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.
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.
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