SOCIETY
AND RELIGION
The conglomerate
of religious principles manifests itself in elaborate cults
of ancestors and deities of fertility, of fire, water, earth,
and sun, of the mountains and the sea, of gods and devils.
They are the backbone of the Balinese religion, which is
generally referred to as Hinduism, but which is in reality
too close to the earth, too animistic, to be taken as the
same esoteric religion as that of the Hindus of India. Since
the earliest times, when Bali was under the rule of the
great empires that flourished in the golden era of Hinduistic
Java, the various forms of Javanese religion became in turn
the religions of Bali, from the Mahayanic Buddhism of the
Sailendras in the seventh century' the orthodox Sivaism
of the ninth, to the demoniac practices of the Tantric sects
of the eleventh century. In later times Bali adopted the
modified, highly Javanized religion of Madjapahit, when
Hinduism had become strongly tinged with native Indonesian
ideas. Each of these epochs left a deep mark in Balinese
ritual; to the native Balinese cults of ancestors, of the
elements, and of evil spirits, were added the sacrifices
of blood and the practices of black magic of the Tantric
Buddhists, the Vishnuite cult of the underworld, Brahmanic
juggling of mystic words and cabalistic syllables, the cremation
of the dead, and so forth, all, however, absorbed and transformed
to the point of losing their identity, to suit the temper
of the Balinese.
It is
true that Hindu gods and practices are constantly in evidence,
but their aspect and significance differ in Bali to such
an extent from orthodox Hinduism that we find the primitive
beliefs of a people who never lost contact with the soil
rising supreme over the religious philosophy and practices
of their masters. Like the Catholicism of some American
Indians, Hinduism was simply an addition to the native religion,
more as a decoy to keep the masters content, a strong but
superficial veneer of decorative Hinduistic practices over
the deeply rooted animism of the Balinese natives.
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Religion
is to the Balinese both race and nationality; a Balinese
loses automatically the right to be called a Balinese if
be changes his faith or if a Balinese woman marries a Moha'mmedan,
a Chinese, or a Christian, because she takes leave forever
of her own family gods when she moves into her husband's
home and instead worships his gods from that time on. The
religious sages, the Brahmanic priests, remain outsiders,
aloof from the ordinary Balinese, who have their own priests,
simple people whose office is to guard and sweep the community
temples, in which there are no idols, no images of gods
to be worshipped. These temples are frequented by the ancestral
gods, who are supposed to occupy temporarily the little
empty shrines dedicated to them, when visiting their descendants.
The Balinese live with their forefathers in a great family
of the dead and the living, and it would be absurd for them
to try to make converts of another nationality, since the
ancestors of the converts would still remain of another
race apart.
Rather
than a sectarian Church system, separate from the daily
life and in the hands of a hierarchy of priests to control
and exploit the people, the religion of Bali is a set of
rules of behaviour, a mode of life. The resourceful Balinese
fitted their religious system into their social life and
made it the law (adat) by which the supernatural forces
are brought under control by the harmonious co-operation
of everyone in the community to strengthen the magic health
of the village. Like a human being, the community possesses
a life power that wears away and must be fed by the regular
performances of magic acts of the " right," the
side of righteousness. The life power is seriously impaired
by the magic evil, that of the " left," or by
the polluting effects of sickness and death. Bestiality,
incest, suicide, and temple vandalism are among the acts
of individuals that would make the entire village sebel,
or magically weak. The spiritual health is also undermined
by the gradual predominance of evil forces, the demons and
witches that haunt the village. Some of these are easily
disposed of, but the main concern of the Balinese centres
in the propitiation of the protecting ancestors who descend
to this earth on special holidays and at the anniversaries
of the innumerable temples, when they receive offerings
and entertainment from the people. By these ceremonies and
temple festivals the populace hopes to entice the spirits
to remain among them; the beauty of the offerings, the pleasant
music, the elaborate theatrical performances, aim to keep
them from growing bored and leaving.
Motivated
by this background of religious beliefs, the Balinese found
it necessary to establish a system of communal cooperation
to provide for the magnificent festivals that are such an
important part of their life. The spirit of co-operation
soon extended to their personal and economic life and developed
into a primitive agrarian commune in which every village
was a socially and politically independent little republic,
with every citizen enjoying equal rights and obligations.
These villages were ruled by councils of village members
and officials who governed as representatives of the ancestral
spirits. Since the land, source of all wealth, also belonged
to the ancestors, individual ownership of land was not recognized,
and it is remark. able, but typical, that the village officials
still govern as a duty to the community and without remuneration.
Furthermore,
the Balinese have been extremely liberal inmatters of religion.
Every time a new idea was introduced into the island, instead
of repudiating it,'they took it for what it was worth and,
if they found it interesting enough, assimiiated it into
their religion, since no one knew what power there might
be in the new gods. In this manner, from all the sects and
cults that at one time or another reached the island, they
selected anew the principles that best suited their own
ideas and accumulated a vast store of religiou's power.
Buddha became to them the younger brother of Siva, and if
the efforts of the Christian missionaries who are attempting
to convert the Balinese succeed, it is not unlikely that
in the future " Sanghyang Widi," theexalted name
that the missionaries have adopted for Jesus, will become
a first cousin of Siva and Buddha and will enjoy offerings
and a shrine where he can rest when he chooses to visit
Bali
