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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More than 20,000 temples are scattered all over the island of Bali. All these temples are linked one and another create hundreds of temple networks based on the function of the temple and the clan of their congregation (network of clan temple). Each network has a central temple from which the network starts. The central temples can be everywhere; they are not localized in one area.

The function based temple networks involves only functional temples, or temple of professions, such as Melanting temple (temple of the trader), Ulun Suwi or Ulun Carik Temple – Ulun Suwi temple is an irrigation temple that belong to a subak (traditional water management group), and Banuan temple (dry fields temple).

Pura Melanting, Pulaki - Singaraja

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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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In order to produce an optimum quantity of rice a complete farming tools is necessary. Balinese farmer has a wide selection of farming tool based the activity in the field. For example:
1. Land preparation
Land preparation is first step of rice growing phase; these are the tools which are used for land preparation:
a. Hoe (with one tooth, two teeth, four teeth, and six teeth)
b. Sorok (spade)
c. Tulud (leveler)
d. Penampad (long knife)
e. Tengala (plow)
f. Lampit (leveler pull by bull)

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The general Balinese philosophy guiding the subak system adheres to the principle of Tri Hita Karana which emphasises that happiness can only be reached if the Creator (God), the people (the farmers) and nature (the rice fields) live in harmony with each other. Based on this philosophy are the ceremonies which are a substantial part of the rice cultivation cycle. The ceremonies are carried out at the various temples which are associated with the subak.

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Balinese rice cultivation is famous all over the world for its efficient use of irrigation water. At the heart of irrigation management are the water user associations called subak. They are the backbone of Balinese rice cultivation.

Subak has been described by several authors. It is commonly recognized as an autonomous socio-religious association which deals with matters related to the cultivation and irrigation of rice. They have evolved over centuries, organized by the farmers themselves without (or little) guidance from central authorities. The subak are considered to be one of the most effective irrigator organizations in the world.

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