In Reply to: religion posted by Mammothmouth92 on Tuesday, 1. February 2005 at 19:35 Bali Time:
- I have been trying for some months to write on Balinese Hindhuism. Any feedback, especially any corrections, would be appreciated.
BALI'S RELIGION.
From the outset don't let me even try to convince you that this is a learned treatise on Bali's religion, or even that I have an adequate knowledge of my own religion let alone Bali's that would give me any credibility to write such a piece.
Think of this as a bule's (white faced person is perhaps the most polite interpretation I have heard) embryonic learning, picked up from several trips to that island and many conversations, some quite stilted and even reticent, with drivers and even more casual acquaintances.
If you know nothing of Bali's unique religion and are a bit curious about what you might have easily seen every day on that island paradise, then this might be a simple starting point to further investigation or might just satisfy an idle curiosity, and I'm afraid that a bit of history can't be avoided as it is history that has made the religion so unique, unique even within the rest of Indonesia.
Bali's earliest recognisable religion, long before the beginning of written history, most probably would have been brought with the early immigrant travellers and settlers from China, walking across the dry land bridges that existed through Thailand, Sumatra and Java in the great ice age of about 18,000 years ago. (How long ago is that? Think of western Christianity's history of only 2,000 years since the birth of Christ!) Mixed with the ancestor, animism and nature worship of what might have been early Australasian inhabitants who could have arrived 40,000 years ago, this early example of fusion and selective adoption and adaptation has been a characteristic of Bali's inhabitants from that time to this.
With the arrival of traders from distant shores the Balinese first took various aspects of India into their civilisation and culture, particularly in the areas of art and architecture, and this absorption probably came through the influence of already Indianised Java rather than directly from India and Indians.
The Indian religions of Hinduism and Buddhism had little or no initial influence or recognition.
[The Indian-isation of local cultures was not confined to Java or Bali but was spread throughout the lands and countries known to the earliest western civilisations as 'Further India', and the island chain of Thailand-Sumatra through to Timor and perhaps even Irian Jaya- New Guinea was known as the 'Indian Archipelago'.
As a recognised name for the region 'the Indies' or the 'East Indies' was common and 'Indonesia' was not used until the early 20th century.
As a name for the wider area 'South East Asia' was not commonly used until the Second World War but when independence eventually came to the area it was the earlier term 'Indonesia' that was chosen as the name for the new country, recognising for ever the early and sustained links with that influential country.]
Perhaps strangely, it was not conquest by India over Bali, or even Java, that brought religion to the fore in either country, nor was it the influence of the stream of traders who openly practised their religion on Bali's shores. In both Java and later in Bali, the early chieftains were simply local men with intelligence and charisma which brought respect from their neighbours. This respect gave them an influence within their local area and this influence was what made them chieftains. It was not until the Indian concept of 'Rajah', something greater than 'chief', became known to them that some chief's horizons began to expand beyond their own little patch. With this concept of expansion came the need for advisors to hasten the process of becoming 'Rajah-like'; to reach that state before their neighbouring chiefs became rajahs and swallowed them up, for this was the process of becoming a rajah, expansion of territory, of influence, of respect and of power, at the expense of the others who became subordinated if they survived.
Like the Admiral's response to the British Queen during the earliest America's Cup yacht races - there was no second place.
This process of growth was well known in India and the process involved the use of priests as advisors to the potential rajah and to established the rajahs once they had become accepted. It was not religious advice that the chiefs (of Java initially) sought from these Indian priests but, recognising that their priestly studies had both developed and sorted out the most intelligent men, they became a ready made and non-threatening tool to direct the chief's path to greater power and thereby to survival itself.
In Java first, the Indian priests brought their knowledge of how to gain power and hold it, and an appreciation politics and of the pomp and splendour that came with success. The new Kings developed palaces and courts, with the trappings of dress, behaviour and language that were adopted to define those with power and those who were accepted onto the fringes. Arguably the pinnacle of this development was the flowering of the great Hindu Majapahit Empire in Java which eventually spread it's cultural influences to Bali and to Lombok.
Almost incidentally came the different religions also. The religions were both Hinduism and Buddhism and both co-existed (and still do even in some of the most important shrines like Pura Ulun Danu on Lake Bratan) but neither survived the the association with the local religion intact. On Bali it was Hinduism that did the better in winning 'hearts and minds' to coin a currently popular (or un-popular) phrase. Even so, the Hinduism of Bali is a foreign religion to those of the Indian sub-continent today as there are elements of both of these great Indian religions combined still with elements of ancestor worship and the ancient's animism.
With other religions in Java and Lombok almost totally displaced by the more aggressive spread of Islam, the Hinduism of Bali became unique. It is a religion of daily life which blossoms at (frequent) special times.
The day begins in every Balinese household with recognition of the ancestors at the family temple always located in that part of the family compound nearest the sacred Mount Agung, the seat of the gods on earth. From the house compound respect is paid at the workplace, whether it be an office, a rice field, the taxi, the forest or the beach, where an offering will be made. In places like the Kuta Art markets (which every tourist to Bali will surely see) The little square offerings will overflow from the market shrine on the corner and spread across the adjacent road.
There are always three temples in each village. Again, closest to Mount Agung is the temple of the ancestors, the first of the family to settle the area. Here, every 210 days of the Balinese year a special ceremony is held and attendance is expected of all the members of the extended family. This is a ceremony which usually lasts three days. In the centre of the village is the working village temple where the daily activities of the village take place and where the gods who look after the village are honoured. On the seaward side of the village, furthest away from Mount Agung, is the temple of the dead. the cemetery and an open space where cremations take place.
Each district also has its own temple and maintains a shrine at the most sacred temple of all, at Besakih on the slopes of Mount Agung.
Balinese Hinduism recognises one supreme god, Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa, the great unknowable one. The supreme god is only infrequently the object of a Balinese' prayers however and, in a situation not too unlike the trinity of Christianity, it is to the triumvirate of gods at the next level that offerings are directed. These three are Brahma the creator god in the south who is recognised by the colour red or crimson, Wisnu the protector and preserver god in the north recognised by black and Siwa the destroyer and the god in the centre.
This trio is only the start for those who would understand Bali Hinduism. Like the branches of a tree there sprout a veritable pantheon of supporting deities. In the west is Mahadewa (yellow), in the east is Iswara (white), in the north west is Sangkara (green), north east Sambhu (blue), southeast Mahesora (pink) and south west Rudra (orange). If you think you now have a grasp of the Balinese ethereal world stop and consider that like the tree mentioned earlier there are the demons in the roots under the surface, and these too need to be appeased with equal devotion and respect to keep the universe in balance.