Religion in Bali by C. Hooykaas

3 Kanda Mpat [26]
Not long after the Pacific War one could find mimeographed pamphlets on Balinese Hinduism,
i.e. on how it should be believed and practiced, written by Indians. Some of the members of staff
of the Faculty of Arts, Udayana University of Denpasar, read in India for their academic exams
and took their degrees there. BHAGAVAD GITA, in English translation, and now even in
Indonesian, is for sale in the Balinese bookshops. The Saraswati school organization provides its
students with lessons in religion. The Bureau for Religious Affairs last year was building a
teachers' training college, consisting of several classrooms. The main subject to be read: religion,
the future students meant to be specialists like their colleagues for geography or history. Whereas
in the past temples were erected by groups who once in 210 days invited (mostly) local gods to
descend to them from their aerial site above the top of the Great Mountain [5], recently a temple
for the worship of Jagannath, Lord of the World, has been built. Hence the justified question:
Are the XX. century and tourism changing everything in Bali ? [32, 48].
For an adequate answer a depth of knowledge and a geographical and historical extent of
experience is necessary, combined with a courage for prophesying which is nowhere to be found.
But it is possible to deal with an example of an old belief which proves to be neither discarded
nor doubted or intentionally ignored in the present. It should serve as an example, a to the world
outside perhaps unexpected theme of belief that is quietly maintaining itself [50].
A Balinese dislikes being alone, either by day or by night. But then, he is not, for he is constantly
accompanied by his four elder brothers when he is a male, four elder sisters in the case of a
female (c 1, 2). They accompany him/her from shortly after conception till after cremation,
actually till the final act of deliverance of the soul. They are the personified concomitants of his
birth: the amniotic fluid, the blood, the vernix caseosa and the after birth. It is not well possible
to preserve the first three, but the afterbirth is tangible enough. Shortly after birth it is buried
outside the main entrance to the sleeping house. A father leaving the door has it buried to the
right in the case of a male child whereas the left side is given to the females. A river stone of
between ten to twenty kilogram covers this spot. Finally a fragment of the umbilical cord is
preserved as an amulet, kept in a silver box, hung around the child's neck [35].