BALINESE CALENDAR OF EVENTS

BALINESE CALENDAR OF EVENTS

There are two traditional calendars in Bali in addition to the Western or Gregorian calendar. The Hindu saka calendar operates on years from 354 - 356 days, is divided into twelve months and is eighty years behind the Gregorian year, so 2011 is 1932 in the saka calendar.

Also in use is Wuku, pawukon or uku calendar based on a 210 day lunar cycle ; these cycles are unnumbered. The wuku calendar is magnificently complex, as the 210 days are divided into weeks that are ten days long, nine days long, eight days long and so on down to weeks that are one day long. All of these weeks run concurrently and have specific names: for example the four-day week is called catur Wara, the five-day week Panca Wara and each day of each week has a specific name. This means that every day has a name from each of the weeks, giving ten names. To ad to the complexity, each of the thirty seven day weeks has its own name. You may come across the names of the days of the three-day week, pasah, beteng and kajen. They are often used for traditional markets which operate on a three day cycle. You can buy tika calendars to keep track of all of this, but the different systems won't affect most visitors - they are used chiefly to determine festival dates and other auspicious days.

The wuku Calender determines some Balinese Holidays such as Galungan Day. Galungan is an annual event in the wuku calender which means it takes place every 210 days. This year we celebrate on 15 July 2015. This ten -day festival celebrates the victory of good over evil and all the ancestral gods are thought to come down to earth to take part. Elaborate preparations take place: penjor - bamboo poles hung with offerings -arch over the road, offerings are prepared and animals slaughtered for the offerings. Galungan day itself is spent with family, praying and making offerings. The following day, Manis Galungan is the day for visiting friends. The final and the most important day is Kuningan, when families once again get together, pray and make offerings as the souls of the ancestors return to heaven. "Happy Galungan Day": Hope we are more peace (peace at our heart, body, and earth) Om santih, santih, santih, Om

BALINESE BELIEF

Over ninety-three percent of Balinese Are Hindus, and religious activity permeates almost every aspect of island life. In the morning, the pavements doorsteps and shop fronts of every town and village are graced with fresh little palm leaf offerings laid down for the gods and spirits who need 24 hours propitiation; in the afternoon, processions of men and women parade the streets en route to temple celebrations, towers of offertory fruit and rice cakes balanced on their heads. This one of the description when there is holiday and temple festival in Bali.
        At the root of agama Hindu lies the fundamental understanding that the world-both natural and supernatural is composed of opposing forces. These can be defines as good and evil, positive and negative, pure and impure, order and disorder, gods and demons, or as a mixture of all these things - but the crucial fact is that the forces need to be balanced. The desire to achieve equilibrium and harmony in all things dictates every spiritual activity. Positive forces, or Dharma, are represented by the gods ( dewa and Bhatara ), and need to be cultivated, entertained and honored - with offerings of food, water and flowers, with dances, beautiful paintings and sculptures, fine earthly abodes ( temples )and ministrations from ceremonially clad devotees. The malevolent forces, adharma, which manifest themselves as earth demons ( Bhuta, kala )and cause sickness, death and volcanic eruptions, need to be neutralized with elaborate rituals and special offerings.
      To ensure that malevolent forces never take the upper hand, elaborate purification rituals are undertaken for exorcism of spirits. Crucial to this is the notion of ritual uncleanes  ( sebel ), a state which can affect an individual ( during a woman's period for example, or after a serious illness ), a family ( after the death of a close relative, or if twins are born), or even a whole community ( a plague of rats in village rice-fields, or a fire in village buildings.) The island  can even become sebel, and island-wide exorcisms are held every new year (Next Nyepi celebration will be held on 21st March 2015) to restore the spiritual health of Bali and all its people. More elaborate island cleansing rituals are performed every five, ten and twenty-five years, climaxing with the centennial Eka Dasa Rudra rite, which is held at the holiest temple, Besakih. In addition, there are all sorts of purification rituals ( yadnya ) that a Balinese must go through at various significant stages in their life.
      The focus of every purification ritual is the ministering of holy water - such an essential part of the religion that agama Hindu is sometimes known as agama tirta, the religion of holy water. Ordinary well ar tap water can be transformed into holy water by a pedanda  ( high priest ), but water from certain sources is considered to be particularly sacred - the springs at Tirta Empul in Tampaksiring and on Gunung Agung, for example, and the water taken from the lakeside Pura Danu Batur.
      As the main sources of these life-giving waters, Bali's three great mountains are also worshiped: The highest, and the holiest, of the three is Gunung Agung, associated with the sun god Surya, and site of Bali's most sacred mother temple, Besakih; Gunung Batur and Gunung Batukaru also hold great spiritual power, as do the lakes that fill their volcanic craters. From this concept comes comes the Balinese sense of direction and spatial orientation, whereby all things, such as temples, houses, and villages, are aligned in relation to the mountain, upstream, and is the holiest direction; kelod is the downstream direction, the part is closest to the sea and therefore impure.
      Finally, there are the notions of karma, reincarnation, and the attaining of enlightenment. The aim of every Hindu is to attain enlightenment ( moksa ), which brings with it the union of the individual and the divine, and liberation from the endless painful cycle of death and rebirth. Moksa is only attainable by pure souls, and this can take hundreds of lifetimes to attain. Hindus believes that everybody is reincarnated according to their karma, karma being a kind of account book which registers all the good and bad deeds performed in the past lives of a soul. Karma is closely bound up with caste and notion that an individual should accept rather than challenge their destiny.

BALINESE CREMATION

The ceremony that visitors to Bali are most likely to witness is cremation ( pengabenan or palebon ). The Balinese believe that the soul of each person inhabits a temporary receptacle, the body, during each life on earth. Following death, this body must be returned to the five elements of solid, liquid, energy, radiance and ether to become ready for reincarnation. The lengthy and complex rituals, the magnificent objects and the spectacular burning itself make this the most picturesque manifestation of religious observance on the island.
           Following death, the body is usually buried, sometimes for years, while the elaborate preparations for the cremation are made. Now days trend,  families will often share in the cremation ceremonies of other families in one banjar. The entire extended family and banjar is involved in building temporary shelters for shrines and preparing offerings. Animals must be slaughtered, holy water acquired and gamelan organized. An animal-shaped sarcophagus is built from a solid tree trunk, covered with paper and cloth and decorated with mirrors, tassels and tinsel. The cremation tower, representing the Balinese universe, supported by the turtle, Bedawang, and the two naga, Basuki and Anantaboga, is also built, with tiers similar to the roofs on the menu in temples. A small bale at the base of the tiers houses an effigy of the dead person and the body itself, or just the bones if  burial has previously taken place.
          The event itself is joyful, accompanied by the soft music of the bamboo gamelan angklung. The sarcophagus and cremation tower are carried to the cemetery and twirled around many times. At the cremation ground, the body is transferred from the tower into the sarcophagus, which is anointed with holy water and set alight. The tower is burned in a separate fire. After burning, the ashes are carried to the sea or to a stream which will carry them to the ocean. A further purification ceremony takes place three days after the cremation, another at twelve days, finishing with the ritual of nyagara-gunung when the family take offerings to important sea and mountain temples.  

Balinese Cremation ( Ngaben )

BALINESE VILLAGE ORGANIZATIONS

The smallest unit of social organization in each village is the banjar or neighborhood. Each adult male on Bali joins the local banjar when he marries; his wife and children are also members but only the adult men attend the meetings. 

The size of banjar varies enormously -  the largest ones in Denpasar may have five hundred heads of household, while the small rural ones may have as few as fifty.

            Typically the banjar meets every month in the village meeting house, the Bale Banjar, to discuss land issues, plans for future temple ceremonies, the local gamelan orchestra, latest government project and any problems relating to specific members. Although there is a head of the banjar ( Kliang ), all decisions are reached by consensus. 

             The Banjar has considerable authority, if residential land in the area is left vacant for a period of time, it will revert to the banjar for retribution to the members. If members neglect their duties they can be fined or even expelled from the village. This is a particularly powerful threat among people where communal life is at the heart of their existence. Expulsion also means the loss of the right to burial and cremation within the village.

             

THE SUBAK

Much of the daily life of a village revolves around the sawah, or Rice-fields, and numerous complex rituals accompany all the stages of rice cultivation encapsulated in the worship of Dewi Sri, the goddess of rice and prosperity.

            The local organization in charge of each irrigation system is the subak; these are known to have existed on Bali since the nine century, and are made up of all the farmers who use the water in that system, along with detailed planning to ensure that every farmer gets the water he needs, is co-ordinate by the kliang Subak. Any subak with plans that may influence the irrigation system, such as changing dry field to wet, or causing conflict with another subak, has to consult the regional water temples and ultimately, the Jero Gede, Chief priest of Pura Ulun Danu Batur, whose decision at island level is final.

           The Subak Museum, on the eastern outskirts of Tabanan, is well worth a visit for more information on this unique aspect of Balinese life.

Cycle of Life Celebrations in Bali

On Bali, rituals and ceremonies are carried out at important points in an individual's life to purify them, and make sure they have sufficient spiritual energy to remain healthy and calm.

The first life-cycle ritual, megedong-gegongan, take places about six months after conception, when the fetus has a definite human form, and the ritual emphasizes the hope of a long healthy life for the child. Subsequent birth rituals focus on the placenta (ari -ari ), which is washed and buried inside a coconut wrapped in sacred white cloth near the gateway of the parents household. A rock is placed over the spot to protect it, and regular offerings are made there.

           Following the birth of a baby, the parents and child are regarded as unclean ( Sebel ), and can not participate in religious practices. For the mother and baby this lasts 42 days, for the father it lasts until the baby's umbilical cord drop off, when the kepus pungsed ritual is carried out. The cord is wrapped in cloth, placed in an offering shaped like a dove and suspended over the baby's bed, along with small shrine dedicated to Sanghyang Panca Kumara, son of Siwa. Twelve days after birth, the ceremony of ngelepas hawon take place with offerings made for the baby in the kitchen, the well and the family temple, but this is less important than the tutug kambuhan, 42 days after the birth, which marks the end of the sebel period for the mother. After 105 days, telu bulan is large, often elaborate ceremony at which the child is named, and may be given an amulet to guard against evil spirits.

        The child's firts birthday, oton, occurs after 210 days ( A Balinese year according to the wuku calendar), and is celebrated with much feasting.  It may be accompanied by a ritual hair cutting ceremony. The next ceremony, meketus, takes place when the child's milk teeth fall out. Prayers are offered to the god to ensure that the adult teeth will be strong. Sanghyang Kumara is sent away as the child's protector, and the child is now guarded by the family ancestors.
            The next life-cycle ceremonies occur at Puberty, with manggah daa rituals for a girl and manggah teruna for the boy, although the male ritual is often omitted. The tooth-filing ritual, mapandes, takes place between six and eighteen years of age, preferably before marriage, but after puberty for girls, and lavish offerings. It is considered to be an absolutely vital ritual, and the elderly, and even the dead, have been known to have their teeth filed. the aim of the ritual is to remove any hint of coarse, uncontrolled behaviour from the person by filing down the upper canine teeth or fangs - Caling, as the Balinese call them - and the four teeth in between; six in total. Ritual are also performed to rid the person of lust, greed, anger, drunken-ness, confusion and jealousy, in order that the person will lead a better life and be assured a more favourable reincarnation.
           Marriage, pawiwahan or nganten, is final life-cycle ceremony for most Balinese. There are two options when getting married. The most correct is mamadik, when the marriage is agreed between the two sets of parents and a huge financial outlay for ceremonies is involved. Much more common is ngerorod or malaib, elopement. The man and woman run off and spend the night together, not so secretly that nobody knows, but with sufficient subterfuge that the girl's parents can pretend to be outraged. The following morning simple, private ceremony ( Makala-kalaan ) is carried out, and the couple are married. Frequently, rather more elaborate rituals and reception are hosted later the same day by the boy's parents. The girl's parents will not be invited as there is supposed to be bad feeling between the two sides. However, three days later the two sets of parents meet at the ketipat bantal ceremony and are reconciled.