Hindu temples of Bali

I attended a lecture by Prof Wayan Dibia, a scholar and choreographer from Bali, Indonesia, at the CP Ramaswamy Iyer art gallery on Saturday January 6, 2024. He gave a very brief introduction on Balines temples, their layout and dances at the temples. Dance is a very important part of the ritual worship in Bali it seems. Bali is an island in Indonesia with nearly 95% Hindu population. Indonesia is the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, but is fairly cosmopolitan and celebrates its Hindu past.

These are notes from Prof Dibia’s lecture.

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Balinese Hindus greet each other with the phrase “Svasti Astu”,  a Sanskrit phrase which means “May you be well”. Rather than namaste or namaskaram, the common Hindu greeting in India.

A typical Bali temple

Bali is refered to as Island of the gods. Every house has a family shrine. People pray at these family shrines every day and visit the temples on important occasions.

There are four types of temples in Bali:

1. khayangan jagat,. Worhsipped by all Hindus.

2. Khayangan Desha , three main temples in each village(desha) worhsipped by villagers

3. Pura Swagina, worhsipped by people of same profession

4. Pura dadia or Pura kawitan worhsipped my members of same clan

Each temple has three shrines - one each for Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. Only if all three temples are present can a settlement be called a village. Brahma and Vishnu temples are in middle of villages. Siva temples near graveyard.

Temples usually have three sections, uttama mandala, madhya mandala and jaba mandala. Basically there are three courtyards in the temple.

Odalan is a Bali tradition; it involves rituals requiring sacrifices and offerings of many types at temples. The entire group of villages wearing tradition attire, goes in procession to a temple carrying fruits, flowers and other offerings. Musicians and dancers usually follow at the tail end of the procession.

A 1971 seminar was conducted by Bali Provincial government to categorise dances as sacred vs tourist entertainment.

The seminar declared that the three major types of Balinese dances are:

·        Wali dance, which is performed in main courtyard of a temple.

·        Babali dance, performed in second courtyard

·        Balih balihan dance, which may only be performed outside the temple.

There are Rejang dances performed by women and baris dances performed by men

Babali dances usually tell a story and are dramatic. They have selected dancers. The story is usually Ramayana or Mahabharata.

There is custom called Sidhakarya with a history. A priest from Kalinga (Odisha state in India) came to Bali, in 16th century. The king ignored him, but then several aspects went wrong with ceremony. The king then recalled the priest, regretting his rudeness. Since then a priest is always involved in ceremony called  Topeng Sidhakarya.

Some temple dances are declining. Some are extinct or very commercialized. Most temples don't have vigrahas of the murthys because they are kept in the house of the priests. Only during odalan ceremony is the vigraha brought out and kept in the temple.

Icons in temples

The above photos were snapped by me from the slides on the screen during the lecture.

Audience Q&A

Smt Nandita Krishna, who runs the CPR center, said she was not allowed into a Bali temple with salwar kameez or saree, the two popular costumes among Hindus in India. They expected her to wear the Balinese costume which she said she didn't have. Ravishankar Thiyagarajan, of Tamil Heritage Trust, said they were given some sarong and costume to enter the temple on their recent Bali visit.

Mohan Krishnamurthy of Gandhi Center, T Nagar, and THT, asked whether Bali temples had agamas. Nandita Krishna replied that they basically follow Indian agamas and traditions only, but Prof Dibia didn’t comment.

Sri Mohan also asked about rice given to devotees at temples. Prof Dibia said rices is sacred was offered as prasad. Their troupe will perform a Balinese dance at the Music Academy, Madras, on January 15, 2024, on the this very theme Arisi (Rice)

Sri Sowndarrajan, also of THT, asked why some gates have just two pillars. This is just an architectural affectation, was the reply.

To a question about what kind of music and songs were played, a friend and colleague of the speaker said that they start music with nattai ragam and end with surutti ragam. But they mainly play instrumental music. Bali unlike India, Bali didn't have bhakti movement, which produced a lot of poetry set to music. So in Balinese dances, there was no sahitya (words and poetry) for the music, only melody. 

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