One of the most famous tourist attractions in South East Asia is the Four Faces Deity Statue or the Four Faced Buddha Monument in Surabaya. The Buddha Monument is listed by MURI as the largest and highest Four Face Deity Statue in Indonesia.
The Four-Faced Buddha Monument has a total height of 36 meters (including a dome). It was opened to the public on 9 November 2004 and used ± 4 billion rupiahs to erect this statue.
It is located on a farm with a width of 1,5 hectares, within a building with a length of 9 meters, a width of 9 meters and a height of 36 meters. When we see it as a whole, it includes the number 9, besides the reference to a similar monument in Thailand, the number 9 also has a significance for Buddhists.
Looking at the architecture of this structure, it looks like the Four Faced Buddha Monument in Thailand. The discrepancy is just on the height of the statue, the statue in Thailand is larger, but the Buddha statue in Surabaya has a smaller structure.
Apart from the similarity of the form, the statue also has four faces and four hands fully gold-plated on its entire body. In order to make the perfect gold veneering process, the kampoh material or original gold paper was shipped from Thailand.
The Four-Faced Buddha statue symbolized the four philosophies of Buddha’s goodness, which is humility, tolerant, equal (unbiased), and prayed.
This four goodness has a purpose, too. The Buddha, as the expression of the love of a fellow being, supports all without prejudice and devotes himself to prayer or to the request made in the ritual procession.
There is a holy book on Buddha ‘s eight hands, holy water, holy book, prayer beads, chest, cupu, and defensive arms to defend against evil.
