'Ngaben': A grand ritual of time , money and tradition
'Ngaben': A grand ritual of time , money and tradition
By Benito Lopulalan
GIANYAR, Bali (JP): The sacred and beautiful, a performing art for sawa, the corpse, a debt payment -- the way the living return what the dead once gives -- all that is what ngaben stands for. All the good things one has given during one's life to his family and community is paid back when a ngaben ceremony is held.
A special ngaben took place in Singapadu, Gianyar Regency on Tuesday for Tjokorde Gde Agung ("Pak Cok"). It was quite special because Tjokorde, who died in Jakarta on Feb. 14 this year due to a heart attack, was a member of the royal family. He was the only son of Tjokorda Ngurah, the first Gianyar regent.
That Tuesday, March 14, the air was filled with the smell and smoke of incense. All members of the community were dressed in fine traditional apparel and each part of the Kuhan Palace of Singapadu was draped in traditional beauty.
Tjokorde Gde Agung was born in 1934. A 1961 graduate of the Bandung Institute of Technology, he was involved in the construction of the famous Musi bridge in Palembang, South Sumatra. He was head of the Bali office of the Ministry of Public Works for over 15 years, from 1968 to 1983. He was survived by his wife Anak Agung Istri Mirah, 60, deputy chief of the Jakarta High Court, and a son, Tjokorda Agung Panji Indra, 30.
Although the cremation lasted for only an hour, the preparations took place for about a month, involving the whole big family and banjar neighborhood community. Traditionally, this is a must for Balinese. According to traditional Balinese belief, any member of the family owes his life to his parents. A mother is a life-giver by providing the kama bang, or ovum. Similarly, a father is a deliverer of kama putih -- or seed -- to the children. The two parents, with both kama, are providers of their children's breath.
For the community, assisting their members to reach the door of reincarnation through ngaben is an ultimate obligation. The same kind of assistance from the other members would thereby be guaranteed whenever they arrive at the moment of their death.
However, parents in the same way owe their lives to the universe, which basically gives them all the material elements of life: pratiwi (earth), apah (water), teja (fire), bayu (wind) and akasa (ether). In Bali, those are called pancahabhuta. Everything in the universe carries the elements of pancahabhuta.
As debts, those gifts should be repaid. During ngaben, the family makes its payment by accelerating the process of the parents' material remuneration to the universe. Ngaben is believed to also assist the acceleration of the process of the body's decomposition from a human body to basic natural elements.
The preparations
The month-long preparation of Tjokorde Gde Agung's ngaben was actually not as notably extensive. Occasionally, in some places, preparations can take years to complete as the family has to wait until enough money is saved for the ceremony. Indeed, the considerable amount of expenses that are involved are usually the main problem, since a cremation could cost well over Rp 10 million, even hundreds of millions rupiah. The whole process of preparation involves fund raising, organizing people and securing all the necessary ceremonial paraphernalia.
Basically, as in Tjokorde Gde Agung's cremation, ngaben starts with the consecration or purification of the body of the deceased. In this cremation in Singapadu the first major consecration started two days before the cremation and the last ended about three hours ahead of the actual cremation.
First, the coffin, which is called kajang, was consecrated as it would cover the cloth-wrapped corpse. On the way to the setra, or graveyard, where the sawa would be cremated, the kajang would later be covered with colorful cloths. The consecration process was led by a priest who cited holy verses in front of the coffin. Several other pieces of ceremonial equipment to be used in the ngaben were also consecrated.
An hour after midnight one day before cremation day, all the cloths that had been used to wrap the sawa since the moment of death was replaced with new ones. This symbolical act of purification, which required skill because the corpse was in a process of decomposing, was especially hard in the old days when modern chemical preparations were unknown.
During this ritual, called mesalin, a small package was put into the corpse's mouth. The package contained panca datu -- a collection of five different metals: silver, gold, iron, copper and diamond, wrapped in leaves. After all these proceedings were completed, at 10 a.m. the old cloths were brought to the palace graveyard and burned.
At around mid-day on the same day, dozens of people -- members of the family and villagers -- attended a procession called Kebeji/Ngening. This had a particular objective, which was to find a glass of pure water which is believed to be a medium through which people can see in the reflection which appears on the water's surface what the dead desires. Also it could reveal anything that was connected with the living. A member of Tjokorde's family explained that that was the time the soul of the deceased would say his words of farewell to the community and the family.
The final part of the purification ritual, which took place on the last day before the cremation, was the nunas toya penembak. This one was done by the oldest son of the deceased taking water from the river, which was done in a very special ritual during the midnight hour. Firstly water was taken at a spot leading downstream, then upstream. The two directions are a symbols of rwa-bhineda, the essential dualism or dichotomy that exists in Balinese belief; black and white, good and bad, full and empty, and so forth. By performing the ritual, it is hoped that the corpse would be purified perfectly. The water would be used in the ngaben in the following day.
Another purification process, which was done in the morning at 3:00 a.m., was the pramalina. This was performed by a priest by chanting holy verses. The purpose of the ritual was to send back all the elements that belonged to the corpse to each of the pancahabhuta. This observance is meant as a decomposition ritual -- a ngaben on the level of the unseen.
Lastly, the final part of purification rituals was performed. This consisted of the consecration of pemereman -- the corpse's tower, the "vehicle" in which the dead one is carried to the cemetery -- and lembu, the holy cow. The ritual is believed to put the soul into the pemereman (bade) and thus it is considered alive and ready to participate in the cremation.
The use of the lembu or cow is inherited from Shivaite Hindu tradition. It is however not the only form used in current Balinese tradition. In some places other forms are used for the same purpose, such as nagakahang and gajahmina, which are mythical water animals. In still some other places, people following the Brahmanist tradition use predator animals such as tigers, bears or lions.
The cremation
After collective prayers during the final preparations just before the ngaben procession was started off, the audience uttered loud yells. The most widely-known symbols of ngaben, the lembu and the bade, were then lifted by groups of sturdy young men from the village, all dressed in black. The base of each symbol, which was made of bamboo, was placed on their shoulders. The air was filled with voices laden with excitement. Some even joked and shared in laughter.
A young man riding the lembu acted like a cowboy in a rodeo festival. The lembu was carried around in circles, counterclock- wise, at every intersection. No sign of sadness, indeed, as the young man was laughing merrily.
The bade, directed by the diseased's son, was moving quite fast. Girls, also all dressed in black, carried jars of holy water on their heads. As both the lembu and the bade were very tall, the electric wires that ran over the streets occasionally obstructed the journey for a while.
On the bade, to the left and right of the corpse's chamber, men stood, one showering yellow rice mixed with ancient Chinese coins on the crowds, another fluttering preserved bird-of- paradise fastened at the tip over the onlookers' heads. The bird- of-paradise is a symbol of communication between the dead and the living as it is believed that the soul of the deceased can travel back and forth between earth and heaven. It is therefore considered a guide for the one being cremated.
After about three kilometers of walking, the procession arrived at the graveyard, first, the lembu and then the bade. The lembu was then opened and the corpse and some important ritual paraphernalia were placed in it. Now, the actual cremation could start.
Once the body had turned into ash it would be sent to the sea, but only after a certain period of meditation and prayers that could last anywhere from three hours to two days. According to legend, Bhima, the second of the five Pandawas in the Mahabharata epic, encountered Dewaruci, the god of the sea, in the ocean. The ash of a deceased person is thus scattered over the waters so the soul could encounter the god of the sea.
After a certain length of time, which could be months, the spirit would be invited back again and then brought to the mountain to dwell there for a while, waiting for its reincarnation. But the relationship between the living and the dead has not ended. Once in a while the spirit is called whenever the family of the temple of the village has ceremonies to perform.
Perhaps the reincarnation process is a key to understand the happiness which the community feels when it deliver a corpse for cremation. The cremation is not an ending, it is the beginning of life in the hereafter as well as the forging of a new relationship. And the people deserve to be happy as they are taking part in the completion of the reincarnation process.