The Demonic Image of Goddess Durga in Bali
Ni Wayan Pasek Ariati
Introduction
Images of the goddess Durga in India
have remained stable over a very long historical period, focussing on her
benevolent aspects as a protective warrior goddess. However, in comparative perspective the images of the same goddess have
gone through a process of demonization in Java and Bali that can be linked to
historical and social factors. This evolution, which extended over a period of a millenium beginning 700 CE, saw a gradual shift from benevloent to
malevolent images of the goddess. This is predominantly evident from the later
development of a
completely demonized image of the goddess Durga and her main devotee Rangda in the Javano-Balinese tale of Calon
Arang. Herein lies a strong tendency for female images to
take a demonic form that must be exorcized through the authoritative power of a
male figure.
While the tale of Calon Arang is preserved especially in
the performing arts of contemporary Bali, it is well known in much of
Indonesia. In mythological terms the first phase of development of accusations
that women are morally loose and adulterous can be
traced to the composition of the kidung
Sudamala in circa 1365 CE during the East Javanese period, where the local
Javanese poets depicted the beautiful goddess Uma as committing adultery with
Lord Brahma. Uma is then depicted as being cursed to take on a demonic form as
Durga and live in a graveyard for twelve years until her husband, Shiva, the
most powerful male figure in East Javanese religion, carried out her exorcism
and allowed her to return to her benign and benevolent form as the gentle
goddess Uma. This episode
appears to be closely connected to rites of exorcism, which were very important
in Javanese society then as a part of the way it dealt with sickness, plagues,
natural disasters and community strife.
The role of the goddess Durga as a
deity who can provide valuable assistance in subjugating one’s enemies was an important theme in treatments of
images of Durga in ancient Java and Bali. It is still maintained in Bali to the present day where it takes the form of black magic practices that are
aimed at overcoming personal enemies, rather than enemies of the kingdom. In
the ancient period, when monarchy was still the main form of government, the
goddess must have been worshipped by means of using Tantric rituals aimed at
eliminating the enemies of the entire kingdom, who were also the enemies of a
single person, that is the reigning monarch. During the colonial and independence
periods in Bali, this role of the goddess appears to have gradually shifted to
the domain of personal struggles for power in local arenas, thus finding an
outlet in the practices of “left-hand magic” that are associated with worship
of the goddess Durga in Bali today.[1]
[See Figure 1 for
illustrations of the contrasting forms of
Durga in India and Bali.][2]
 |
| The goddess Durga in a pandal figurine of Kolkata (2002) |
 |
| The character Rangda fron the Calon Arang drama of Bali (2008) |
The goddess Durga as a destroyer
There are numerous mantras described in the texts used as
guidance for practicing black magic, especially in the lontar entitled Aji Pangleyakan,[3]
where special mantras are
used to invoke the goddess Durga in order to destroy one’s enemies, whether individual
or collective. In the Aji Pangleyakan the goddess Durga is worshipped in order to
gain power to cause various kinds of problems, diseases, and even the death of
other people. This lontar describes in detail the offerings that
need to be made, the best time to carry out rituals, the proper method for
worship and the place where the rituals should be performed. Texts like the Aji
Pangleyakan are written in a mixture of Sanskrit, Old Javanese, Middle
Javanese and Balinese and are memorized so that they can be uttered during
rituals aimed at bringing harm to other people.
The nature of such mantras is
ambivalent; on the one hand they can bring
destruction and on the other hand another protection. Most of the destructive mantras have a counterbalancing mantra that can be used to neutralize
its power, or convert it into protective force. Despite their reputation for
being destructive, many of these mantras
are very similar, or even identical, with those found commonly in a wide
variety of household and village rituals. In the Balinese context, the use of mantras is invariably associated with
the making of offerings and dispensing of purifying holy water with specific mantras and ritual steps depending on
the purpose of the ritual. Specific mantras and accompanying ritual steps
vary depending on the purpose of the ritual. In the case of destructive rituals
the essential point is the ‘backward’ or ‘left-hand’ character of the rituals
and mantras used for this purpose. This means that mantras are read backwards,
the steps of the ritual are carried out in the opposite direction from the
norm, and the steps of any dance movements connected with the ritual are in the
counter-clockwise direction. This clearly is aimed at heightening the
transgressive aspect of the rituals aimed at producing the power to carry out
black magic, which is further reinforced by antinomian practices like dancing
naked in a burning ground or cemetery and incorporating parts of corpses found
in the burning ground as part of the offerings used in rituals for left-hand
magical purposes (pangiwa).[4]
Most of the textual sources of mantras are preserved in lontar manuscripts, which are kept in
closed shrines (gedong) in one or
more of the village temples. The manuscripts are given a special offering on
occasions like Saraswati Day celebrations when rituals are
performed to venerate Saraswati as the goddess of aesthetic
beauty, knowledge and the arts. The importance of beauty in the Balinese
religion and its strong connection with the goddess Saraswati is the reason why many lontar
manuscripts begin with the invocation dedicated to the goddess Saraswati. The
tradition is at ensuring the composer’s due respect to the goddess, in return
for which s/he gets blessed with knowledge.
In texts like the Aji Pangleyakan
there is a similar emphasis on the
need to pay respect to the goddess, but in this case, it is to Durga in her
most grotesque and terrifying form. This contrast of beauty and ugliness could
be considered one of the sources of the power of figures like Rangda in the Calon
Arang tale, who are powerful through transgression of the normal order of
life. Lovric (1986:72) points out
in connection with sickness
and pestilence that
“any entity can have the power to cure or to cause it”, and she goes on to show that theodicy is often
developed in Bali in terms of a figure like Durga, who is portrayed as both the
origin of diseases and pestilence, and the means of their cure. By studying the
mantras of texts like the Aji Pangleyakan, we realise that part of the power of the goddess Durga comes from the
uncontrolled aspect of her creativity; her power to create all kinds of living
creatures regardless of their
nature, whether benign and malignant. But this also means that proper rituals can cause the smallest living
creatures, which are the cause of
diseases and plagues, to be re-absorbed into Durga, so that once again there is
equilibrium in the sphere of the world.
There are many lontar manuscripts that deal specifically with the subject of
worshipping Durga to seek powerful magic. Among the most complete is the afore-mentioned Aji Pangleyakan, which lays out detailed rules and requirements for attaining power
from the goddess Durga including the proper time and place for worshipping the
goddess, i.e in the cremation ground,
or burning ground, which is called the Setra Gandamayu in the text.[5]
Hooykaas (1978) quotes the following lengthy formula
from a lontar manuscript titled Pangiwa, which is very similar to formulae found in the Aji
Pangleyakan and also the Belego Dawa; another lontar
detailing the correct procedures to be followed by those who are willing to
practice the black magic. In the text cited by Hooykaas, even the offerings are
vividly described, and the correct procedures for following the “left hand
path” are carefully detailed:
“Yan ahyun angangge pangiwa, lamakane wenang sakti, sidi, mahawisesa, dabresih apeningan mahening-hening.
When one
wishes to use black magic in order to obtain supernatural power and to succeed
in sorcery, one should begin by cleansing oneself with the utmost care.[6]
Kala wengi mandewa-sraya rumuhun ring pangulu
n setra, amedek Paduka Batari Durga, nunas panugrahan.
During the night one should go to
the temple of the grave yard which is located in the most elevated part of the
cemetery and turn oneself towards the eternal powers in the temple while
invoking the goddess Durga to ask for blessings or favours.
Srana: daksina 1, artanya 17,000, canang
11 tanding, katipat 2 kelan, arak, berem, injin, katur ka luhur
Requisites: One should bring offerings consisting
of a daksina provided with 17.000 Chinese coins, eleven canang,
two kelan katipat, arrack and rice wine made of black rice and steamed
black-rice cake. These offerings should be offered to the Goddess.
Wus mangkana, asila angarepi paryangan,
amusti rangkep, teher agra-nasika, tan mari asep menyan astanggi; nirmalakena
atinta.
After that, one should sit on the ground in
front of the sanctuary with the hands in the praying position and then
concentrate. Without interrupting the concentration one should take care that the
aromatic materials are kept smouldering. While keeping one’s mind free from
other thoughts one should utter this mantra.
Mantra: Om Ra Nini Batari Bagawati, turun
ka Bali; ana wang mangkana; aminta kasih ring Paduka Batari, sira nunas turun
ka mretya-pada.
Mantra: Om the Most Venerated Goddess Bhagawati,
deign to descend to Bali. There is someone invoking Thy favour and asking that
Thou descend to the world of mortals.
Ana wang mangkana anunas kasaktyan, manusa
kabeh ring Bagawati, Sang Hyang Guru turun ka mretya-pada.
There is someone who asks for supernatural
power; numerous people are asking Thee to let the Divine Teacher descend to the world of mortals.
Ana wang manusa angawe Batara kabeh, turun
ka Bali Sang Hyang Bagawati.
People are
directing themselves to the Gods, so that the Goddess Bhagawati may descend to
Bali.
Ana buta wilis, ana buta abang, [ana
buta jenar], ana buta ireng, ana buta amanca-warna, mawak I Kalika, ya kautus
antuk Batari Bagawati, teka welas-asih ring awak-sarira n ku-ne, pakulun Paduka
Bagawati
There are dark-green buta, red ones, [yellow ones], black
ones and buta and multi-coloured ones embodied in Kalika. May they be sent by the
Goddess Bhagawati who will be gracious towards me; I am an obedient servant of
Thou, Goddess Bhagawati.[7]
Om Mam Am Om Mam, ana Paduka Guru, teka welas-asih,
Bagawati manggih di gedong kunci manik, teka asih ring awak-sarira n ku. Telas,
Om Mam Am Om Mam, there is Bhatara Guru who Has a gracious heart; the Goddess Bhagawati
comes and meets him at the closed-shrine of jewels, be gracious toward me.
Dulurana: canang tubungan, burat
wangi lenga wangi, nyahnyah gagringsingan, geti-geti, byu mas.
That invocation must be completed
with canang tubungan, burat wangi lenga wangi, nyahnyah
gagringsingan (roasted rice with golden colour), geti-geti (roasted
rice mixed with brown sugar to get the red colour), byu mas (a type of a
small banana fruit of golden colour) Hooykaas (1978:30-31).
Nala (1997) also gives a very clear
description of the procedures for practicing black magic. Nala’s description of
ritual practices is very close to the information found in textual sources like
the Aji Pengleyakan, but is based on
interviews with traditional healers. This shows us that textual and ritual
practices have not diverged greatly in the realm of magical practices.
There are a number of works in prose
that narrate myths concerning the role of the goddess Durga as the destroyer of
humans through inflicting plagues and disease. Among the most famous works is
the prose text Calon Arang, which is
considered the oldest textual version of the tale of the witch Rangda and her
disciples in black magic. The phrase calon arang,
in fact, means “candidate
for black magic.
The prose Calon Arang is very
important to this short study because it illustrates the
prominence of the goddess Durga as the “personal deity” (istadewata) for Randa ing Dirah, “the widow from
Dirah” who worships the
goddess Bhagavati (Durga) in the cremation ground in order to gain the favour
of Durga and the power of causing great destruction to the kingdom of Airlangga, historical king
(reigned c. 1019-1942 CE) who plays an important role in the Calon Arang tale.
The author of the Calon Arang has
woven together historical and mythological events to create a picture of a
world that seems very close to Balinese society. Even today it is widely
believed that people can gain access to magical power and use it to do evil;
however, this brings with it a state of impurity that can only be ‘treated’
through exorcistic rituals, The prose Calon
Arang gives information on the ritual steps that need to be followed in the
worship of the goddess, who is known in the text as Sri Bhagavati or Bhatari
Durga. The first step is the reading of a text on magical practices, which
undoubtedly contains mantras and
invocations of the goddess Durga; then the Rangda and her disciples go to the
cremation ground, where they dance in a wild frenzy aimed at raising up demonic
forces and inspiring the goddess Durga herself to appear. Once the goddess
appears, Rangda and her disciples worship the goddess Durga and ask her
blessing in carrying out magical attacks. The first attack of Rangda on
Airlangga’s kingdom as described in the prose Calon Arang can be summarized as follows:
“How painful it is that nobody wants
to propose to my beautiful daughter. I will take out my sacred book and then go
to pay homage at the “feet of the goddess” (paduka
Sri Bhagavati). I will ask for her blessing so that I can bring destruction
to all the people of the kingdom”, thought Rangda in Dirah. After reading her
sacred book, Rangda then went to the cremation ground with seven of her
favourite female disciples; Si Weksirsa, Mahisa-wadana, Si Lenda, Si Lendi, Si
Guyang, Si Larung, and Si Gandi. After arriving in the cremation ground, they
all dance wildly together. The goddess Durga (paduka Batari Durga) then appears with her numerous demonic
followers. Rangda then worshipped the goddess with great fervour, who said to
her disciple, “Hai, my dear daughter Calon Arang, what is your purpose in
coming to me with all your disciples?” While continuing to worship the goddess,
Rangda said, “My Lady, I have come to you to beg for a blessing so that I can
destroy the kingdom, that’s my main aim in coming before you my Lady”. The
goddess said, “My daughter, I give you permission to do so, but you should not
destroy people inside the court. You should not kill, because it is a great sin
to seek revenge!” Calon Arang agreed to the condition that she would not kill
people inside the court circle. Then she took leave of the goddess and departed
from the cremation ground with light steps, followed by her disciples. Later at
midnight, they all danced once again on the cremation ground, making a great
sound with the clanging of kamanak, kangsi and other gongs and
bells. After dancing, they went back home to Dirah/Girah with a happy feeling.
The next morning, many people in the surrounding villages fell sick and died,
so many that dead bodies piled up everywhere.[8]
From the description above we know
that the Rangda of Dirah destroyed her enemies through magical power used with
the blessings of the goddess Durga-Bhagavati. The fact that the goddess grants her
this power does not mean that she does not know that it has evil consequences,
for she reminds Rangda that it is sinful to do evil for the sake of seeking
revenge. However, Rangda is blinded by her anger and ignores the caution of the
goddess. In this description of the first worship to the goddess, the author
does not describe the nature or extent of the offerings of Rangda and her
followers to the goddess, but instead stresses their wild dancing and the loud,
raucous music they make as an accompaniment to their dancing.
Beliefs about the importance of
sacrifice in the quest for magical power have a long history in India. Lorenzen
(1972:16) has pointed out that the most archaic level of Tantric worship to the
goddess is represented in the prose, literary work Kadambari composed by
Bāṇabhaṭṭa in the 7th century CE. In
this work, Dūrgā (known here as Caṇḍikā, another of her many names) is offered
human flesh by people of the wild Śabara tribe.[9]
Usha Dev (1987:12) tells us of a similar scene in Daṇḑin’s Daśakumāracarita,
another literary work of
the 7th century CE, which describes “the scene of the temple of Caṇḍikā
where the Śabaras […] intended to sacrifice a boy”. However, the most elaborate Indian
description of the role of sacrifice in seeking the favour of the goddess is
found in the Sanskrit drama Mālatīmādhava, composed by the illustrious Bhavabhūti during the 8th
century CE (c.725 CE).[10]
Lorenzen (1972:23) has pointed out that Bhavabhūti might have been inspired by
Daṇḑin’s work, replacing the sacrifice of a young prince with that of a young
princess, and shifting the blame for the deed from the wild, Śabara people to a
siddha, a practitioner of Tantric
rites, who in this case has dedicated himself to winning the favour of Caṇḍikā
in order to achieve great magical power.
When we look at a summary of the Mālatīmādhava, it should become clear that there is a
strong relationship between the sacrificial scenes in the two works: the Daśakumāracarita
and Mālatīmādhava. In both it is a young princess who is to be
sacrificed, while the person intending to carry out the sacrifice is an
ascetic practicing extreme, antinomian
forms of worship. If we compare the drama of Daśakumāracarita and Mālatīmādhava
with the Calon Arang tale, we also
find several similarities between these literary works. In the Calon Arang story, the fresh body of a
young man who was buried on an auspicious day (Tumpek, or Saturday Kliwon) is brought
back to life for the purpose of obtaining fresh blood and cannot be rescued,
since he was an outsider to Rangda’s circle of magical practitioners at the
cremation ground. No matter how hard he begs for his life Calon Arang feels no
remorse whatsoever in causing his death a second time, since the only thing on
her mind was the destruction of Airlangga’s entire kingdom.
Bhavabhūti, a poet and dramatist
whose name has lived on as one of the greats of the Indian tradition, lived
during the reign of Yaśovarman of Kanauj, which was a period of great glory and
power that supported a sophisticated culture that admired and supported the
creation of literary works and dramas in Sanskrit, as well as a number of other
literary languages (Lorenzen, 1972:49, Usha Dev, 1987:13; Kale, 1997:35-50). In
Acts IV and Act V of this work the heroine is nearly sacrificed as a human
offering to Cāmuṇḑa (a very terrifying form of the
goddess Dūrgā) by a practitioner of magical rites who is described as a member
of the Kāpālika order. As Lorenzen (1972:50)
tells us the Kāpālika practiced
extreme forms of asceticism and anti-social behaviour that, even as early as
the time of Bhavabhūti, led to their being considered a dangerous, and possibly
cannibalistic form of ascetics. For this study what is most
important, and very striking, is that the description of extreme modes of
Tantric worship found in works like the Kadambari, Daśakumāracarita and
Mālatīmādhava are often strongly reminiscent of works
of the Javanese and Balinese traditions like the Calon Arang.
The authors of these works created
imaginary versions of rituals involving human sacrifice that must have always
been conducted in conditions of great secrecy, or a tradition of beliefs about
what might go on in such rituals. Since the Mālatīmādhava is very important as a comparison with the
prose Calon Arang, I will summarize the Mālatīmādhava here:
The heroine Mālatī is deeply in love with Mādhava. But they
cannot marry since the parents of Mālatī have arranged her marriage with
another man. Two adherents of the Kapālika sect;
Aghoraghaṇṭa and his female disciple Kapālakuṇḍalā, want to take advantage of Mālatī’s broken
heart, which makes her a more attractive sacrificial victim. While Mālatī is
lamenting on the terrace of her father’s palace, Kapālakuṇḑalā abducts her and brings her to her teacher Aghoraghaṇṭa, who
is eagerly awaiting Mālatī at the Karala temple, located in a spacious place
near the cremation ground. Aghoraghaṇṭa has vowed to sacrifice a maiden to the
goddess Cāmuṇḍā, who is enshrined there, and intends to use Mālatī as the
sacrifice that will make his ritual and mantras efficacious. At the same time,
broken hearted from the brutal separation from his beloved Mālatī, Mādhava has
been wandering around in a burning
ground and cemetery near the place where Mālatī was about to be sacrificed to
the goddess Cāmuṇḍā in the Karala temple. In the depths of despair he has been
selling fresh human flesh from the burning ground to the ghosts, goblins and
other invisible spirits of the cemetery. While in the midst of doing so he
hears the soft voice of a woman in the distance lamenting and calling out his
name. The voice sounds very familiar, so he goes in search of its owner. He
walks towards the temple of the goddess Cāmuṇḑā and finds Mālatī dressed in the
white clothes of a sacrificial victim and on the point of being beheaded by Aghoraghaṇṭa,
who is standing with an executioner’s sword in hand in front of the image of
the goddess Cāmuṇḑā. Mādhava and Aghoraghaṇṭa begin to battle with great
ferocity. Meanwhile the temple has been surrounded by the troops of Mālatī’s
father, who have been searching high and low for her. Mādhava succeeds in killing Aghoraghaṇṭa,
freeing Mālatī from danger, while Kapālakuṇḑalā
manages to fly away to safety. Mādhava now receives the blessings of Mālatī’s
father and are joined in blissful marital union.[11]
While the Calon Arang story does not share the same romantic theme and the
“happy ending” that was required in all Sanskrit dramas, if we look carefully
we can see that the elimination of Rangda’s impure state leads to the
“liberation” of her disciples from the evil and impurity that has befallen them
through joining Rangda in her quest for the powers of black magic. Both works
are thus more about release from danger, impurity and evil than they are about
a “battle between good and evil”, and both provide insights into common beliefs
about the use of human sacrifice to attain the highest degree of power in the
magical arts.
Conclusions
After describing the major role of
the goddess Durga as a destroyer of life, I can draw a few conclusions:
- The
role of the goddess as a destroyer is most strongly accentuated in the
Balinese case. While her spouse, Lord Shiva, is said in contemporary Bali to
be the destroyer, Durga is actually more famous for her destructive nature
than her spouse.
- There
is some confusion in Bali about the identity of the goddess Durga. Many
people think of Durga and Rangda as identical, but the textual and
performance sources show us that Rangda is a mythical devotee of the
goddess Durga, who is the antagonist in the take of Calon Arang, or Rangda
ing Dirah, and in performances based on this legend.
- Common
beliefs about the similarity of Queen Mahendradatta and the mythical Calon Arang suggest that powerful
women have commonly met with resistance in their lives. At the same time,
there is a general fear in the Balinese patriarchal society that women
like widows and women who have not born a male heir, are likely to study
and master black magic in order to seek revenge on society. At one time
the wives of the warrior caste (Kṣatriya)
were required to throw themselves on the funeral pyre of their
husbands, thus
accentuating the fear of the state of widowhood that is also reflected in
the Indian tradition of satī. The tradition of works like
the Sudamala, Calon Arang and Kunti Yadnya suggests that women
are feared for the destructive power they might bring upon their
neighbours if they are not “protected” by the rules and regulations of the
patriarchal society and
the ‘protective’ circle of marriage and the family.
References
Dev, Usha
1987 The
Concept of Shakti in the Puranas. Delhi Nag Publishers.
Hooykaas, C
1974 Cosmogony and Creation in Balinese Tradition. The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff. [KITLV:Bibliotheca Indonesica. No. 9]
1978 The Balinese Poem Basur: An
Introduction to Magic. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. [KITLV: Bibliotheca
Indonesica. No. 17]
Kale, M. R
1997 Bhavabhuti’s Mālatīmādhava with the Commentary of Jagaddhāra. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Lorenzen, David N
1972 The Kāpālikas and Kālāmukhas:
Two Lost Śaivite Sects. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
Lovric, B. J. A
1986 ‘The art of healing and the craft of witches in a “Hot Earth”
village’.
Review of Indonesian and Malaysian
Affairs, 20 (1), pp. 68-99.
1987 “Rhetoric and Reality: the Hidden Nightmare, Myth, and Magic as
Representations of Morbid Realities”: Unpublished PhD Dissertation,
University of Sydney.
Nala, Ngurah,
1991 Usada
Bali. Denpasar: Upada Sastra.
Suastika, I Made
1997 Calon Arang dalam Tradisi Bali. Yogyakarta: Duta Wacana University
Press.
[1] For major
works in the study of the role of black magic in Balinese society see Hooykaas
(1978), Lovric (1986, 1987).
[2] All photos are the work of the author.
[3] The Aji Pangleyakan contains
guidance on how to practice black magic, complete with descriptions of the
proper offerings and the procedures for performing rituals of this type.
[4] In the
textual forms of the Calon Arang drama
the sage Bahula Bharada’s disciple enters the compound of Rangda and, finding
her not at home, takes one of her magical manuscripts to be given to the sage
Bharada to be read. To his surprise its contents are exactly like those of the
books he uses for protective magic (paněngěn).
Is widely believed in Bali that mantras for left-hand magic are the same as
those for protective magic, but they are read, or recited, in the opposite
direction. This belief appears to be reflected in Bharada’s surprising
discovery of the nature of the palm-leaf manuscripts used by Rangda to inflict
pestilence on the realm of Airlannga.
[5] I have used the term “cremation
ground” in this section to translate setra.
In some Balinese communities a
distinction is made between the setra, where
the bodies of the deceased are cremated, and the sema, where they are buried, but for most communities the two terms
are nearly synonymous, since there is no clear separation of space between the
area where the deceased are cremated and the area where bodies that are
temporarily buried due to a lack of funds for the cremation rituals or the
availability of an auspicious day for śmaśāna, a Sanskrit term for a cremation ground.
[6] I have taken the liberty here of
rearranging Hooykaas’ text and translation of a section of a manuscript titled Pengiwa that was transcribed for him by
the late AA Ketut Sangka for the “Proyek Tik” collection. Hooykaas (1978:30)
lists this transcription as K 96 in the Proyek Tik collection. In his original
rendering the Balinese text and translation were given in two single blocks
(1978:30-32).
[7] The
Sanskrit word bhūta, usually spelled buta in Balinese, has gone through a unique process of development in Bali. Perhaps
originating from its use in the phrase pañca-mahābhūta
that refers in Saṃkhyā philosophy to the “five great elements” of the
physical world, these elements are associated in Bali with the “four spiritual
siblings” (and the self) whose demonic aspect needs to be controlled in order
to protect the human being from disease and accidents. This concept has
developed to the point that there are a great many rituals aimed at placating
the buta, or buta-kala, which are visualized as inhabiting the earth and
underworld, and so worshippped with offerings placed on the ground, almost
always containing meat, and often liquor—thus accentuating the possible Tantric
origins of this form of worship.
[8] My translation here is based on Suastika’s Indonesian translation and
the Middle Javanese text of the prose the
Calon Arang (LOr 5387/5279; Suastika, 1997:60-61).
[9] I use diacritics in this paper only in the
sections dealing with Indian works like the Mālatīmādhava of Bhavabhūti. I thus retain the Indian
spelling Dürgā only in this section of my paper. While distinctions of long and
short vowels are retained in lontar manuscripts, they are not a part of
Javanese or Balinese phonology and are not pronounced differently (as they are
in India).
[10] Bhavabhūti’s name means either
“wealth of Shiva” or “ashes of Shiva” (Lorenzen 1972:50). He is considered by
many scholars to have been a brilliant innovator in both the dramatic forms (nāṭya) and courtly epics (kāvya) of the
Sanskrit tradition.
[11] I am indebted to Professor Gary
Tubb of the Columbia University, New York for his kindly sharing with me this
verbal summary of Bhavabhūti’s Mālatīmādhava while I was in
Israel in 2003.
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