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8 Holy Water(s)<br />
When <strong>in</strong> § 5 impurity was dealt with, cleans<strong>in</strong>g, water and Holy Water were also mentioned.<br />
This matter has only been broached with the mention of toya pabresihan and toya panglukatan.<br />
The head of the Bureau for Religious Affairs <strong>in</strong> West Lombok, H<strong>in</strong>duist and Buddhist, once<br />
k<strong>in</strong>dly showed me three ponds <strong>in</strong> the immediate neighborhood of the former royal park Sura<br />
nadi, 'River of the Gods'. The ponds were called toya pabresihan, toya panglukatan, and the third<br />
toya pangentas. This means: 'water hav<strong>in</strong>g the capacity to ship over (sc. the soul) from the<br />
undesired side of the water to the other side'. Dur<strong>in</strong>g the ritual for the dead it is prepared and<br />
applied after many ritual acts as the f<strong>in</strong>al and decisive one before the dead body (or its substitute)<br />
is put <strong>in</strong> its vehicle (accord<strong>in</strong>g to caste, social position and wealth) and conducted to the<br />
graveyard where the flames will add their purify<strong>in</strong>g power to that of the waters. These ponds, I<br />
scarcely need to say, represent a playful side of Bal<strong>in</strong>ese belief, which did neither prevent this<br />
public servant to show them to me, nor the H<strong>in</strong>du and Muslim <strong>in</strong>habitants of the neighborhood to<br />
build there several bath<strong>in</strong>g sheds and to feel the profit from their baths.<br />
Toya pangentas is certa<strong>in</strong>ly from the highest importance for the Bal<strong>in</strong>ese <strong>in</strong> their care of the<br />
dead, but an enumeration of the different k<strong>in</strong>ds of Holy Water has not come to an end with it.<br />
These were the three which the padanda prepares at the cost of much time with a considerable<br />
amount of ritualistic skill. The last, however, of several Holy Waters to be poured on a dead<br />
body about to be cremated, kakuluh, is not prepared <strong>by</strong> him but <strong>by</strong> the pamangku, and not as the<br />
result of the mutter<strong>in</strong>g of numerous mantra and the mak<strong>in</strong>g of many mudra, but <strong>by</strong> simply<br />
putt<strong>in</strong>g a bowl with pure water on the unroofed seat dest<strong>in</strong>ed for Siwa God of the Sun <strong>in</strong> (one of)<br />
the village temples, accompanied <strong>by</strong> a short prayer express<strong>in</strong>g the hope that dur<strong>in</strong>g the night He<br />
may deign to descend <strong>in</strong>to the water and <strong>in</strong> do<strong>in</strong>g so mak<strong>in</strong>g it partake <strong>in</strong> His Div<strong>in</strong>ity.<br />
Preced<strong>in</strong>g water <strong>in</strong> the ritual for the dead is the toya pamanahan, Holy Water obta<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>by</strong> the<br />
priest's shoot<strong>in</strong>g an arrow <strong>in</strong>to it, an activity considered to be cosmic to such a degree that the<br />
Pancha resi, the Five Seers <strong>in</strong> the Sky, are considered to partake <strong>in</strong> it. The padanda may make<br />
this <strong>in</strong> public as well as <strong>in</strong> the solitude of his own domestic sanctuary, pamrajan (called after his<br />
most potent cult <strong>in</strong>strument, the wajra, the thunderbolt). His manuals tell him, however, to
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