This article is featured in 2006 that relates to Galungan, here are details:

8^th November 2006 is the best wedding day for Balinese. For hundreds of years Balinese have been using this day for their wedding day. When somebody asks Balinese the best day for wedding ceremony, this day will be their first answer.

Why?

For Balinese to hold a wedding ceremony on auspicious day is an indispensable matter. They believe that a good wedding day will bring happiness into the family. To find a good day Balinese usually consult the Balinese traditional calendar or ask a priest to choose the right day based on ancient astronomical scripture which is called Wariga. In choosing a good wedding day many considerations have to take, first Balinese traditional calendar is an intricate kind of calendar, compare to Gregorian calendar which used “week cycle” that consist of seven days.

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Part 1

I Gusti Ngurah Rai bestowed the National Hero award due to his sacrifice towards his nation, Indonesia, in the battle of Margarana against the Dutch. He was killed in the battle on 20th November in 1946 with his Ciung Wanara troop which included 95 soldiers. His name is immortalized as the name of the International Airport in Bali, name of street, campus, and sport centre to commemorate him.

Red: Gusti Ngurah Rai, Blue: Dr. Anak Agung Made Djelantik, 1931, from flickr.com/photos/wibisono/

I Gusti Ngurah Rai was born on Wednesday, wuku (seven-day week in the Balinese 210-day calendar — one traditional year consists of 30 wukus) Kelawu, 30th January 1917, in Carangsari Village, ± 24 km to the north from Denpasar. His father’s name is I Gusti Ngurah Patjung, was a Manca (head of the sub-district) and his mother is I Gusti Ayu Kompyang. His childhood name was I Gusti Ngurah Gejor (shake) because a great earthquake was going on when he was born and then changed into Ngurah Rai in his school period.

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Most of the temple anniversaries and ceremonies in Bali are held based on the traditional Pawukon cycle. The Pawukon cycle also called uku or wuku, was brought to Bali in the 14th century with the fleeing Hindu follower of the collapsed Majapahit empire. The Pawukon calendar flourishes in Bali though it originated from Java. The Pawukon cycle provides the reference system for most of the religious ceremonies in Bali, as well as market days, temple anniversaries, personal anniversaries, good and bad luck days, and days for doing particular things. A Pawukon “year”, which lasts 210 days, should really be thought as a cycle, since no record is kept of successive “years”, nor are they numbered or named, they just pass by. (image from http://www.louisg.net/C_balinais.htm)

The Pawukon cycle is quite complex since its 210 days are subdivided not according to simple system of months and weeks but into ten separate week systems. There is a week that only consists of one day; one consists of two days; one consists of three days, and so on, up to ten-day week. And they all run concurrently. And to add more complication on the cycle, Pawukon cycle also divides its 210 days into another thirty weeks known as Wuku. Each Wuku has its own name; each week consists of seven days, luckily there is no unique name for each day in these Wuku weeks.

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No Balinese in his right mind will hold a ceremony without consulting a calendar for an auspicious day for the execution of the ceremony, and the best calendar for determining a good day for ceremony is a Modern Balinese paper calendar. This calendar is an amalgamation of three different calendars, the pawukon calendar, Saka lunar calendar and Gregorian calendar. Modern Balinese calendar contains various information ranges from the date to the date of anniversary of various temples all over Bali, from the occurrence of full moon and new moon to list of auspicious and inauspicious day.

The main section of the calendar consists of columns of the dates, each square of these columns contains a date in the middle of the square and surrounded by the names of the day of this particular date, a red dot if the date coincides with full moon and a black dot if it coincides with new moon. Each date in this calendar may have ten different names as a result of the complexity of Pawukon Calendar.

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Holy Water is an indispensable part of Balinese Hinduism; the importance of Holy Water is shown by the older generation of Balinese who still calls the Balinese Hinduism as ‘Agama Tirtha‘, (the religion of Holy Water). No ceremony in Balinese Hinduism can be called perfect or finish without the presence of Holy Water. If a Balinese cannot attend a temple ceremony or other kind of ceremony, he simply asks for Holy Water that is obtained from the temple where the ceremony is held or the Holy Water that is distributed in other kind of ceremony.

Obtaining Holy Water is an obligatory part of every ceremony in Bali. For a small ceremony in a household compound, the Holy Water is usually obtained from a high priest, for a bigger ceremony in a household compound the Holy Water is usually obtained from the nearby Holy spring (beji). For a small ceremony in a temple, the Holy Water is usually obtained from the nearby Holy spring (beji) but for a bigger ceremony, it is obtained from the sea. For a grand ceremony such as Eka Dasa Rudra (centennial purification of the universe), the Holy Water is not just obtained from the sea but also from the Mount Semeru in East Java and Mount Rinjani in Lombok.

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