At first I want to include this article under the headline “Through the Eyes of Researcher” but since this article was written a Balinese high priest Sri Bhagawan Dwija Warsa Nawa Sandi from Buleleng regency who has great concern on environment and climate change and produce many good articles on Hinduism in English, so idecided tomake a new headline “Through the Eyes of Balinese High Priest”. So without further ado here is the article.

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Balinese use to celebrate the Saka New Year. The Saka year is 78 years behind the Gregorian because it was created in 78 AD to mark the crowning of King Kaniska 1 of the Kusana Dynasty, in India. The Saka calendar found its way to Bali through the spread of Hinduism from India to Indonesia and eventually Bali.

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Here is an interesting piece of writing on the growing trend of buying offerings for religious ceremony which is taken from Scott A Johnsen’s thesis which is entitled From Royal House to Nation: The Construction of Hinduism and Balinese Ethnicity In Indonesia.

Many Balinese now regularly purchase offerings, from small offerings for use in the houseyard to all the offerings needed for a life-cycle or temple anniversary ritual. On a positive reading, one often hears that this is more efisien than making all offerings oneself. On a negative reading, it is now common to hear the complaint that Balinese too often purchase their offerings, instead of making them themselves. For example, an offering specialist in Tabanan regency laments this change, commenting in Bali Aga magazine:

Now it is not like in the past, when making offerings for [rituals – lists offerings for marriages, mortuary rituals, etc.] was done with others as a duty (ngayah). There did not used to be people buying offerings as is done today, everything were done oneself. I learned from my grandmother. Now, since it is normal to buy them, no one makes offerings every evening if a relative is having a ritual.

In Bangli, I also encountered clear sentiments along these lines. For example, at a shadow puppet performance by one of my sources, a character urged women to make their own offerings: “Young women should study to make canang [kind of common offering], so they don’t always have to buy them. Studying this is proper for women.” A woman from the city of Bangli who worked in the capital, Denpasar, told me that the feeling of solidarity is much greater in Bangli. In her ward in Denpasar they buy the offerings and spend two days at most preparing for temple anniversaries (as opposed to one or two weeks in Bangli). A village official in Bangli told me that the use of purchased offerings lessens the feeling of mutual assistance (gotong royong) that derives from collective preparations for a ritual. In Sanur (highly touristed area in South Bali), an older woman told me that there did not used to be any people selling offerings, but now if there is a cremation on short notice (ngaben mendadak) usually most of the offerings are purchased. I heard from sources in Denpasar and in Bangli that people in Denpasar are more likely than many other Balinese to buy offerings. One source said this was because people in Denpasar are “a bit modern”, while another said that they are becoming more individualistic and do not have as much time as people elsewhere. In less urban areas, purchasing offerings can have connotations of failure: it is evidence that one could not mobilize sufficient labor.

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Ancestor worship is a vital part of Balinese Hinduism, and it is not an exaggeration to say that ceremony for ancestor is as pompous as ceremony for gods. Philosophically, the veneration of ancestor is based on the belief that all Balinese owe their existence, their life and their wisdom to their ancestors. Parents, grand parents, great grand parent, and so on are the one who took many great ordeals to bring their descendants to the world, raise them, and give them knowledge to survive in this world. These produce a concept of debt to ancestors (pitra rna) which at the end creates a sense of obligation to hold various ceremonies to worship the ancestors.

Though the scripture put emphasis on the idea of debt to ancestor as the foundation of holding various ceremonies to worship the ancestor but for most of the Balinese, the obligation to venerate the ancestor is created base on the fear of the rage of the ancestor and on the hope of obtaining special favor from the ancestor. In Balinese belief the ancestors have divine power to help their descendants, they watch over their descendants, act as guardian spirits, provide valuable help in the time of need and danger. But the descendants neglect their ancestors, fail to give sufficient homage or veneration the rage of ancestors is surely the source of various calamities and sicknesses.

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It is not only Muslims and non-Balinese who are visibly excluded or even threatened by this discourse. It also affects Balinese Hindus who do not practise the appropriate Hinduism as portrayed in the Bali Post and as taught by the televangelist Hindu priests on Bali TV. This form of Hinduism is supported by the PHDI (Indonesian Hindu Council). Ajeg Bali is part of a larger movement to sanitise, standardise and explain Balinese Hinduism. Thus Bali TV will often have programs explaining how offerings should be made and how rituals should be performed. There are also community and city-wide youth praying competitions, enforcing ideas of stylised praying and how a Balinese should and should not communicate with God.

In addition to the standardisation of praying styles and ritual activity, ceremonial clothing has also become more uniform. Today, it is the norm to wear white for most ceremonies and black for cremation, whereas ten to 15 years ago ceremonial clothing was much more varied in colour. The Western colours of purity and grief have been appropriated by the PHDI, Bali TV and other ajeg Bali proponents and promoted as a form of standardising ritual and pakaian adat.

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