The bronze moon and ritual battles
The bronze moon and ritual battles
By Garrett Kam
DENPASAR (JP): Most visitors to Bali usually make a brief stop at Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave) then move on quickly to the sacred springs at Tirta Empul. On a normal day, vehicles going to these two well-known sites zoom between the villages of Bedahulu and Tampak Siring. Once a year, however, the normally quiet streets in Pejeng along the way are full of people, processions and vendors. Traffic, considerably slowed down, is rerouted to side streets full of parked motorbikes, cars and buses.
The odalan, an annual celebration at Pura Panataran Sasih, the State Temple of the Moon, was in full swing since March 4 under the light of the full moon. Over the following 10 days, various religious activities and rituals interested visitors and residents alike.
For the past few weeks villagers were busy preparing the multitude of offerings for which Bali is famous. Formal events started a few days before March 4 with the ritual washing of rice and purification of the temple.
In the first part of the ceremony, colorful, noisy processions of thousands of worshipers arrived with images of visiting deities from Pejeng, Singapadu, and Bedahulu. Upon arrival, each group circled the inner courtyard of the temple three times clockwise, then the icons were placed in their proper places in different shrines.
Pavilions and tables were packed with towering offerings, with the fragrance of fruits, flowers, cakes and even roasted chickens mingling with aromatic incense smoke. Each day different offerings were brought to the temple, including the special dangsil.
Dangsil is a two-metre high cylinder covered with rice cakes and crowned with a meter-high flower arrangement. Dozens of them were set in individual bamboo stands scattered throughout the temple.
On the evening of March 5 the offerings were presented to the deities and carried around the inner courtyard in a kind of race to the accompaniment of gamelan music. These offerings played an important role in another ritual two days later.
In the meantime, worshipers came every day to honor the deities under the safeguard of the temple's main deity embodied in a great Bronze Age artifact, the Moon of Pejeng. This nekara, an hourglass-shaped kettledrum, is the largest in the world and measures 186.5 cm high with a single circular head of 160 cm in diameter. Adorned with intricate spiral motifs, curious wide-eyed faces, and a large eight-pointed star, this bronze drum is believed to have been cast outside Bali during the heyday of the Donsong civilization in present-day Vietnam from the fourth century BC to the first century AD.
Housed in a high pavilion in the temple and almost hidden from view by railings, cloths, and offerings, the Balinese have different stories relating to the origins of this sacred relic. The most common legend relates that once there were 13 moons in the heavens. One of them fell from the sky one night and landed in a tree. Its bright light disturbed a thief who then climbed up the tree and urinated on it, believing that this would extinguish its shine. This explains the damaged base of the drum which is missing a section. A variation of this tale says that the drum was a wheel of a chariot that came loose as the chariot carried the moon across the sky one night.
Another popular story tells that the drum was an earring of the moon deity Candra. Others believe it was the ear ornament of the legendary Balinese hero and prime minister of Bedahulu named Kebo Iwa, who, as his name indicates, had the strength -- and size, perhaps -- of nine buffaloes. While this strongman lived during the 14th century, and thus much later than the artifact was made, it may indicate the era that the drum was acquired. The Kingdom of Bedahulu-Pejeng, however, was at its peak of power between the ninth and 14th centuries.
Whatever the origins of the Moon of Pejeng, it is a magnificent musical instrument that is never played even by the temple priests. Its sound is said to be the voice of the deity called upon only when necessary. To play the drum casually would invite disaster, and proper offerings, prayers and rituals would have to be made. In the past, some Dutch officials tried to play it and ended up with mysterious illnesses and even death. In 1906 the Dutch adventure-artist W.O.J. Niewwenkamp managed to sneak into the shrine and sketch the designs on the drum without dire results, although angry villages waited below and only spared his life because of his fine drawings. At any rate, the Moon of Pejeng and its many ancient statues are popular attractions and of archaeological interest.
On March 7, a ritual battle was carried out with the dangsil offerings mentioned above. Older holy women at the temple performed several variations of the Rejang ceremonial dance. Dressed in black sarongs and white kebaya blouses, they circled the inner courtyard at midday. They made simple and repetitive dance movements in single file for many rounds, then unfolded their white sashes which they first held individually and then linked together with the sash of the woman behind. After several more circumambulations and dances, they led out a line of several dozen men wearing magically protective black and white checkered hip cloths.
The dance with everyone holding hands then took on new character as it wove in and out among the shrines. Spectators stood clear, and an occasional tourist was nearly bumped into by the men, to the laugher of everyone. At this point the palm leaf tops of the dangsil were pulled off and piled onto the ground. The music increased in tempo as the dancers broke their line and moved about the courtyard, picking up a palm leaf in each hand. They then quickly circled the inner courtyard clockwise three times, and ended up in the middle open ground where they playfully whipped one another with the leaves. Dust and leaves filled the air for several minutes before the battle ended.
With the negative forces chased away from the temple, it was considered safe for all the deities to descend. In a prescribed order according to rank and power, the icons of the gods and goddesses with all their ritual objects were collected by the worshipers and all circled the temple three times clockwise until finally they left and headed up the main road for a brief cleansing ceremony with holy water. Returning to Pura Panataran Sasih, the deities were lined up for a final departure ceremony that included the sacrifice of a chicken and duck. The Rejang dance was again performed along with friendly mock battles using umbrellas as weapons.
Outside the temple each village's gamelan pounded out music to accompany the gods and goddesses back home. As each group departed, so too did their musicians, banners, parasol, and weapons. The streets were a tangle of processions heading in every direction. Over the next five days, tall family offerings were carried to the temple in grand processions by women dressed in similar outfits and to the accompaniment of music. Entertainment, from dances to shadow puppet plays to dramas, took place nightly, mostly free of charge. Across the street a field full of vendors offered everything from food to fashion.
Tomorrow the locals deities will again be gathered at the temple for a journey by truck to Lebih Beach, south of Gianjar town, for a ritual purification before the end of the solar lunar year. Everyone is cleansed, but will meet again next year for the same event as they have done for generations.