Here is an interesting excerpt on Balinese Household that is taken from Ayami Nakatani’s Paper entitled “Private or Public? : Defining Female Roles in the Balinese Ritual Domain”.

Apart from communal temples, public offices, schools and shops, the territory of a banjar (a sub-unit of the village) is divided into walled house compounds (pakarangan) with high and narrow gates facing each other on opposite sides of alley ways. These enclosed compounds house one or more households and a small family temple.

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Paying homage and praying to a temple is not just an act of devotion to God for Balinese, it is more than just a religious activity. In socio-political context praying in a temple for a Balinese is also an act to justify his positions in the society, his position in a clan, his position in a village, etc in short praying to the temple is an act of justifying his identity.

Taman Ayun Temple

Justifying identity through worshipping in a temple is possible since most temple membership in Bali is exclusive, that is, only those who are member may worship there. One cannot as in Islam and Christianity, stop in at any temple and pray; for this privilege, in Bali someone must in some sense regular member of the congregation of the temple. From more 20,000 temples in Bali not more than five percents are public temple, where everybody can pray and pay homage and the rest of them are members only. (There are five types of temple in Bali: public temple, territorial temple, functional temple and clan temple).

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Ideas of “debt” (utang, rna) are pervasive in Bali, but this is not a simple economic concept, it involves both material (sekala) and non material (niskala) realm; it seems that Balinese have “invisible” economic relations with spirits, ancestor, and myriad manifestations of God, but it is actually not a some sort of economic relation, it is some obligations that have to be fulfilled towards God, ancestor and priest. This kind of obligation occur since Balinese believe that everyone has three kind of debts in his life (Tri Rna), they are “debt to God” (Dewa Rna), “debt to ancestor” (Pitra Rna), and “debt to priest” (Rsi Rna).

These three debts are considered as a basic reason of Balinese religious ceremonies. Debt to God (Dewa Rna) occur since Balinese believe that God gives life to human and bestow innumerable mercies and graces. Balinese pay their debt to God and expressing their thankfulness by conducting myriad ceremonies and presenting innumerable offerings to the God. Sometimes in the time of danger or facing a great illness or misfortune, Balinese usually make a vow to present certain offering if God help him to face the danger or misfortune, or recover from illness. When he is able to pass all the danger and misfortune or recovered from illness, he has a debt to God that has to be paid immediately, and Balinese is usually waste no time in paying this kind of debt.

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Thousands of temples that scattered all over the island of Bali are not just built for a single purpose. The function of a temple can be determined by the characteristics of the temple that totally depend on the bond that bind the temple congregations to the temple. The bond may be a social, political, economical, or genealogical bond.

The social bond can be in the form of territorial bond, and teacher – student bond. The political bond is created base on the need of the king to unite his people and territory. The economical bond is created based on the similarity of the profession, for example farmer, trader, fisherman, etc. Genealogical bond is established based on kinship or clan.

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Past is something that cannot be separated from Balinese life. It penetrates deep into all aspect of Balinese everyday life. The position of a Balinese in his community, in socio-cultural life of the community, in religious activities in the temples is depend mainly on his past and point of origin.

The foremost researcher on Balinese socio-cultural life, Henk Schulte Nordholt in his work entitled “Origin, Descent, and Destruction: Text and Context in Balinese Representations of the past“, gives a better light on this account:

“Even today, many aspects of Balinese life are firmly rooted in the past. Whether it concerns religious concepts, temples, someone’s health or status, or political relationships, the truth about the order of things can only be found(ed) in the past. The Old-Javanese kakawin classics are in this respect “extremely true” because they are seen as the oldest texts in which an eternal truth is revealed that exists “beyond the realm of the senses.”

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