Balinese Hindu Research Articles

Defining Ethnicity, (Re)Constructing Culture: Processes of Musical Adaptation and Innovation among the Balinese of Lombok1

The arrival and negotiation of Balinese music culture on the neighboring island of Lombok has constructed a unique sociomusical identity through processes of preservation, adaptation, and innovation. On Lombok, Balinese music and culture converges and collides with the indigenous majority, the Islamic Sasak. The Hindu Balinese experienced several dramatic shifts in status on the island: from colonizer to colonized to minority in the Indonesian state, and the music adjusted accordingly. The music culture reveals three streams of influence that define the Lombok Balinese. Currently, however, traditions are being reconsidered as musicians and leaders are coping with reformist Islam, centralized Hindu organizations, and national and regional political developments. I first came to Lombok under the auspices of an IIE Fulbright grant in 1983, and witnessed such events as the Lingsar festival. I later visited under DOE Fulbright, United States-Indonesian Society, and Bowling Green State University research grants, and several times on my own. Many people have helped me over the past decades. I wish to thank Dr. I Madé Bandem, my first research sponsor; Hj. Dra Sri Yaningsih, a later sponsor who was the head of the Arts Section of the Department of Education and Culture in Lombok; and H. Lalu Wiramaja, my most recent sponsor. I extend my appreciation to many community members, including I Wayan Kartawirya, my frequent host, and his wife Ni Madé Darmi; Ida Wayan Pasha, one of the leading composer/musicians in Lombok; and other friends or officials, including I Nengah Kayun, I Gedé Gumbrug, Max Arifin, I Wayan Kereped, Kadek Saka, Martinom, Lalu Gedé Suparman, I Komang Kantun, I Nyoman Rembang, and I Gusti Bagus Maharta. I also thank Jeremy Wallach for reading and making suggestions for this text.

“Isn't This Nice? It's just like being in Bali”: Constructing Balinese Music Culture in Lombok

This article locates historicized developments, recognizes musician agency and focuses on how music, through three distinct performance types, constructs and negotiates Balinese culture on Bali's neighbour island of Lombok. The primary type is “Hindu Balinese”, without local influence; other types represent appropriation from and co-creation with the indigenous and majority population, the Muslim Sasak. These types reflect and generate religious behaviour, situate and shape intra- and inter-ethnic relations, and reveal contestations within the local Balinese community. Modernist forces are currently realigning these types and seeking to homogenize Lombok Balinese music practice to fit the “Hindu Balinese” model. Individual artists, however, have generally led music developments. I highlight three such individuals – Ida Wayan Pasha, Ni Madé Darmi, and I Komang Kantun – who, through individual effort, have helped direct the construction of Lombok Balinese music culture over the past fifty years.

Negotiating Evidence: History, Archaeology and the Indus Civilisation

Following the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in December 1992, the discipline of archaeology has been increasingly exploited for meeting the demands of religious nationalism in India, for offering material proof for the primordiality of Hindu dharma, and for substantiating claims that the ‘Vedic Hindu’ had an indigenous origin within the subcontinent. Over the last decade, statements such as ‘new astrological and archaeological evidence has come to light which suggests that the people who composed the Vedas called themselves Aryans and were indigenous to India’ (Prinja 1996: 10), have not only propped up the doctrinaire of Hindutva, but have also acquired an official sanctioning from many within the professional community of Indian archaeologists (e.g. Lal 1998), who are actively involved in a programme of promoting the premise that it is possible to unearth true histories objectively through archaeological means (Gupta 1996: 142).

The Bali Bombings: Tourism Crisis Management and Conflict Avoidance

The combination of the bombings, SARS, the Iraq War and bird flu has brought about an acute decline in tourism in Bali, but despite widespread unemployment and a collapse in living standards the island has not experienced widespread strife. Despite severe provocation from the alleged Bali bombers, all of whom are Muslim, Hindu Balinese did not seek retribution by persecuting the island’s minorities. Bali’s politicians and opinion leaders appreciated the potential volatility of the situation and called for restraint using all available media and Bali’s network of village councils and urban wards. Various cultural and religious strategies, such as inter-religious worship and village security capacity building, were adopted to help manage the crisis. Rumours of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and the forced repatriation of non-Balinese, especially Muslim Javanese, appear to be unfounded. The widespread adoption of measures designed to avoid conflict appears to have helped restore confidence in Bali’s tourism industry. Some Balinese responses to the bombings are probably culturally specific, but this example of crisis management may have wider applications within the context of tourism.

ギアニャール(バリ島・インドネシア)の都市空間構成に関する研究 : 東南アジアにおけるヒンドゥー都市の比較研究

This paper analyses the influence of Balinese Hindu principle on the urban formation of Gianyar, one of the traditional towns founded in 18th century in Bali Island. Even though Balinese towns and villages have common house compounds as a fundamental unit, the structure of the settlements make several significant differences between towns and villages. In contrast with the linear composition of villages, urban structure of Gianyar rather has its focus in the center of the town. The analysis on caste distribution also illustrates the importance of the center. The emergence of urban blocks in Gianyar brought about several plot division patterns as opposed to the simple back-to-back plot division in the villages. However the analysis has revealed that the variety of plot division patterns in Gianyar is regulated by the sole principle i.e. the avoidance of building the gate for each house compound toward the north direction. The well-known Balinese cosmological concept of Nawasanga not only influences the planning of the house compound but also the urban formation.

New Lines, Shifting Identities: Interpreting Change at the Lingsar Festival in Lombok, Indonesia

I hardly recognized the event. Over the course of twenty years, I had visited the temple t ns of times and was witnessing its festival for the fourth time. But this one was different: many elements, once presented by officials as stable requirements, had changed. Though I knew that the festival, after over three hundred years, had to adjust to contemporary realities to remain meaningful, I was unprepared for the extent of change and believed that core musical offerings, in any scenario, would be preserved and that substan tive additions would be rejected. I was further confounded by officials and friends insisting that, despite the apparent changes, the festival was tetap sama (still the same). I soon discovered that there existed various idioms available to enfold change as perpetuation and to rationalize additions as perkembangan (development) orperbaikan (improvement). This festival, like others worldwide, defines its participants' negotiations with history (particularly tradition), the present, and cultural values.What distinguishes the festival at the Lingsar temple in Lombok (a neighbor isle of Bali) is the conjoining of two ethnic groups: the migrant Hindu Balinese and the Muslim Sasak. Each festival plays out ethnic tensions and contestations over the festival's central position. This locating of the ethnic self requires mediating local sociopolitical realities?which in turn adapt to regional and national developments. Every performance is thus a contextualization of the myriad negotiations of its participants. Though endemic to human life and academic fields, change may be dis orienting and may threaten established identities. My surprise at the changes of the 2001 festival originated in my attachments to earlier findings, and my evolving status and research agenda. I first witnessed the festival as a Master's

Religious Expression amongst Adults with Intellectual Disabilities

Background Although religion is an important part of many people's lives, little is known about the role of religion in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities.Method Semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 29 people with intellectual disabilities of a range of faiths (various Christian denominations, Islam and Hindu dharma). Participants were asked about the meaning of religion for them, the role of religion in their lives and the attitudes of others towards religious expression. All interviews were audio‐recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed.Results Participants expressed strong religious identities. Prayer was a particularly popular form of religious expression, with other forms of religious expression often hindered by services or faith agencies. Some individuals expressed how their religious faith was not recognized by services or faith agencies.Conclusions Services and faith agencies need to recognize the importance of religion in the lives of many people with intellectual disabilities, and support religious expression in this group.

Lower income Hindu women's attitude towards abortion: a case study in urban India.

After a brief discussion of Hindu views on abortion as reflected in classical Hindu philosophical and religious texts, this article examines, from an interdisciplinary perspective, current social attitudes towards abortion among lower-income Hindu women in Calcutta and attempts to identify the reasons for the striking disparity between traditional and modern Hindu views. Does Hindu dharma have the regulatory power it wielded in the past? What accounts for the changing face of mores in urban centers like Calcutta? These and related issues are the focus of this essay.

Making cosmo-religious landscapes: the design of a Balinese town's civic center (Bali, Indonesia)

Bali, a provincial island among Indonesia's hundreds of islands, is a unique place mainly due to its existence as an island, populated mostly by Balinese Hindu. As such the Balinese traditional-religious conceptions of space are influential in the landscape design. This paper evaluates the site plan and landscape design of the Regency of Badung Civic Center in the Province of Bali, Indonesia. It describes the design approach taken by its designers, in which they explored the traditional-religious conceptions of space in relation to the design goals. The Balinese urban design principles as proposed by Samadhi (J. Indones. Plann. School Assoc. 1(1) (2001) 25, Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, 2001) will be utilized as the tool of evaluation.

Space Formation of Jaipur City, Rajastan, India An Analysis on City Maps (1925-28) made by Survey of India

The purpose of this paper is to study the principles of space formation of Jaipur City which is known as the so called grid iron city. Jaipur City, designed by Jai Singh II is thought to have been constructed according to Hindu cosmology. This paper discusses the planning theory in terms of measurement systems employed in the widths and lengths of streets, division of the urban blocks (chowkri) and the distribution of the dwelling units through the analysis of 43 sheets of the City Map (1925-28). The reason why we chose Jaipur is to compare it with Cakranegara (Lombok, Indonesia), which was founded as a colonial city of the Balinese Hindu kingdom in the same period of the early 18th century.This paper makes clear that in reality the sizes of the urban blocks are different place by place while simple measurement systems were introduced in the beginning. It also shows the process of city development with respect to changes in the form of the street pattern.The latter part of the paper focuses on the form of neighbourhood structures and, on types of residential buildings that are the cellular units of the residential quarters.

The urban design of a Balinese town: placemaking issues in the Balinese urban setting

This research considers the role of indigenous institutions and conceptions of space in the urban design process for producing culturally appropriate designs for Balinese towns. Employing a pluralistic approach (The Image of the City, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1960; Planning a Pluralist City: Conflicting Realities in Ciudad Guyana, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1976; House Form and Culture, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1969, Human Aspects of the Built Form, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1977), a case study of the town of Gianyar, Bali, Indonesia explores the popular accounts on the operative indigenous conceptions of space in contemporary Balinese urban settings. This exploration aims at providing a ground for reconnecting urban design proposals with their cultural context, thus promoting the spatially expressed localism originating from the diversity of cultures which is currently undermined by the highly standardized process of the Indonesian planning system. In particular, for the town of Gianyar, such an exploration provides a set of placemaking issues which is useful in devising urban design guidelines for achieving a town with more pronounced cultural identity. The research concludes that to achieve culturally appropriate places, the design process has to acknowledge the Balinese Hindu psycho-cosmic concept as the core principle in the design of Balinese townscapes. As such, the existing indigenous cosmic territory, which accommodates the relationship between human (microcosm) and environment (macrocosm), along with its adat law and institution, has to be incorporated in contemporary urban design processes. As a result, urban spatial organization, structure and form will significantly reflect the Balinese cultural identity.

Culture, Tourism and Cultural Tourism: Boundaries and frontiers in performances of Balinese music and dance

Cultural tourism in Bali is analysed here through two music and dance events designed for tourists, and a Balinese Hindu temple festival. While all three cases allow tourists to hear and see performances constructed from the sounds and images of Balinese performing arts, at the same time they provide demonstrations of cultural matrices which necessarily remain unrecognised by tourists. Through the situation of entry to or restriction from knowledge this creates, cultural tourism in Bali is theorised as a map of boundaries and frontiers between culture bearers and tourists.

“Like King and Queen, Like Balinese and Sasak”

The Lingsar temple pujawali, a primarily religious festival on the island of Lombok in Indonesia, conjoins Hindu Balinese migrants and local Muslim Sasak to worship together for rain and spring water, fertility, bountiful harvests, and cures and boons. This article explores the narrative elements of the presented music at the festival, and posits that performances, which structure and frame the event and its internal rites, are embodied narratives linked to myths, fertility, and moral orders. The performing arts at Lingsar also erect ethnicity and unify together the respective groups of Balinese and Sasak. This union, referred to as “like king and queen,” is generated through music and dance performance in conjunction with the rites of priests and the collective actions of participants.

What's in a List?:A Rule of Interpretation for Hindu Dharma Offered in Response to Maria Hibbets

The study of South Asian ethics presents a variety of problems for the comparative ethicist. This response focuses on one such problem relating to Hinduism: the pervasive use of nonsystematic lists as a source of ethical injunctions and guidelines. The author demonstrates how an indigenous hermeneutic may unpack a list that contains the gift of fearlessness among other gifts. The source of this interpretation is Purva Mimamsa, an ancient Indian school of philosophy that specialized in language and the application of sacrificial logic to law and ethics. The same principles that allowed ritual specialists to sort out a huge array of rules into proper injunctions also allow us to make sense of ethical principles embodied in puzzling lists of concrete items.

On the Origin of Sang Hyang Widi in Balinese Hinduism

On the Origin of Sang Hyang Widi in Balinese Hinduism

チャクラヌガラ(インドネシア・ロンボク島)における住み分けの特性 : チャクラヌガラの空間構成に関する研究 その3

The purpose of this study is to consider the principles of space formation in the houses, villages and cities, focusing on the cosmology that decide physical arrangement. We selected Cakranegara city in Lombok island, Indonesia, as a case study. Cakranegara was built as a colonial city of Karanngasem Kingdom in Bali in 18th century. We guess Cakranegara was constructed based on the idea of Bali Hindu City. This paper clarifies the characteristics of habitat segregation among Muslim, Chinese, Balinese. About Balinese, the habitat segregation between caste is also clarified. The structure of segregation Cakranegara is very clear. The structure is as follows. 1) Balinese people lives in central area though Muslim lives in edge of area which have the grid pattern. The housing lot and the road pattern is completely different between living area of Balinese and that of Muslim. 2) Each Karang, community unit, have pura, Hindu temple, and Musjit. 3) Chines is scattered all area of Cakranegara. Chinese basically work for commerce. 4) Balinese makes segregation depending on caste. Brahumana lives in north and East. Ksatnya lives in west side and Gusti lives in east side. The caste which relate to kings family, Agung, Ratu, lives in the place previously located palace.

チャクラヌガラ(インドネシア・ロンボク島)の祭祀施設と住区組織 : チャクラヌガラの空間構成に関する研究 その2

The purpose of this study is to consider the principles of space formation in the houses, villages and cities, focusing on the cosmology that decide physical arrangement. We selected Cakranegara city in Lombok island, Indonesia, as a case study. Cakranegara was built as a colonial city of Karanngasem Kingdom in Bali in 18th century. We guess Cakranegara was constructed based on the idea of Bali Hindu City. This study clarifies the space organization of the city by discussing streets pattern, land division, formation of living quarter, distribution of temples, community organization, distribution of the cast and etc. Pura Meru, the central biggest and impressive Hindu temple, dedicated to Brahumana, Vishunu and Siva, was built in 1720 by the king of Karangasem, Agung Made Ngurah, to unite all the Balinese small kingdoms in Lombok. Enclosing three towers, there stand 33 small shrines. The name of each small shrine is derived from the name of karang (neighborhood unit) which has been maintaining the building. We can consider that the distribution of temples (puras) show the original area of the city. This paper clarified the distribution of these karangs and area planned in the beginning of the construction of Cakranegara.

Balinese hinduism and the Indonesian state; Recent developments

During the last few decades Indonesian society has undergone a major process of change. A military-bureaucratic elite, with at the centre Presid ent Soeharto (b. 1921), whose position is dominant, has played a major role in this process. One of main features of the changes taking place is the spread of thousands of Balinese to other islands of the archipelago, with the result that their religion is now found not only in Lombok where it has existed for centuries but also on other islands, such as Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Kalimantan. The aim of this article is to discuss some of the developments that have taken place in Balinese religion, usually known as Hinduism or Balinese Hinduism, over the past decade, developments that may be corollaries or merely concomitants of the spread of Balinese to other islands. It is, of course, beyond the scope of this article to describe all the current develop ments in Balinese Hinduism. The focus here will be on some important trends in Balinese intellectual thinking and in government-sponsored reli gious education and rituals that seem likely to change the scope of Hindu Balinese religion which will no longer be a religion confined to the island of Bali, but one encompassing the whole of Indonesia, perhaps even ex tending beyond the borders of that country, since Hinduism is a world religion. This article will concentrate on written sources in Bali and other Indo nesian islands where Hindus are living today, rather than investigate what people are doing in the religious domain. The main sources are publications from Bali and other parts of Indonesia, though I will also draw on inter

Possession in Two Balinese Trance Ceremonies

I discuss the construction of Balinese trance behaviors using two examples of trance possession in temple ceremonies. The view that trance states are socially constructed has long roots in anthropology. However, a closer examination of this view is warranted. In particular, I am interested in the question of the possible diversity of the constructed behavior. On the one hand, one may expect a set of general trance behaviors or experiences throughout a given society—e.g. that vision quests in a particular tribe will contain common elements, but these will vary from tribe to tribe (Lowie 1963). On the other hand, a society may offer the general outlines of acceptable trance behavior or experience, but expect them to be radically individual, depending, e.g., on the particular revelatory experience of the person. The Balinese construction of trance fits neither of these poles; rather, trance behaviors are contextualized to a particular temple but not to individual persons. Thus, the trances of the Balinese exhibit a high degree of variety from locale to locale. This unusual variety is due to two factors: a key element of Balinese Hinduism, adat (local custom), as well as a unique feature of how Balinese deities (who possess individuals in trance) are conceived.

The Struggle of the Hindu Balinese Intellectuals: Developments in Modern Hindu Thinking in Independent Indonesia

The Struggle of the Hindu Balinese Intellectuals: Developments in Modern Hindu Thinking in Independent Indonesia