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.