Religion in Bali by C. Hooykaas

1 Orientation
Bali is situated immediately to the east of Java with which it has strong cultural relation for more
than a thousand years. Whereas Java since a few centuries must be reckoned to the world of
Islam, Bali maintains its Hinduism, which during several centuries it shared with Java. This
Javano Balinese culture will have been initiated by royal marriages but has certainly been
consolidated by Javanese conquests of the island. Captains of the victorious army have been
given grounds in most parts of the island; their present day descendants are still very well aware
of their Javanese ancestors. In many a case these feudal lords will have built a court and
constituted groups for dance and drama. Scattered over the country nowadays about a hundred
are still to be found. These barons had been courtiers of Majapahit and took with them the court
literature, profane and theological, philosophic and ritualistic. From the cultural point of view,
therefore, Bali is not only interesting in itself but perhaps even more so as a storehouse of Old
Javanese culture. It would be a mistake to consider Bali as a spiritual linear successor of Java,
but its culture is partly pure Old Javanese, for another part an adaptation of it.
(To the east of Bali, at a few miles' distance, is situated the island of Lombok. The Sasak
language of this island is more similar with Balinese than is Javanese, structurally speaking, but
then Balinese in course of time borrowed a not inconsiderable copia verborum from Javanese.
During half of the eighteenth century and nearly entirely the nineteenth, princes of Bali ruled in
(javanised, Muslim) Lombok, but this has not led to much cultural exchange in either direction).
Better to keep in mind that under the more or less Hinduised layer of the last ten centuries there
is the common Indonesian base, pre Christian, pre Muslim and pre Hindu. In this connection one
should learn and never forget that Bali shares the word tiwa(h) with Kalimantan (Borneo of old),
meaning the pomp of funeral ceremonies for a deceased person of royal rank [13, 52]. There
exists a widely spread misunderstanding re cremation. The fire may be Hindu, but as a rule its
purifying function is not invoked a few hours after death, as in Hindustan, but a few months, a
few years after it, and in by far most cases never at all. There are better reasons for considering
the Balinese to be Hindus, as may become clear in the course of this pamphlet. The good right of
the Balinese to claim agama Hindu Bali, Balinese Hinduism, as their religion, will not be denied