The Indonesian island of Java stands as a historical paradise of human civilization, its fertile soil sustaining generations of farmers since the era of Hindu-Buddhist rule. Among the thousands of Hindu and Buddhist temples still preserved on the island is the Lumbung Sengi Temple, also known as Candi Lumbung. It stands at Sengi, in the Magelang area of Central Java, on the volcanic slopes below Mount Merapi, in a landscape whose extraordinary fertility and recurring eruptions have shaped settlement here for more than a millennium. Built of dressed volcanic stone, the small sanctuary takes its popular name from the Javanese word for a rice barn, a reference to the compact, raised form of its body on a stepped base.