'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.