THE PEOPLE

  NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF BALI

     It seems difficult to reconcile the soft-mannered, peace-loving Balinese we know with the intrigue and violence of their turbulent past. For a thousand years the history of the island is a series of wars and heroic episodes that reached a dramatic climax only thirty years ago when the Balinese made a desperate but futile last stand against a modem army.

Bali was under the rule of Javanese kings from the earliest days of Hindu Java, but we first bear of Balinese dynasties in the tenth century of our era. In 991 A.D. a child was born of a Balinese king and a Javanese princess. He was named Erlangga and was sent to Java to marry a princess and to become a local chief in the kingdom of his father-in-law. Dharmawangsa, the ruler, was murdered suddenly and Erlangga took charge, saving the kingdom from total collapse and bringing it into even greater glory. Erlangga ruled during thirty difficult years, creating a strong bond between Java and his native Bali, which was then governed by Erlangga's brother in his name. Then, as befits a model hero of Hindu ideas, Erlangga suddenly renounced the kingdom be bad made great and died a hermit under the guidance of his religious teacher, Mpu' Bharadah. Erlangga's kingdom was nearly destroyed by a plague supposedly brought by the dreadful witch Rangda, queen of evil spirits, who was, according to historians, Erlangga's own mother. Out of the mythical struggle between the magic of the witch and that of the great king, arose the legend Calon Arang that made Erlangga the most famous figure of Balinese mythical history.

In later years Bali became independent of Java, but was again subjugated in 1284 by the army of Kertanagara, the king of Singasari (of the Tumapel dynasty) . Singasari was destroyed eight years later by the new dynasty of Madjapahit, and Bali again became free, only to be reconquered in 1343 by General Gadja Mada for King Radjasanagara, under whom the entire Archipelago became a vassal of Madjapahit. During the next hundred years the power of the empire was undermined by civil wars and revolts in the colonies,. and soon the great empire went into decline. The Balinese revolted against Madjapahit time and again, but the uprisings were put down in memorable battles, after which military figures like Arya Damar and Gadjah Mada became rulers of Bali and to them the present Balinese aristocracy traces its origin. Gadja Mada was sent to Bali to subjugate the king of the Balinese Pedjeng dynasty, Dalem Bedaulu', who was supposed to have bad the head of a pig. He was the owner of the famous horse of Tenganan. Bedaul' was a semi-demoniac charu

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acter of supernatural origin who refused to recognize Madjapahit supremacy. He was defeated by Gadjah Mada, and Bali once more came under Javanese rule. The expeditions of Gadjah Mada were the last military displays of the empire. In the meantime Mohammedan missionaries were becoming influential in Java and were converting princes who proclaimed themselves sultans of their districts, repudiating their allegiance to Madjapahit. Soon peaceful propaganda turned into armed force; Mohammedan fanatics made war on Madjapahit, which finally collapsed after it was weakened by internal trouble. Stutterheim is of the opinion that the empires destruction came gradually somewhere about the' year 1520.

However, in the more picturesque but less reliable historic records (babad) ' it is stated that Madjapahit fell in 1478 under the reign of Bra Widjaya V (Kertabhumi), according to StutteTbeim) . Bra Widjaya was told by his chief priest that after forty days the title of Radja of Madjapahit would cease to exist. The king bad such implicit faith in the prediction that at the expiration of that time he had himself burned alive. His son, unable to withstand the Mohammedan invasion and not daring to disobey the sentence of the priest, escaped to his last remaining colony; followed by his court, his priests, and his artists, be crossed over into Bali, settling on the south coast of Gelgel, at the foot of the Gunung Agung. There he proclaimed himself the king of Bali, the Dewa Agung, the hereditary title of the Raja of Klungkung. The Dewa Agung divided the island into Principalities which be gave to his relatives and generals to govern. By degrees these local chiefs grew independent of the Dewa Agung and became the Raja of the smaller kingdoms into which Bali was later divided.

It was of extreme significance for the cultural development of Bali that in the exodus of the rulers, the priests, and the intellectuals of what was the most civilized race of the Eastern islands, the cream of Javanese culture was transplanted as a unit into Bali. There the art, the religion and philosophy of the Hindu Javanese were preserved and- have flourished practically undisturbed until today. When the fury of intolerant Islamism drove the intellectuals of Java into Bali, they brought with them their classics and continued to cultivate their poetry and art, so that when Sir Stamford Raffles wanted to write the history of Java, be had to turn to Bali for what remains of the once great literature of Java.