Religion in Bali by C. Hooykaas

trance, is only too often that those constructions should be renewed. Balinese religion asks a
considerable amount of work from men and women.
The Balinese have no daily holy mass to attend and no weekly service, but their temples once in
210 days celebrate their anniversary [5]. Those temples are the places of worship for a local
group, for members of a trade, for relatives of the same caste, but never for the god Siwa or the
god Wisnu, as in India.
During that Balinese year of 5 × 6 × 7 = 210 days several days are less favourable and will not
have been chosen for the temple's anniversary so that a visitor, even when covering a
considerable mileage, not necessarily somewhere stumbles upon such a celebration. But during
the first part of the night he is bound to find musicians, actors and dancers practicing for the
coming temple festival; he cannot fail to see their petromax lamp and to hear their music and
voices [55].
For such a temple festival an incredible amount of offerings has to be plaited, flowers collected,
food prepared (m 3, o–q). Not infrequently one sees a dozen of a village's women in an open
building along the road busy with this job (o 1). It is not as heavy as that of the men but it takes
many hours during several consecutive days. There may be much chatter and some coffee, true,
but this temple business comes on top of the never ending daily offerings in the house, on the
courtyard (k 5), in the domestic sanctuary, in the irrigated rice fields (a). It would be hazardous
to say that the amount of time taken by religion in Bali is unprecedented, unrivalled, but there
can be no doubt that the village population is kept busy with the practical and routine side of its
religion [7].
This is a first impression and it remains true.