Galungan: A Balinese holy day with mithology and history

By Garrett Kam

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): The Balinese celebrate the festival of Galungan every 210 days, and it next falls this Wednesday.

The event is based on an ancient agricultural feast of giving thanks to nature for providing bountiful crops. The word galungan actually means "something done collectively", as in a harvest.

The Balinese busy themselves in the days immediately leading up to this important celebration. On Sunday, they made fermented glutinous rice for the offerings. Yesterday was used to prepare the various fried rice cakes and biscuits which were given a light sugar coating.

Pigs will be slaughtered this morning, and the meat and blood used for offerings and food for a family feast. The most visual aspect of Galungan begins this afternoon when long bamboo poles decorated with palm leaf ornaments and agricultural products begin to line the lanes and streets of Bali.

Forming graceful arches, these penjor are signs of a bountiful harvest, with rice, fruits and sweets hanging from them. Their height and curved tip symbolize the high mountain peak of Gunung Agung where Balinese ancestral spirits reside. From the mountain descends rivers that snake throughout the land, irrigating the fields and providing the water of life.

The penjor is also symbolic of the Hindu-Buddhist naga water serpent, with its tail high up in the air from which hangs a beautiful wishing jewel made from flowers and palm leaves. A coconut or two and a spray of palm leaves tied a couple of meters from the base represent the reproductive organs of the serpent.

The serpent plunges into the ground -- like water fertilizing the earth -- and sprouts like a tree with its head emerging as a nearby shrine filled with rice, fruits and sweets. From the shrine hangs a banner, usually made of trimmed palm leaves or colorful cloth, decorated with cosmic fertility symbols and geometric designs. This lamak is the tongue of the serpent as it spews forth the riches of the earth.

If there has been a wedding in the household since the last Galungan, the penjor and lamak take on enormous proportions, for the best fruits of the universe are descendants, the child (or the one to be born) of the newly married couple. It is easy to recognize the sexual symbolism in the towering penjor, mostly assembled by men, and the opening of the shrine with lamak and offerings made by women.

On Galungan day, the divine ancestors visit their earthly descendants. The celebrations focus on the family, with household temples cleaned and decorated for the divine relatives. Daily offerings of food are presented to them for the next five days, after which they depart. The universe then is stable and "nobly nailed down" on Pemacekan Agung, Monday, Sept. 22.

There is more to Galungan than meets the eye. Through the layering of mythology and history, the Balinese have developed the celebration into a highly symbolic event with multiple meanings. The most popular, and perhaps recent, interpretation tells that Bali was once ruled by a powerful king, Mayadanawa, who lived high up near mount Gunung Batur at Balingkang. His realm extended all the way down to the village of Bata Anyar.

Also known as Bedahulu, this place with "a different head or leader" lived up to its king's name. Mayadanawa was a demon of illusion, capable of changing himself into anything. With this tremendous power, he became so proud that he forbade the Balinese to worship anyone else but Mayadanawa himself. The people suffered greatly, crops failed and epidemics spread throughout the land.

The Balinese appealed for help from their high priest Empu Kulputih, who meditated at Pura Besakih temple on the slopes of Gunung Agung. Finally Indra, Hindu god of elements, responded to the plea and descended to Bali with his divine forces to fight Mayadanawa and his forces led by minister Kala Wong, the "human demon".

A fierce battle began, and towards sunset one day the divine troops ended up in the mountains of central Bali where Indra had pursued Mayadanawa. As they slept that night, the lord of illusion crept up on them and created a poisoned spring nearby. He walked on the outer ridges of his feet so as not be heard, tampak siring, and so this place to this very day bears this name.

When the troops woke the next morning, they drank the poisoned water and died. Indra created another spring to bring them back to life by plunging a thunderbolt into the ground. From deep within the earth, clear water bubbled up, tirta empul, a spring that still bears this name today. The divine warriors were revived, and continued their pursuit of Mayadanawa and Kala Wong. The demon of illusion changed himself into a large manuk raya bird, but Indra saw through the disguise. The place where it took place is called Manukaya today.

Indra continued to chase Mayadanawa, who then transformed himself into a timbul or kind of breadfruit, a village that still has this name. Again Indra was not fooled, so Mayadanawa fled and changed into busing, young coconut fronds. Today this place is named Blusung. The chase continued with one disguise after another failing.

Mayadanawa changed into a freshwater snail, susuh, at a place now named Penyusuhan. He became a beautiful nymph at a village today called Kedewatan, meaning "heaven." He transformed himself into blades of lalang or jungle grass, currently remembered in the place named Tegallalang, the grassy field.

Finally Mayadanawa and Kala Wong changed themselves into paras river stones. Indra immediately shot his thunderbolt arrows at the rocks and finally killed both of them. Their blood gushed out and became the Petanu river, literally the "cursed". For a thousand years it was forbidden to use its water for irrigation. Rice plants grown from it would bleed and smell of corpses when cut.

The curse ran its course, and back in the 1960s a purification ceremony allowed the river's water to flow into the ricefields. With the demon of illusion and his followers gone. the people of Bali were free to pray to the deities once more. The various transformations of Mayadanawa trace some of the important plants, objects and divine beings important in Balinese rituals to this day.

The myth of Mayadanawa is also a further stage in the history of religious developments in Bali. Indian religions gradually replaced but never completely wiped out the ancient animistic beliefs practiced on the island for centuries. The victory of Indra over the lord of illusion is symbolic of Hinduism replacing Buddhism, for Bali's royalty followed Buddhism as a state religion until Javanese Hindu influence began changing it in the 11th century.

The Balinese refer to this as the victory of dharma -- religious duty and responsibility -- over adharma, the neglect of it. Indra's victory was never complete and the Balinese religion is a unique blend of animism, ancestral worship, Buddhism and Hinduism.