The Purification of Body, Mind and Soul

Tampaksiring for Balinese not just offers a magnificent view of terraced rice fields or a splendid temple with excellent architecture but also provides a holy bath place that consists of 23 non forbidden showers (there are few showers that are forbidden for melukat or recharge and purify the spiritual enthusiasm). Each of these non forbidden showers are believed by Balinese to have power to cure various illness range from minor skin problem to deadly heart or liver problem, purify their body, mind and soul (sudhamala), increase intelligence, luck and magical power, negate the effect of curse, black magic, and unfulfilled vow or promise, annihilating plague (gering), and nightmare (ipian ala), clean the body of a deceased person (pabersihan), clear his path to the next world (pangentas) and the source of holy water for a specific ceremony.

Every week thousands of Balinese flock to this holy bath place for a melukat ritual, most of them will come on holy day, such as full moon, new moon, Kajeng Kliwon (a Hindu holy day that occur every 15 days, based on Balinese Pawukon calendar), or simply on Sunday. Some offering will be needed when melukat in this holy bath place. The size of offering are vary, range from simple canang sari (arrangement of flower in a container made of young coconut leaf) to intricate peras pejati (an offering that symbolize our good intention). Most of Balinese bring plastic containers; they fill them with the mixture of holy water from various showers, and brought them home, in order to be used as a holy water for various purposes.

There are three pools in this holy bath place, the first pool has 15 showers, the second pool has two showers, and the thirds pool contains six showers. Before melukat ritual takes place, Balinese will pray and presenting an offering to the deity who own this holy bath place. A simple offering is also presented on a specific shower that its effect is desired, for example someone who constantly disturb by nightmare will place a simple offering on the shower that has a power to annihilate nightmare and melukat under that shower. After melukat in this holy bath place Balinese will pray into the main temple.

The melukat activity in this holy bath place is not just restricted on the daytime. On the full moon or new moon, Balinese will prefer to do melukat activity late at night. This holy bath place open 24 hours. This melukat activity is an important part of Balinese religious activity.

Women in their period are forbidden to enter in this holy bath place. It is not discrimination but an application of sacred rule against blood in holy place. Person whose member of his/her family died recently is also forbidden to enter this holy bath place.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 5th, 2007 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Tags: canang sari, gering, ipian ala, Kajeng Kliwon, melukat, pabersihan, pangentas, Pawukon, peras pejati, sudhamala, Tampaksiring.