Besides the dim history on the carnage of PKI – Partai Komunis Indonesia (Indonesia Communist Party) in Jembrana regency there is another story of love and tolerance inside. This is on religions in Jembrana where Hindu, Muslim, Catholic, and Protestant live together in harmony. They have created the villages of tolerance for them selves especially and for Bali generally.

Penjor. flickr.com/photos/kaiconragan/

On this Chritmas Day there are two Christian communities who are celebrating it. They are the Protestant of Abyasari Village and the Catholic of Palasari Village. Albeit they are not Hindu, they celebrate Christmas in Hindu’s way by killing pigs for the Christmas meal two days before the D-day (like the Hindu on Penampahan Galungan). They also make penjor (highly decorated bamboo poles) and using the Hindu traditional clothes (kebaya, belt, and sarong — for women and udeng hat, double sarongs – for men) when going to church.

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There are two old manuscripts of Calon Arang folktale. The first one is from Bali and the other is from Java and had been translated into Dutch by R. Ng. Purbatjaraka in Bijdr. K. I deel 82 page 110-180, and then it was sung in traditional symptom by Raden Wiradat and published by Balai Pustaka in 1931 (book series no. 942). Pramoedya Ananta Toer rewrote this folk tale in Javanese version which was written in 1462 of Caka Lunar Calendar and some other folk tales in order to save the existence of the folk tale itself which begins to disappear.

Calon Arang performance on The Annual Bali Arts Festival 2006

In the book of Pramoedya entitle ‘Cerita Calon Arang’ – the Story of Calon Arang, mentioned that Mpu Baradah, a great priest who defeated Calon Arang has a daughter named ‘Wedawati’, Weda is the Hindu’s Bible and Wati is an address for a girl or woman. So, ‘Wedawati’ is the girl who learns Weda. In his writing on Calon Arang he made some characters have same proportion; it seems that there are many central characters inside. They are: Calon Arang, King Airlangga, Mpu Baradah, and Wedawati. In the Balinese version Wedawati is not mentioned but Ratna Manggali, the daughter of Calon Arang is told more.

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