My Pilgrimages:
One Woman’s Journey Into the Realm of the Goddess
Introduction: Yatra and Jatra
In Rajasthan, North India, people talk of two forms of
pilgrimage, which they call yatra and jatra. I first learned these terms when I began to
do a survey about the worship of the goddess Durga in India, and when I
returned to Bali I realized that these two words had taken on a special meaning
for me. According to Ann Grodzins Gold (2001, pp. 81-82), yatra is a
Sanskrit word that refers to a major type of pilgrimage, which is often taken
to a sacred water source (tirtha):
“…yatra [indicates a]
pilgrimage to a tirtha or ‘crossing place’ such as the Ganges river at
Hardwar or Gaya, the temple of Jagannath Puri near the Orissa coast, or the
Himalayan peak of Shri Badrinath. Such journeys indeed are frequently
designated with the compound tirthayatra”
On the other hand, as Gold goes on to say, a jatra is
a smaller, more local pilgrimage. Perhaps this is reflected in the fact that
the word jatra comes from the local, Rajasthani language, though it is
derived from the Sanskrit word yatra:
“…jatra [implies] a trip
to any of the countless shrines dedicated to ‘goddesses-and-gods’ (devidevata)
most often of local origin and fame.”
When I was a little girl my grandfather often told me many
stories from the epic Ramayana, Mahabharata and other stories.
In his stories he always portrayed
Dewi Durga as a magical and terrifying powerful goddess who dwells in the
Mrajapati, a small shrine that stands near the cremation ground Mrajapati probably comes from
Prajapati, a word meaning “Lord of Beings” in Sanskrit, and usually associated
with either Brahma or Shiva. This is something I will need to research further
as I prepare my thesis.
Because he considers Durga so powerful, my grandfather
didn’t even allow me to mention her name because, according to him, the Goddess
is very tenget, spiritually or magically powerful and dangerous. She can
cause so many troubles if she is not happy with the behavior of human beings
Recently when I got the idea of doing a research project on
Dewi Durga, I felt terrified, because we believe that the Goddess can curse us
if She is displeased with our behavior. That’s the main reason why I decided to
undertake a
jatra and
yatra before going more deeply into my
research project. My main objective in doing
jatra and
yatra was
to ask for permission from the goddess to study beliefs about Her as the
subject of my research project. I learned later that scholars like Agehananda
Bharati have used personal experience as a basis of an anthropological or
historical study.
Bharati
became a wandering ascetic in India in order to learn more about how villagers
feel about the Tantric aspect of Indian religion. After those experiences he
talked about a difference between “etic” and “emic” research. These two words
come from the linguistic terms “phonetics” and “phonemics”. In phonetics we
study all possible speech sounds and try to become expert at recognizing and
being able to describe sounds from any language, so phonetics is about
“universals” in language. When we study “phonemics” it is about the sounds in
one language that contrast with each other and so create meanings in that
language. So according to Bharati, you can also do research from the point of
view of a participant in a culture, which he calls “emic research”. Because of
my upbringing I feel that the “emic” approach is most suitable for what I want
to accomplish. However, I will also try to make my analysis more objective and
scientific at times. The “etic” part of my research may be more difficult, but
I hope that I can accomplish it so that I understand better how to make use of
both “universal” (etic) and “local” (emic) forms of knowledge.
There are many temples in
Bali, including temples for villages, families and rice fields. Each Hindu family has a family temple to
worship their ancestors called either a sanggah, for members of the
commoner (jaba) caste, or a mrajan for members of the “upper
three castes” (triwangsa). In general, each village has three main
temples called the Kahyangan Tiga. These are the sacred places for the Hindu
Trimurti; Brahma the Creator, Wisnu the Preserver and Siwa. Siwa is often
called the Destroyer but in Balinese we call him Pelebur, which means
closer to the “Dissolver”. This is because Siwa as the god of Pura Dalem is
important in the rituals to remove the impurities of death. Each God has his
own Sakti, who embodies the active aspect of his divine power. Brahma has Dewi
Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, as his consort; Wisnu has Dewi Sri, the
goddess of rice and material good
fortune, as his consort; and Siwa has Dewi Durga, the goddess as destroyer, as
his consort. In Bali we worship the three main Gods equally, so each of the
Trimurti has a special temple in the village, one of the Kahyangan Tiga. The
Pura Puseh is the dwelling place for Wisnu, the Pura Desa or Bale Agung is the
dwelling place for Brahma and the Pura Dalem is the dwelling place for Siwa and
Durga. The position of these temples is almost the same in most villages. The
Pura Puseh is located at the “north” (kaja/kaler) or “east” (kangin) side
of the village, the Pura Desa in the center of the village and the Pura Dalem
at the “south” (kelod) end of the village close to the cremation ground
where the Pura Mrajapati, the temple guarding the cremation ground and burial
grounds, is also located.
From the point of view of
the family, the sanggah or mrajan is equally important, as it is
here that the deities are worshipped by way of the family ancestors, who merge
with the deities after the successful cremation of elaborate post-mortem rites.
The all-Balinese holiday of Galungan, which is celebrated on a special day in
the Balinese sacred 210-day calendar (Pawukon) is especially important
for family shrines as each family makes offerings and prays to its own
ancestors on this day.
In addition to family and
village temples, there are also elaborate public temples and functional
temples. Functional temples are worshipped by certain people of the same
profession. For an example; the Pura Bedugul is a temple for Dewi Sri, the
goddess of rice and consort of Wisnu. All the farmers who share a single
irrigation watershed and belong to the society that administers that watershed (subak)
worship at this temple at specific times during the irrigation, planting
and harvesting cycles for wet rice farming.
In general, the public
temples of Balinese Hindu have a typical layout and division. The Balinese
divide larger, public temple according to areas of sacredness. Moving outwards
from the most sacred part we find the jeroan, the inner sanctum; the jaba
tengah, or middle sanctum and jaba, or outer courtyard. A candi
bentar, or “split gate” connects the jaba and the jaba tengah,
while a candi-kurung, a closed thatched gate connects the jaba tengah
and the jeroan. There are shrines inside the jeroan which
represent the sacred “seats” (palinggihan) for each deity. These can
take the form of lofty, stone seats like the padmasana, which is the
place for the Sun God (Surya) who also represents Gunung Agung, the
sacred, central mountain of Bali. In some larger temple, there are also lofty
pagoda-like shrines called Meru, named after the central mountain in the Hindu
cosmology. These are noticeable at a distance because each tier has a roof of
thatch of black palm fiber (ijuk). The roofs of the Meru shrines
are always odd in number, reflecting either the sanctity of the mountains they
represent, or the place in the hierarchy of ancestors (often royal) worshipped
in these temples. The jaba tengah
is the place where people play the enchanting melodies of the gamelan orchestra
and perform traditional dances in honor of the deities. It is also a place
where families store the offerings they have brought for blessing into the
temple, and for resting and socializing before completing their worship in the jeroan.
The sacred places that I
choose to undertake both my Jatra and Yatra pilgrimages were Pura
Dalem. Why Pura Dalem? The main reason for doing pilgrimages to the Pura Dalem
was because these are the places of Siwa and Dewi Durga, the god and goddess of
destruction or dissolution. Durga is the most terrifying deity in the Balinese
Hindu pantheon. Most Balinese perceive Durga as the patron of the black-arts,
and especially the art of taking on magical form as animals or terrifying
spirits, called leyak. As a Hindu
Balinese I felt that I should ask Dewi Durga for her permission to mention her
name many times in my research project. Also I want to get protection from the
Dewi for whatever I am doing during this research project.
My Jatra
Getting home to my grandparents’ house made everyone very
happy, because I hadn’t been able to visit my family for four months due to our
work in India. They all gathered around me asking about India. For them India
is a sacred place, as it is for all Balinese Hindus. They asked me whether I
bathed in the Gangga river. When I told them that I had they said
that meant that I have become a holy woman who deserves respect like a priest.
I felt awkward at that time, because I am just a village woman who was lucky to
have an opportunity to go to India and just coincidently the granddaughter of a
priest.
When I told my grandmother that I wanted to go to the Pura
Dalem that day for doing puja, my grandmother didn’t wait to prepare the
offerings that we needed for praying. She made some rayunan, a form of
offering made from banana leaves containing rice and any side dishes that are
available that day. She also prepared segehan, a kind of offering made
from palm leaves which contains colorful rice, one color for each of the
direction, for the deities of the directions each have their own special color
I bathed and put on a traditional clothes; kamben and selendang,
my grandfather put on traditional white clothes, a batik kamben and
white head-dress too, called an udeng, or in refined language, a
destar. He didn’t forget to bring his walking-stick (tungked) either.
My grandfather went ahead to the Pura Dalem because he had
to clean the shrines first. Then,
just before sunset, my aunt, Me Man and I followed him there. Me Man put the rayunan
on the shrines for the deities and put segehan on the ground for the
chthonic spirits. She also put some holy water in some clay containers in each
shrine, complete with burning incenses. My grandfather sat in the Piasan,
a medium-size shrine symbolizing as a make up room for the deities, whereas I
myself sat on the ground facing a segehan and tabuhan, a liquor
drink for the chthonic spirit. The scent of burning fragrance incenses had
brought me into a very magical atmosphere. Me Man told me to do muspa,
pray with flowers and incense to Ida Hyang Betari Dalem, the Honored
Goddess of the Pura Dalem. I did muspa with two different color flowers;
red and white, started and ended the muspa with both hands held together
in prayer fashion just in front of our eyebrows.
While we were doing prayer with my grandfather as the
mediator, a wall-lizard” (cecak) made clicking sounds in one of the
shrines. After praying, my grandfather told me that if you hear the sound of a cecak
while praying, it is a good sign. He said, Ida Betari ledang pisan, “the
Goddess is very pleased”. What he meant was that the goddess had given her
blessing. Many Balinese believe in signs; for example, that the sound of a cecak,
or the position of the stars, can have a special meaning.
After muspa Me Man first sprinkled holy water on the
shrines, then on the segehan offerings that she had placed on the ground
and finally on me. She sprinkled it thrice on my head, then she poured some on
my right hand three times to drink and three times to wash my face. The last
stage was putting bija, wet uncooked rice, between my eyebrows. For Hindu
Balinese, if the priests or priestesses have given the devotees some bija that means that the prayer are complete and the
devotees are free to go where they like. We went home after tasting some surudan,
the leftover offerings to the deities. That was my Jatra before doing my Yatra
to Nusa Penida.
My Yatra
It was two days after I did my jatra to Pura Dalem in
my grandfather’s village that I continued my sacred journey to a place far from
home, across the southern straits separating Bali from the smaller island of
Nusa Penida. In order to seek the presence of the goddess there we had to climb
a mountain, enter a dark and frightening cave and spend a night without warm
clothes, sleeping mat, or pillows. Our journey was to take us to the sacred
place of the deity at the temple called Pura Dalem Ped. This is one of the village temples of Nusa
Penida, an island off the southeastern coast of Bali that is within the
district of Klungkung. Even though Pura Dalem Ped is a village-level temple it
is very important for devotees and traditional healers (balian) from all
over Bali. The Balinese believe that the diseases, bad luck, evil spirits and
disasters that afflict the mainland of Bali are caused and spread by the
powerful demonic being called Ratu Gede Mecaling. In Balinese “Mecaling” means
“having fangs”, and is a main characteristic of animals and evil spirits. (This
is one reason why we Balinese believe that tooth-filing is one of the necessary
rites of passage before becoming a full adult; it is one way of symbolically
lessening our resemblance, both physically and morally, to wild animals.)
People of Bali are so afraid of him that they don’t even dare mention his name.
He is believed to live in the Dalem Ped on the island of Nusa Penida. Some
people also say that those who want magical power also go to the Pura Dalem Ped
to get a special blessing. I went to the
Dalem Ped not to seek magical power, but rather to ask for permission to do my
research from Ratu Gede Mecaling, for in my mind that deity is a female deity
like, or perhaps identical with, Dewi Durga.
On Tuesday 21 May 2002 I woke up before dawn and made a cup
of coffee. It was my third day of fasting. I intended to have a clean heart and
mind for worshipping the great goddess of Pura Dalem Ped. I cleaned myself by
washing my hair and my body thoroughly and putting on traditional clothes. I
then performed puja (prayer with offerings) in the sanggah, or
“family shrine” of our home in Denpasar.
At 11:00 am Mang De Arya, who is my brother, and a Balinese
traditional healer, arrived together with his friends, Wayan Sudarya who is
from Nusa Penida itself, and Ketut Sumber, another traditional healer from
Negara, in western Bali. They arrived on two motorbikes, bringing with them
four woven bamboo baskets that held the
pejati offerings that we would
need to offer at the four main temples in Nusa.
I
was not ready when they came to our house, because I still needed to do some
small but important errands. I didn’t want to have any burdens on my mind while
I was concentrating later in Nusa.
At 11:30 we were all ready to leave for Sanur, a town
located south of Denpasar that is popular for tourism and also one of the
places where we can catch a boat to
Nusa. It took only fifteen minutes to get to Sanur, but the boat we hoped to
take has left ten minutes before we got there, Wayan tried to call the boatmen,
but they didn’t hear him.
We decided to go to Padang Bai, another bay where people can
catch a boat to Nusa, or a ferry to Lombok, the large island to the east of
Bali. We all got into the car and headed for Padang Bai. It was not an easy
ride as we rushed through the crazy traffic of Gianyar, Klungkung and the
crowded road toward Karang Asem district. Many times we had to sit in stalled
traffic for quite some time before we could continue our trip. After a drive of
one and a half hours, we finally reached the bay at Padang Bai. But once again
when we arrived we found that the boat had left for Nusa just a few minutes
earlier. Wayan, Mang De and Ketut all jumped out of the car and ran down to the
shore to call the boat back. It must have been our lucky day because the
boatman heard us this time and came back to pick us up.
The conductor who works on the boat rushed us onto the boat;
took our offerings and put them in a higher place on the boat. In Bali people
have a strong sense of where they should place things and where they should
place themselves, according to the degree to which certain people or objects
may be more holy than others. Both place (location) and direction are very
important for Balinese society. Offerings, for example, always have to be
stored or carried in a position that is higher than other objects, and should
never be placed lower than people either.
I noticed that there were 17 passengers on the boat plus 2
crews, the captain and the conductor. The captain lifted the anchor and turned
on the engine. We all sat back in the boat as it began to cut through the
bluish-green water of the sea. I sat in the back seat looking out from the boat
and watched the waves dash against the sides of the boat. It was a lovely
smooth ride. The wind was blowing strongly and the mist from the waves
sprinkling on my face gave me a cool and refreshing feeling.
It took only half an hour to get to the shore of Nusa
Penida. The first thing we saw was the green coconut trees spread all along the
coast. When we got closer we could see that there were many people on the shore
waiting for the boat to go back to Padang Bai. We were met at the harbour by
Made, Wayan’s younger brother. He was a bit worried because he had expected us
to get there earlier by the boat from Sanur. We apologized for his
inconvenience, then got into a small van that is the type of local
transportation popular on Nusa. I think that we must have chartered the car
because there weren’t any other passengers besides us.
It was my first time going to Nusa Penida. For the length of
the trip to Tanah Byas village where Wayan’s house was, I just kept looking
outside watching observing the lay of the land, the type of vegetation that
grows on Nusa and the layout of the villages we passed through. Compared to
Bali, Nusa is very dry so there are no rice fields covering the landscape as we
find in Bali. From my observation coconuts, cassava and corn are the main
cultivated crops that grow there. But there is another kind of “farming” on
Nusa too. As we drove along the coast I noticed that there were many small
grass thatched huts. Wayan explained to me that these huts belong to people who
farm seaweed in the shallow ocean water in front of their huts. The “seaweed
farmers” divide the beach and shallow water next to the beach into small plots,
so that each hut is at one end of the “field” of a single family of farmers.
I was so busy watching the view outside that I didn’t
realize we had already arrived at Wayan’s house. A number of women – some
young, some old and some middle-aged – came out to welcome us. Then they all
sat down together in front of a small building and busied themselves plaiting
offering baskets from strips of palm leaf. I smiled at them and they told us to
sit in the new building across from where they were sitting. Like Balinese in
general, Wayan didn’t introduce us to his family; it was our task to find out
who they all were as best we could. If we really need to exactly who someone is
we usually ask other people, because it is not polite to ask people directly
about themselves. Not long after we sat down, one of the women came bringing
tea, coffee and snacks. She invited us to drink, but I told Wayan that I was
fasting that day. He understood. Then he gave the women some oleh-oleh, kind
of small gift, in this case consisting of sugar and cookies. It suddenly dawned
on me that I had completely forgotten to bring along any oleh-oleh. I
made an excuse to go out, so that I could go find the closest warung, a
stand where people can buy snacks, coffee, tea and other small necessities. I
bought some oleh-oleh and brought it back for Wayan’s family.
While waiting for the right time to go to the temples, I was
attracted by a very old man who lived near Wayan’s house. I was interested in
him because his family said that he was a Casanova when he was young. I was
amazed that he was still very strong and energetic at what appeared to be a
very advanced age. From one of his sons
I learned that people thought that he is 120 years old. It’s hard to say
whether this means in western years, or by counting Balinese “ritual years” (Pawukon)
which are 210 days long. Since people of the older generation remember
their Pawukon birthdays but not their western-style “birthdays” it seems
more likely that his age was counted that way. I offered to take some pictures
of the old man, and he stood up proudly in front of his family shrine posing
for my camera.
I then asked the people some questions about Nusa Penida.
They said that they have recently started getting good drinking water form
government project that provides the community with clean water, and that they
have had electricity for a few years now. The main income on the island comes
from seaweed farming since people can’t grow rice due to lacking water sources
for irrigation. With whatever cash they earn, they bring in building materials,
TVs, cars, motorbikes and other consumer items from Denpasar or Klungkung. Many
of the young people work on the mainland as civil servants or in the tourist
industry, usually as waiters or waitresses. Wayan himself is working as one of
the front office employees in Bali Saphire, a tourist business in Kuta.
At 4:00 pm Wayan’s mother told me to get dressed in Pakaian
Adat, traditional Balinese clothing worn
for all religious events. The others were busy having a meal. As required by
Balinese courtesy even though they knew that I was fasting they still invited
me to have something to eat. I also politely refused the offer. When we were
all ready to go, we went to the street to get into the car Wayan had rented for
us. To my surprise there were four more people who were going to join us for
the trip to the temples. I was so happy that they were willing to join us to
make the yatra even more exciting. That made nine of us all together,
including the driver.
In undertaking a yatra to Nusa Penida we should pay
homage to the following sacred places, in order to follow the correct procedure
according to the tradition of Nusa. First we should go to the Hyang Baruna
temple; second to the temple of Goa Hyang Giri Putri; third to the Puncak Mundi
temple, which is the highest point of Nusa about 529 meters (1,736 ft)
(Eiseman, 1990. p.33). Finally, as the climax of our pilgrmage we should visit
the sanctuary of Ratu Gede Mecaling in the Pura Dalem Ped. So, our first
destination was to the Sang Hyang Baruna temple, a temple dedicated to the god
of the sea (Baruna), who I’m sure is similar to the Greek god Neptune
who has a trident as his weapon. As we rode along the coast we could see the
seaweed farms spread out along the coast, with the sun glinting off the layers
of seaweed that women were spreading along the sand. It was a unique kind of
beauty.
For a second time I was absorbed
in the view and the life along the road that we arrived at the temple before I
took notice of where we were, even though it had only taken us about 30 minutes
to get to there from Tanah Byas. Before going on to the main Hyang Baruna
temple we stopped to do the required purification in the Pura Taman,
or Pura Beji, a sacred place for purification for both deities and
devotees that is also the source of the sacred water used in the temple. Walls
of brightly coloured coral surrounded the temple and there were some steps down
into the shrine itself, which was located in the middle of a pool of fresh
water, with a small yard for the devotees doing prayer. The thing that struck
me most was that there was a yoni-like piece of coral located near the
shrine. I had learned in India that the yoni is a symbolic
representation of a woman’s sexual organ, the counterpart of the lingga of
Shiva, and I wondered if its presence at the Pura Beji for Hyang Baruna was
intentional. After praying the priestess
of the shrine sprinkled holy water on us and she also gave us some bija.
Then we went on to the nearby Sang Hyang Baruna temple.
In the Hyang Baruna temple, there was an image made from
pure, white sandstone of
Gajah Mina, the great fish with elephant
head,
represents the God of Sea, Baruna or Varuna in Sankrit. According to local legend, the Gajah Mina
was an avatar of the God of the Ocean who protected Nusa from disaster
in the ancient past, and continues to play a role in protecting the island in
his invisible form. This temple was only recently constructed. We put
offering on the bamboo platform in front of that image. The priestess led the
praying We all sat on the ground
concentrating in our prayers. Each of us prayed for our own wish, which was
ended by the priestess, who sprinkled holy water on each of us and gave us each
three sips to drink.
According to our legends, even though the main shrine for
Hyang Baruna is in Nusa, He has been worshipped and continues to be worshipped
by people from all over Bali. This is because we believe that when he is
displeased he can spread epidemics from his dwelling place on Nusa. This
happens especially in November and December when the wind blows from the
southeast of Bali.
After leaving the temple of Hyang Baruna we continued our
pilgrimage to the temple of Goa Hyang Giri Putri, the cave sanctuary of the
“daughter of the mountains”, that is the consort of Siva whose father was the
great Himalaya mountains. It took us only a few minutes to get to the Goa Hyang
Giri Putri, where we stopped in front of a sign that read “Pura Goa Giri
Putri”. We took one of the pejati offerings and climbed up many steps of
concrete cement. The priestess challenged the men to a race to the top of the temple
steps. Mang De held my hand and whispered to me that he was transferring his
spiritual power to me in order I could get to the top of the temple faster than
the priestess. It was amazing in my fasting condition I actually did reach the
top of the temple stairway one step ahead of the priestess. We were all
breathless when we reached the top. As we paused to catch our breath, I made a
quick trip around the entrance of the temple to get a sense of where we were.
We were in an awesome spot, high above sea level; where we could see the ocean
far below us and in the distance the lofty Mount Agung towering above the
mainland.
Try as I might I couldn’t find the cave that was referred to
in the name of the temple. All I could see was a small shrine for Hyang Siwa
Raditya, Shiva as the Sun God and two rocks wrapped in black and white cloth
located on the right side of the shrine. I
kept wondering where the cave was
but I didn’t ask anybody about it. The others were sitting in a small pavilion
on the side of the cliffs resting with the guards of the temple.
The sun had almost set when the priestess called us to
prayer before entering the cave. When we had finished and the priestess had
finally given us holy water she asked whether we were ready to enter the cave
or not. I was very excited and said, “Yes, we are ready”. It was very striking
when suddenly I saw a light coming from a hole between the two rocks and I
realized that they must mark the opening of the cave. To my astonishment the
priestess told me to enter the mouth of the cave first, but being very new in
that place, I refused to be the first person to go inside, I urged the
priestess to go first, then followed her through a hole which was just enough
for one person at the time. We had to bend over just to able to be fit through
the mouth of the cave; I wondered how we all would fit inside if the mouth of
the cave was that small, but I kept my mouth shut and just let my mind play
with its puzzles.
My confusion didn’t last long, because when we walked
further from the mouth of the cave we found an extraordinarily large space
about six meter high. The sandy floor of the cave felt cool and damp to my bare
feet and the musty smell of damp moss and guano took me to a different world,
away from the real world. Although there were some electric lights inside the
cave, their flickering on and off made the cave seem dark and eerie. The
atmosphere was very magical. The twittering sound of the bats calling back and
forth in the darkness overhead made me shudder. I wondered if our courage was
being tested by some unseen force. It seemed strange to me that none of the
water dripping from the ceiling fell on us, even though the sound echoed
throughout the cave.
A few meters from the mouth of the cave there was a small
shrine for the god Hyang Betara Sedahan Agung Penyarikan, whose name
implies that He is the keeper of the records and inventory for the gods. It was
a small shrine wrapped in black and white cloth, but the color was faded from
all the guano and the water dripping from the ceiling. There were two white and
yellow tedung - traditional umbrellas – on both sides of the shrine. The
color of the umbrellas has also faded. We did our first prayer there.
Even though the floor of the cave was wet, it didn’t prevent me from sitting
with my legs folded to the side during the prayer, in the way that is expected
of Balinese women. When we were all finished the priestess sprinkled holy water
and gave us some to sip three times. The taste of the holy water was a
bit strange, a mixture of sour and salty that I’d never tasted before, but I
put aside all my negative thoughts for it seemed to me the holy water must
still be spiritually purifying.
We still stumbled blindly through the huge, dark cave. Then
I understood the reason why Wayan’s mother had made such fuss about bringing as
many flashlights as possible. It was really hard to walk in the dark, not
knowing what kind of thing might be there under our feet. We walked along
completely by instinct. After about 15 minutes walking through the darkness, we
finally arrived at a small shrine that was almost black from guano. In the dark
it was hard to tell the color of the cloth that wrapped the shrine. Next to the
shrine there was a big bucket full of water and a small dipper made from
coconut shell. We prayed there before entering another small cave whose
entrance was located half-way up the wall of the main cave. To get into that
small cave we had to climb up a bamboo ladder about six meters in height. Mang
De was the first person who climbed the
bamboo ladder. I was the second one. One by one crawled inside the small cave
that is the dwelling place of Hyang Sada Siwa, the eternal god Shiva.
Then we learned that there was another chamber that we would
have to crawl through to reach another shrine. Mang De and I went first,
followed by the others. We reached a chamber where there was a small space with
a shrine hanging on the rock face of the chamber. The priestess put our
offerings on the shrine and the rest of us just sat on the floor of the cave. I
felt the dampness of the sand under my feet. I was amazed that eight of us
could fit so easily into such a small chamber. The priestess asked for the holy
water container before we prayed, then fetched it herself from a niche in the
rock next to the shrine. After that we prayed as usual. When we had finished
the priestess sprinkled holy water on our head and gave us some to sip three
times.
We all stood up since the process of praying there was now
finished, except Mang De who seemed to be in a very deep meditation state. We
tried not to bother him. I told the priestess that we didn’t need to wait for
him. Sumber would stay behind take care of Mang De, while the rest of us went
back to the Hyang Sada Shiva shrine.
Just when I was about to leave the chamber, as I touched the
ground of the entrance with my right hand, a large drop of water landed on my
hand. I was startled, but also I felt
graced, because to me that meant a blessing from the deity we had just prayed
to. I sipped the drop of the water with a feeling of delight, then rinsed my
face and my hair with the moisture remaining on my hand.
Next I entered the Hyang Sada Shiva shrine again, leaving
Mang De and Sumber behind us. The others plus four other men who brought the
hurricane lamp for us were sitting there waiting for us. I assumed that they
were the guards or the priest of the temple who assist devotees during the
ritual. I myself sat down just next to the wall of the cave. The priestess
performed the ritual without waiting for Mang De and Sumber. She told us to
pray to Hyang Giri Putri, who in India would be considered the shakti,
or spiritual power of the god Shiva. While we were praying I noticed that the
priestess was in a trance. At the same time I heard smooth, gentle chanting
coming from the smaller cave, and I noticed too that the priestess uttered some
words that I couldn’t understand. The atmosphere was very magical.
After praying and before taking holy water, I stood up and
went over to the little cave to check the situation there. A local priest who
had come with us had gone in to assist Mang De who was still in trance state. I
could hear Sumber trying to say some words of apology to the deity there. The
priest poured some Balinese liquor (arak-brem mixture) on the ground,
intended as an offering to the demonic forces, at the same time asking for
forgiveness in very polite and spiritual phrases. In his trance Mang De seemed
to speak for the deity, saying that we have made a mistake by not purifying
ourselves before climbing the bamboo ladder and that the priestess too had been
careless with the holy water in the shrine.
Then the priest sprinkled holy water on Mang De’s head and
gave him some to sip three times. At that point Mang De seemed to regain his consciousness
and stood up ready to go. But just as he
was about to leave the smaller cave, he fell backwards into the cave as if a
very strong invisible force had pulled him back. This time when he recovered he
asked for burning incense, then slowly and deliberately completed his prayer. I
waited patiently just outside while observing all that was happening. After
some time Mang De must have been released from the spell of the deity, because
he came out and joined us in the Hyang Sada Siwa shrine.
Finally we all prayed at the Hyang Sada Siwa shrine and
accepted holy water from the priestess. At that time three of the four other
people who had joined us on the trip began to ask us a few questions. They had
come along inside the cave to carry the hurricane lamp that had provided extra
illumination for us. First they asked us where were from; then one of them
asked about the procedure we had followed for our yatra. When we
explained the details, he asked us whether we cleansed ourselves before
climbing up the ladder or not. All of us looked at each other and said “no”. He
explained the right procedures to us, but by then it was too late for doing the
right thing. We told them that next time we would do things correctly in the
future, understanding now what had happened to Mang De in the cave.
He replied, “It must be the wrath of the ‘owner’ of the
place, because we did something so stupid”
I asked him again: ”What should we do to propitiate he owner of this place?”
He answered: “Don’t worry, just ask for forgiveness in your
mind”.
“Okay”, I said
after that began to feel a little more calm.
After accepting holy water from the priestess we all stood
up ready to leave. The priestess ran out quickly in front of me. Mang De
grabbed my hand and said, “Don’t run! We will be fine”.
When we arrived outside the cave I saw some men gathering in
the pavilion. We invited them to share our surudan, the food that
remained from the offerings that had been blessed by being presented to the
deities. At first they courteously refused, but when we offered a second time
they accepted our offer. I also gave them Rp.20.000 (about AUD $4.00) for the
temple donation. From the pavilion we could see the blinking lights on the
mainland from across the sea. The sky was very clear that night and in the
darkness the stars seemed much brighter, as if competing with the electric
lights of the Balinese mainland.
Our next destination was a temple called Pura Puncak Mundi.
I didn’t know how far it was from the Goa Giri Putri. While in the car I just
closed my eyes and let my feelings guide my thoughts. At the same time I could
feel that the car was making a steep and steady ascent.
When I opened my eyes I saw an incredible beautiful view
outside the car. I could see the twinkling lights across the ocean while the
crescent moon was shining gently above us, creating a romantic and serene,
almost ascetic feeling.
Just then I realized that I hadn’t broken my fast that
evening, and I could hear my stomach making hungry sounds.
Wayan’s mother had come along with us, and I asked her for a
tipat from our surudan to fill my empty stomach. Tipat are
blocks of rice cooked in a wrapping of plaited banana leaves. Since the leaves
become quite stiff when they have dried after steaming, I had to struggle to
unwrap the tipat since we had forgotten to bring along a knife.
Off in the distance we could hear the sound of a gamelan,
the Balinese metallaphone orchestra. The closer we got to our destination the
clearer the sound become. Finally we passed a small village high up in the
hills, where we saw many people practicing on their village gamelan. Not long
after passing through that village we finally reached the Puncak Mundi temple.
It was dark, but the gentle glow of the moon helped us to find our way to main
temple, and faintly lit the surroundings.
The driver parked the car, while the rest of us went to the
temple carrying one of the pejati offerings. Along the way to the main
temple there were many poles of freshly cut
bamboo, each about 1 meter high, that connected the entrance of the
temple to the inner courtyard. I asked Wayan what they were for and he said
that they were for the umbrellas and sacred banners for a temple festival that
had just been completed a few days earlier.
We entered the inner courtyard and the priestess put the
offering in a shrine in the northeast corner of the sanctum. There was an image
in the shrine, but I couldn’t see clearly which deity it was. When I looked to
the north side of the temple, all I could see next to the temple walls were
dense brush and shrubs swaying in the night wind. We prayed there and took holy
water. Suddenly we heard a dog barking
from the entrance gate as a man in white walked into the compound. From his
white clothing and manner we knew that he must be the priest who has the
responsibility of guarding the temple and keeping it clean and pure. After I
made a donation for the temple, we all went back to the car to continue to our
final destination, the Pura Dalem Ped.
It was about 10:00 pm when we left for the Pura Dalem Ped.
We didn’t talk much on the way to the temple. The only thing I could think
about was what it might like to stay in the Pura Dalem Ped overnight. It took
about 45 minutes to get to Dalem Ped. There were still many people there
playing gamelan but all the food stands have been closed. I sat for a while in
the gamelan hall watching people playing. They were not bothered at all by our
coming to the temple so late in the evening. It seemed that they were used to
seeing people coming late to the temple.
There are four temples in the complex there; Pura Ratu Gede,
Pura Ulam Agung, Pura Taman, and Pura Penataran Agung. The gamelan hall was
located outside the temple complex itself, but facing the main entrance to the
temple area.
Outside the Ratu Gede temple there was a signboard telling
us the procedure for paying homage.
First, we should go to Pura Ulam Agung, second to Pura Taman, third to Pura
Ratu Gede and the last one to the Pura Penataran Agung.
Since we expected to spend the entire night in the Pura
Ratu Gede, first we went to the Ratu Gede temple complex to store our belonging
in a small pavilion-shaped shrine called a piasan, the make up room of
Ratu Gede Mecaling. It may seem strange to non-Balinese to hear that we have a
shrine where the deities “put on their makeup”. This is because in essence a
temple festival in Bali is a time for “inviting” the deities and ancestors to
visit their temple sites, which are inactive, and basically empty, at times
when there is no festival. After the deities are invited to the temple, we
treat them as very honored guests. That is why several important sections of
the ritual of a temple festival or “birthday” (odalan) involve acts of
“offering hospitality” to the deities (betara-betari), and it also is
why we provide them with a small pavilion that they can use (in their invisible
form) for preparing themselves for the feast and entertainments offered at the
festival. The piasan shrines also serve a purpose in the visual (sekala) aspect
of the temple festival, for the priests and priestess often sit here as they
perform the rituals and sacred chanting (mantra) of the rituals. Since
there was no temple festival going on when we visited the Pura Dalem Ped, the
piasan of the Ratu Gede shrine was empty, so we were able to store some of our
belongings there while we went about visiting the other temples and completing
our prayers according to the proper procedure. I should add that not just any belongings can be stored in the temple
areas, only the things that we consider holy or sacred.
We went out from the Ratu Gede temple, just outside on the
right side of the Candi-Bentar, the entrance gate we noticed a white
board with an arrow pointing us toward the Pura Ulam Agung, the “Temple of the
Great Fish”. This temple area is located only a few meters behind the Ratu Gede
temple. The path to the temple was very dark, but the path had been paved
smoothly so the going was easy.
As we entered the Ulam Agung temple we were struck by the
sight of a huge sculpted image of Gajah Mina, in the form of a huge shark
made from sand-stone placed in the small-pavilion shaped shrine. The image was
covered by black and white cloth, only its prominent sharp teeth had been left
uncovered.
There was a temporary bamboo altar in front of the image.
The priestess laid the offering there and lit the incense. We all took our
sitting position under the tree next to the statue. As usual after getting the
holy water, we ended our worship. I knew that we were all tired, hungry and
sleepy, but I was also very curious about the rest of the temple complex, since
this was my first visit to this awe-inspiring complex.
The next temple we visited was the Pura Taman, which we also
found by following the sign designed to lead us there. On the way to the Pura
Taman we passed by a large tree with a small shrine built into its exposed root
structure. We stopped there for a short worship. The nearby brush seemed to be
dancing, buffeted by the late night sea breeze. Pura Taman, according to Mang
De, is a temple where the (invisible) deities cleanse themselves before taking
part in the ceremonies at the Pura Penataran Agung. Pura Taman is a very
beautiful temple surrounded by lily pond. A small wood bridge connects the gate
of inner courtyard (jeroan) with the gate of outer courtyard (jaba
tengah). The sound of the frogs in the pond there created a feeling of
remoteness and loneliness. As soon as we were inside the temple I took my
position in front of the altar. I sat silently enjoying the sound of the night.
The priestess called us for worship. When we had completed our prayers and
received holy water, we were ready for the next temple.
Walking on the small paved path we headed toward the Pura
Ratu Gede. In the Pura Ratu Gede we followed the same pattern of prayer that we
had in the other temples.
The last temple where we paid homage was the Pura
Penataran Agung, a temple whose name tells us that it is the “great meeting
place” (penataran agung) for the deities. A candi-bentar, or
“split-gate” connects the outer courtyard of this temple with middle courtyard
and a candi kurung connects the middle courtyard to the inner sanctum (jeroan),
which, as I have said earlier, is a typical way of dividing the space of a
larger temple complex The temple area was wide and contained many shrines, some
small, some medium size and some tall and imposing. The overall impression was
very powerful and the glittering of the gold leaf covering the wooden surface
of many shrines made the shrine seem alive and conscious of our presence. It
was only in this temple-complex we found Mery shrines, the tall, slim
pagoda-like shrines that I mentioned
earlier.
It was 11:00 pm when we entered the temple of Penataran
Agung. What struck me most at first was at that later hour of the night there
were still two young male devotees sitting quietly in front of the temporary
bamboo altarThis type of altar is usually constructed during temple festivals
for putting the offerings of the devotees because the main shrines can’t
accommodate all the offerings. The fragrance of burning incense created an esoteric
atmosphere the seemed to envelop them as they sat in deep meditation. We kept
very quiet, afraid if disturbing their worship. We sat in one of the larger
shrine areas nearby waiting for them to finish.
When the two devotees had finished their prayers they looked
at us and smiled. They invited us to take over their position, then left the
temple area for us to go on with our next round of worship. Since we didn’t
have enough offerings for each shrine, the priestess decided to put all our
offering on the bamboo platform in front of the Bale Agung, the Shrine of the
Great Meeting Hall.
Although this temple is quite big, when the time comes for
the temple festival, the crowds are so large that the devotees need to take
turns to worship in groups. Since we were there alone, at a time when no temple
festival was in progress, the emptiness of the temple area made it seem even
more imposing and majestic. As usual after accepting holy water, we rose to our
feet to continue on to the Ratu Gede temple.
This was to be the last place for our prayers and worship
that night. By that time the steady sea breeze had made conditions very cold. I
hadn’t brought along any warm clothes, but I felt I could manage the worst
situation as long as I had the blessing of the goddess. The inner courtyard of
the Ratu Gede temple complex was not too big, bu
t we noticed
that in the northeast corner of the
jeroan there was a small covered
shrine
(gedong) shaped like a small, raised building, that was
completely covered by the sacred checkered black and white cloth
(poleng) that
we associate with the principle of complementary opposites
(rwa-bhinneda) and
is used to mark sacred places or sacred objects that area considered to contain
magical power. Men or women who come into close contact with sources of magic
and danger
will often wear an outer skirt
(kamben) of
poleng cloth.
That was why we know that shrine must be a place of great magical power and
danger
(tenget).
In front of the
shrine there was a bamboo platform to put offerings. A tall tree stood beside a
tiled area of about one square metre that was set outside for the temple
priests to chant their mantra-s. When the priestess was ready, we all sat down
on the tile floor under the tree facing the powerful image of Dewi Durga. Our
prayer routine did not differ from the one we had followed in other shrines.
It was about 11:30 pm when we arrived at the parking lot.
The driver looked very sleepy. After paying the driver well for his trouble,
five of the group went home to Tanah Byas, leaving behind the priestess, Mang
De, Sumber and I to spend the night at the Ratu Gede temple complex
When we arrived back at the Ratu Gede complex I didn’t
really know what to do next, so I just sat there under the tree while listening
the sound of the wind blowing through the coconut palms behind the temple. I
started feeling so hungry because I hadn’t eaten anything due to my vow to keep
a fast before worshipping.. I hadn’t brought along any food, but finally I
found some
surudan from other temples that I could eat. I had a piece of
banana and besides that the steamed rice and side dishes from a
tipat nasi
offering, like the one I had eaten earlier on the way to the temple.
I
felt much better after that simple late supper.
After eating supper, the three others (Mang De, Sumber and
the priestess) went away and left me alone there. When they came back, they lit
some incense and sat down to meditate. I also asked for some incense and
started closing my eyes to mediate. The three of them immediately sank into deep
meditation.
The wind from the sea was still blowing very strongly,
causing the trees to shake and make a terrifying sound in the darkness that
seemed to envelop us on all sides. I was so terrified by the sound that I
couldn’t concentrate at all. Once in a while I opened my eyes to peer into the
darkness in the direction of the terrifying sounds. Of course I didn’t see
anything but the silhouette of the trees. I looked left and right and I noticed
that the others were still in a deep state meditation. Once again, I shut my
eyes tightly and tried to concentrate. I emptied my mind by taking deep
breathes, and finally I didn’t hear anything but emptiness. When I came back to
the real world I saw Mang De and Sumber lying on the ground. They were going to
sleep on the ground without any mat at all, while the priestess had found an
old, ragged mat for herself.
For my sleeping place I picked the spot, a raised wooden
platform about one meter square roofed with black plam fiber where the pedanda,
a high priest from Brahmin caste, sits to perform his/her rituals during a
temple festival. Since I am small that space of just
one square meter fit me quite well enough. I tried to make myself comfortable.
There was some ritual equipment laid out in that space too, including a clay
container for water and some incense. There was also a mat that just fit the
area. I fell asleep quickly, amazed that there were no mosquitoes in the
temple.
As I slept the great goddess came to me in a dream. She was
in a terrifying fearful form, but she looked at me with very gentle eyes. She
even touched me on my chest. Her long red, white and black hair, her long
fingers nails, her fangs, and her tongue were very vivid in my dream.
Suddenly I was awakened by the sound of barking dogs. I
found that the electric lights illuminating the temple grounds had gone off and
I was alone in the temple. I had no idea where the others had gone to. I tried
to go back to sleep but I couldn’t shut my eyes because I kept thinking about
my dream. Did the great goddess realy come to me in my dream and touch me on my
chest? Why did she tell me to put on Her clothes? Should I take that to mean
that she had given me her permission to write my thesis about Her? I was so
amazed and puzzled by that dream.
Finally it was around one o’clock in the morning when the
lights went back on. By then Mang De, Sumber and the priestess had returned and
told me they had been doing another purification in the Pura Taman. The dogs
barking at them when they returned must have been what woke me up. I tried to
go back to sleep after that, but this time I couldn’t sleep at all because an
army of ants had found me and attacked me all over my body.
Early in the morning we prayed one more time as a way of
taking leave of the deities, and asking their permission to return home. Once
again we received holy water for sipping and washing our face, but this time we
also were given holy water to take home to the mainland. The priestess put
consecrated rice grains (bija) on my forehead as a sign that we have
been completed our yatra.
There is no way I can describe my feelings that morning; I
felt so happy and so light. It was the first time I had encountered the goddess
in a dream, and I still felt amazed at the combination of her terrifying image
but gentle smile and touch. As we all returned to Bali I felt that we took with
us the blessings of the goddess.
