogis, W. Hardjanta Pradjapangarsa, will eventually contain one thousand small-scaled replicas of sacred structures and holy sites from around Indonesia and the world. ARGO, the first part of the plan, containing fifty installations is complete. It is designed and constructed by a group of Hardjanta’s students from Indonesia and at least 20 other countries around the world.
Utilizing the precepts of sacred architecture, (archeoastronomy and sacred geometry) the temple is a reflection on the ground of the constellation Argo in the southern sky. The concept of Argo – the Ark – a vessel for storing sacred knowledge, is a theme expressed in many ancient cultures. “Far away to the South, the mysterious Argo with its pilot star held the depths of the past.
In the Argo Complex, you will find examples of the four main stages of sacred structures and sites found throughout in the ancient world:
- Natural sites used as places of worship and pilgrimage such as sacred mountain, rivers or caves – exampled in our replica of Mt. Kailash, and The Ganges.
- Minimal stone shrines, trails and paintings on the earth left by Nomadic Cultures such as our Nazca Lines or rock painting from nearly every country on earth. Among the Argo miniatures are rock paintings from Botswana and petroglyphs from China, Australia, Tasmania and Norway.
- Earthworks and stone monuments of the Megalithic cultures, examples ranging from the Ohio Serpent Mound to Stonehenge to a Korean Menhir (standing stone.)
- Classical temples and later sacred structures built by City-dwelling, Temple-worshipping cultures who left us such examples as the Pyramid of Kulkukan at Chitzen Itza and Temples of Angor Wat.
ARGO is not a display of cultural heritage but a living, functioning microcosmic system of our global sacred knowledge, rising from rice fields on ancient holy ground in Central Java, Indonesia. We invite meditators, initiates and the curious to stand inside this evolving network of esoteric architecture and energy vibrating with thousands of years of wisdom encapsulated in the fifty sites
.* Hamlet’s Mill by G. De Santillanna and H. VonDechend
