On Wednesday, Balinese celebrated Galungan Holyday, a holyday to commemorate the victory of Dharma (virtue) over Adharma (evil). This holyday is considered the pinnacle of Balinese struggle to subdue the negative force of evil, and what is called evil here is the sad ripu (six internal enemies), they are kama (lust), loba (greed), krodha (anger), mada (drunkeness), moha (confusion) and matsarya (envy). It is an inward struggle, a struggle to free our mind from the influence of negative force that at the end leads us to do various bad deeds.

Though this struggle is carried out everyday but the ultimate battle occur during three-day period before Galungan, when three personifications of negative force come to the world successively, they are known as Kala-tiganing Galungan – which are Bhuta Galungan, Bhuta Dunggulan and Bhuta Amangkurat.

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A piece of land is not “just a piece of land” for Balinese, there is something in the land or place that is revered and sometimes feared by them. something unknown, mystical but produces significant effect to Balinese everyday life even to the Balinese community since Balinese believe that mystical realm cannot be separated with the physical world.

The concept of rwa bhineda, two (opposing yet depending on each other) force of nature underlies the distinction made in Bali between the places considered tenget or angker, i.e. uncanny, magically dangerous, possessed by evil spirit or bhuta kala and places that are suci, nirmala, i.e. pure, clean, holy or consecrated by man with divine help. The implementation of the distinction of these two kinds of places can be found in the outline of a Balinese house compound or village.

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