Art as Offerings and Reading the Ancient Literature Is Only Accessible for Balinese High Priests

Abstract

This article attempts to reply the question as to why Balinese make offerings. Eschewing an explanation in terms of a unitary religious or cultural belief, information technology explores the practices surrounding the training and dedication of banten (the Balinese term most usually glossed in English every bit 'offerings'), and how these practices embody conflicting articulations of bureau, customs and the common skilful. Assay is directed to highlighting this complexity, while at the same time trying to avoid some of the difficulties and misleading reifications that come with the linguistic communication of 'syncretism', 'hybridity', 'corking and little traditions', and the like.

But I am inclined to point to the endless variety of Balinese offerings and the unlimited fantasy underlying them, the frequency in which they are made and the incredible quantities thought to be necessary. This must beset numerous women to such an extent that it would exist justified to characterize Balinese organized religion as one of offerings.
Christiaan Hooykaas 1975:115

A viable tradition is one which holds together alien social, political and fifty-fifty metaphysical claims in a creative fashion.
Alasdair MacIntyre 1979:67

Introduction

Why do Balinese make offerings?^¹ By a conservative approximate several one thousand thousand offerings are made in Bali every 24-hour interval. The descriptions in tourist guidebooks tend to focus on their colourful and artistic qualities, echoing longstanding stereotypes of Bali every bit an exotic island paradise. Meanwhile, the scholarly literature has been rather more than serious and expository in tone, interpreting the making of offerings as a form of communal ritual, a physical manifestation of an abstract religious philosophy, or as a mod extrapolation from an ancient scriptural tradition.^² The conceptual thread that links these iv approaches—namely, interpreting Balinese offerings equally fine art, ritual, philosophy, or scripture—has been their common lack of attention to the ways Balinese men, women, and children empathise and account for their own actions, the reasons and aims these embody, and the historical weather condition under which they take identify.

This article sets out to explore what it might hateful to stand for the making of offerings as a practice, or, at the very least, as one of the integral parts of a practice, such as the maintenance of a houseyard (B. pakarangan), or the performance of ceremonial work (B. karya).^³ The ideas that inform this arroyo will crave some explication, and there are a couple of key points that I would like to apply as markers along the way. Outset, when approached in terms of practice, the making of offerings is what I would phone call teleologically overdetermined, which is actually just a fancy fashion of saying that one and the same offering tin exist made for multiple and often conflicting purposes, or ends (telos)—what in Balinese we might phone call tetujon. Second, I wish to propose that these multiple and conflicting purposes are, on closer inspection, the product of what might be described every bit rival modes of practical reasoning, each of which probably emerged out of quite separate historical circumstances.^{^four} In other words, what I wish to debate is that when Balinese make offerings they are at once embodying multiple, and at times alien, ways of thinking about agency, community, and the mutual good; and that this is the outcome of a complex history that is conventionally described in terms of the coming together of various influences: Hindu, Buddhist, animist, Chinese, European, et cetera.

Past speaking in terms of practical reasoning, I hope to highlight this complication, while at the aforementioned time avoiding some of the difficulties and misleading reifications that tend to come with the analytic language of 'syncretism', 'hybridity', 'corking and picayune traditions', and the like. As a way into the problem of offerings, I would like to consider an interpretive problem that arose during a recent period of fieldwork in a semi-rural ward (B. banjar) that I shall merely call Batan Nangka.^⁵

Piercing the Road

Bali is famously known equally 'the island of a grand temples'. Leaving bated the question of what it means to call something a 'temple', for present purposes I would like to go along with this description, and fifty-fifty advise it to exist something of an understatement. For not but does each hamlet customs take its ain major and minor temple complexes, and each Hindu houseyard its own ancestral shrines, merely there are as well countless footling altars strewn forth the roads and passageways that run through every town and village on the island.

Among these, 1 almost always finds a small-scale shrine, usually fabricated of stone, situated along the outside wall of the houseyards that run next to a crossroads or T-junction. These shrines are more often than not held to belong to the houseyard on which they abut, though sometimes offerings are also made there by those living in a neighbouring chemical compound. There is commonly nothing to distinguish these offerings from those defended elsewhere in the compound; what makes these little shrines and so interesting, though, is the variety of means in which their use is construed.

On the face up of it there appears to be considerable understanding as to their general purpose—namely, condom. One makes offerings at these shrines so as not to go sick (B. 'pang sing gelem), and then every bit not to be disturbed (B. 'pang sing gulgul), so every bit not to be thrown off-kilter (B. 'pang sing kesiab-kesiab) and thereby become vulnerable to attack. Should one fail to erect such a shrine at one's dwelling house, or perhaps forget to brand the offerings on a given day, information technology is often said that 1'due south houseyard will get 'hot', or panes, rendering the household susceptible to disease and misfortune. Only why are these shrines necessary for houseyards that adjoin on a crossroads, or at a T-junction?^⁶ To say that the crossroads is magically dangerous, or what Balinese often call tenget, would announced to beg the question. So why is it that offerings are required at these locations? And, as an instrument, precisely how practise they work?^⁷

This is where things begin to get interesting, for it depends very much on whom one asks, and when. For many, these little shrines are simply called panumbak jalan, a phrase that might be translated as 'route piercer', with jalan meaning road, and panumbak being derived from tumbak—like Indonesian tombak—meaning 'spear' or 'lance'. On this business relationship, the shrine and its offerings are quite literally a weapon (B. sanjata) for defending against malevolent beings and forces that might be travelling forth the road. As a middle-aged farmer put information technology, these shrines work 'like a fortification' (B. sakadi bénténg). He explained, 'the houseyard (itself) volition be pierced if it doesn't accept a route-piercer' (B. pakaranganné 'kal katumbak yan panumbak jalan sing ada).

The image here is one of battle, fought out betwixt diametrically opposed forces, and this was amongst the commencement of the explanations that I encountered when I began inquiring into how these little shrines worked. But, equally I moved on to ask others in the community, I found that many of them—who also made the very aforementioned sort of offerings at the same shrines—had never even heard of the phrase panumbak jalan, let alone the notion of 'piercing' those powerful beings and forces idea to be passing past.

Some referred to these shrines instead as pasimpangan, or 'manner stations', where those intangible travellers along the road might exist offered some refreshment and a place to residuum (B. masandekan). I was told the roadside offerings were made non so much to 'pierce' a potentially malevolent being, but rather as a form of hospitality to exist taken at the roadside, in lieu of passing travellers coming into the houseyard, where they might cause problem (B. ngarabéda). One leaves a little something for them at the pasimpangan, and hopefully they volition continue on their way.

Information technology may be noted in passing that, equally either a panumbak jalan or as a pasimpangan, the shrine was quite explicitly linked to the road and to those beings and forces that travel forth it. Whether every bit weapon or mode-station, the shrine was a means (B. sarana) of preventing passers-by from inbound the houseyard, where they might interfere with one'south family unit and friends.

Yet, at that place were still others—again, making the same sort of offerings at the same sort of shrines—who chosen them something else entirely, namely a panyawang, or a place for making offerings to a powerful existence whose dwelling is located also far away for a daily visit.^⁸ Here the shrines had little to do with either the route or with passers-by. Rather, on their account, the offerings embodied a request for continued condom and sustenance. No doubt neglecting these beings would be dangerous, simply nearly of those with whom I spoke placed the emphasis squarely on the deed of donation (B. ngaturang), made in the hope of gaining favour.^⁹

Despite their not inconsiderable differences, in that location withal remained one point of agreement among those using each of these iii names for the shrine, and that was the simple fact that the intended recipients of the offerings were left unspecified. Whether they were understood equally regular travellers along the road, or as beings located elsewhere, their identity was more often than not unknown. It was on precisely this point that these three uses of the roadside shrines differed from nevertheless a fourth, namely those who took it to be defended to Sang Hyang Indrabelaka, whom some took to be a malevolent form of the Hindu deity Lord Indra. Those who understood the shrines in this style had usually been instructed past a brahmin ritual advisor, who as well explained—unremarkably in Indonesian—that the function (I. fungsi) of the shrine and its offerings was to transform the deity from its malevolent manifestation into a more beneficent (B./K. somya) form.^{^x} This transformation was in turn directed to restoring balance and harmony (I. keseimbangan dan kerukunan) between the houseyard and its surroundings, understood equally a reference to humans, divine beings, and the natural environment.

Then it seems nosotros accept at least four singled-out ways of construing these shrines and their use, organized respectively around the tropes of (a) war, (b) precautionary hospitality, (c) supplication, and (d) transformation. That is, (a) as a panumbak jalan— the shrine is a weapon; (b) as a pasimpangan— it is a 'style station'; (c) as a panyawang— information technology relays donation from a altitude; and (d) as a shrine to Indrabelaka—information technology is a site for placating and transforming a potentially unsafe deity. But can all these things be truthful at once? And, if and so, how are we to understand the relationship between such multiple and seemingly disparate sensibilities? Here it is worth noting that, in addition to the fact that we are frequently talking about one and the same shrine, the offerings themselves are also the same. That is to say, whether 1 calls information technology a panumbak jalan or a pasimpangan—that is, whether piercing the road or providing some refreshment—i still makes the same sort of offering: banten kopi and saiban in the forenoon, and both canang and segehan at twilight, or in the afternoon (run across Figure 3).

So, if the aforementioned offering can be used as both weapon and roadside snack, what sort of instrument are we dealing with? And how, if at all, does its form relate to its function? Here it is of import to emphasize that, whatsoever else they may be, Balinese offerings are almost never an individual human activity of devotion. They are, rather, an integral component of a traditional practice, by which I mean roughly three things—namely, that they are (i) aimed at achieving a specific end, which is both (two) authorized past a recognized precedent (what I volition later phone call tradition), and (3) accessible to the collective reasoning of a community.^¹¹ What I wish to propose by these three points is that the kind of variation we take seen with the roadside shrine is not simply a matter of mistake, or of individual caprice—which brings me to the showtime of my 2 points along the style: that, approached as a practice, Balinese offerings are teleologically overdetermined. That is to say, they are at in one case directed to multiple purposes, or ends, at to the lowest degree some of which are incongruous with one another. I would like to advise that seeing things this mode opens the way for a serial of new questions, and so, potentially, a novel approach to the written report of that congeries of practices we all too easily like to call 'Balinese religion' (run into H. Geertz 2000).

Rival Styles of Reasoning

I am interested specifically in three types of question, namely those dealing with purpose, customs, and the common good. For it seems that, when we nourish to these three areas, the ideals embodied in the making of offerings tend to fall into roughly five general clusters, each of which, I suspect, emerged out of a different set of historical circumstances.^¹² These five ideals would include those of (1) well-beingness, (two) ability, (3) purity, (4) residue and harmony, and what I am provisionally calling (five) flows and concentrations. What I would like to advise is that each of these ideals comprise, respectively, the end—or telos—that gives management to a particular style of reasoning. I should perhaps emphasize that the kind of complication that I see at work here—a sort of overdetermination—differs markedly from the quasi-animistic Hindu-Buddhist syncretism normally attributed both to the Balinese, every bit well as to many other Southeast Asian societies.

Well-Existence through Exchange

Let united states of america begin with the seemingly catch-all category of well-being, which encompasses the serial of safety, sustenance, and quiet. In short, one wishes to be left undisturbed, sated, and equanimous.^¹³ These are imminent appurtenances, to exist enjoyed hither and at present by oneself and one's shut assembly. For case, one makes offerings at shrines located at the border of a wooded expanse or nigh a ravine in gild to avoid being disturbed (B. gulgul) by its inhabitants (B. unén-unén), much as we saw with the earlier example of the pasimpangan, or 'way station'—better to leave something out for passers-by than to have them poking effectually in your houseyard and causing trouble.

Meanwhile, many of the offerings dedicated at one's own family shrines are quite explicitly made as a request for sustenance. This is mostly construed equally begging a gift (B. nunas ica) from a superior—often 1'southward deified ancestors, still vaguely construed. Another example might exist establish, for instance, in the supplications fabricated on the twenty-four hour period of tumpek uduh, which takes place twenty-5 days before the feast day of Galungan. One places a small offer into a notch cut into a fruit- or flower-bearing tree, while knocking on the tree trunk three times and asking 'grandfather' (B. kaki) for a bounty of the fruits and vegetables required to consummate the coming ceremony (encounter Effigy 4).

Why should we consider offerings fabricated in supplication, such as these, alongside those made in the hope ane won't exist disturbed? Critically speaking, what I believe holds these seemingly disparate acts together is the fact that their grade appears to exist that of an exchange. And, equally with the exchanges made in one'due south more than tangible (B. sakala) social life, the character of this commutation varies profoundly depending upon the entity with whom it is carried out. It may be part of an ongoing relationship of reciprocal obligation, not unlike those one sustains with kinsmen and neighbours. Or, again, it might exist a supplication to a superior. Alternatively, it might also be the payment of a debt, or even a bribe. At that place are a range of offerings whose names imply just that; a biayakala or béakala offering, for example, is quite literally a 'payment' to coarse or malevolent forces. And so, too, is a taur or panauran, fabricated either on a regular basis, as role of a larger ceremony, or in expiation for a specific transgression, such as stumbling uninvited into the habitation of a river spirit or denizen of the forest.^¹⁴

The general model of donation would also include any number of subtle piddling precautions taken in the run of daily life, such as spilling a petty coffee on the ground before drinking any oneself, in order to ensure whatever activity one is engaged in will get smoothly—that is, without interference from others who may be nowadays, but unseen, and who might have criminal offense at not being included in the offering of a little refreshment.^{^xv}

The ideal of community that is embodied in these practices of donation, supplication, and debt seems to be that of a continuing wheel of privilege and obligation that is sustained through time. It is fundamentally demotic in grapheme, and appears to reflect very much the sensibilities traditionally associated with a rural peasant being—namely, those of supplication and subordination, cooperation, and negotiation. Information technology is significant to note that, at least here, gender ideals do not seem peculiarly pronounced. The point is not that certain tasks are not differently allotted to men and women respectively, but rather that, in the idiom of well-existence through commutation, the division of labour appears neither cocky-evidently hierarchical, nor is it sharply regulated.^¹⁶ Accent is placed, rather, on a more generalized vision of the common good arising from ongoing relations of giving and receiving—debt and repayment—that are calculated with varying degrees of precision. The fruits of collective labour are as often grounds for conflict equally they are for accord. But the demands of the common good are nonetheless absolute, every bit reflected in a common rebuke for failing to recognize one'southward obligations: '(You lot're interim) as if someone else were gonna conduct yer carcass (to the cemetery)!' (B. 'Asané 'nak lén 'kal ngisidang bangkéné!).^¹⁷

Power through Domination

The ideal of securing well-being through relations of exchange contrasts sharply with a second style of reasoning nearly offerings—that of power through domination. This links directly to the earlier case of the roadside shrine understood equally panumbak jalan, the 'road piercer'. Here, as opposed to the ongoing bicycle of debt and repayment, we have the model of life every bit war. This is the world as understood through what Hildred Geertz (1995) once called her 'sakti conjecture', explaining that

the term sakti cannot properly be translated every bit 'power' if taken every bit merely the capacity to control other people'due south actions, every bit in the usual Western political sense of the discussion. Rather, sakti is the capacity to join in the mortal combat of the competing forces of the universe in order to secure an envelope of safety around oneself and those virtually one.
Geertz 1994:2

She went on, moreover, to note that,

War, in this view […] is the normal land of the cosmos, and the human world. Conflict is non evidence of chaotic breakdown of the cosmos, merely the fundamental feature of life. The Balinese world is one in which the many elements are never harmoniously united, in which at that place is no single all-encompassing principle, no fashion of comprehending the whole. It is a universe of fluctuating, flowing, shifting forces, which tin sometimes exist commanded by certain human beings, the masters of sakti, who momentarily and precariously can depict some of these forces together into a strong local node of power, which volition inevitably later deliquesce again.
Geertz 1994:95

Albeit obviously royal or 'aloof' in orientation—what those of an Indic bent might be inclined to phone call kṣātriya—the ideals associated with domination are equally accessible to commoners as they are to the gentry—embodied, every bit they are, in pursuits such as oratory, sorcery, and sex.^¹⁸ Here the best defense is a good offense. And the performance of ceremonial rites, or yadnya, is simply i more means to this end. Nosotros might look, for instance, to any of the many offerings that are made in the shape of weapons (B. sanjata), or the more than full general notion of 'dedicating offerings' (B. mabanten) as itself a form of fortification (with, for case, the above-cited metaphor of B. bénténg, or the holiday called pagerwesi, 'iron wall'). Equally a variation on this theme, many of Bali's famed 'temple dances' are quite overtly military in character. One might look, for instance, to the diverse forms of baris, but also to the oft-cited 'keris dance'.^¹⁹ In a similar vein, much of the generally formalism regalia used in the festivals themselves is precisely that of courtly power—lances, daggers, and the related accoutrements of battle.^²⁰

Here it is important to emphasize that the customs itself—known peradventure most usually in this register as the gumi—is wrought through its ain ceremonial work, which can only be carried out under the leadership—or perhaps even the 'spell'—of a powerful ruler. In contrast to the notion of well-being through exchange, this ideal is resolutely hierarchical in grapheme. Answering to the inherently unstable nature of the cosmos, domination appears as a precondition for well-existence.

As Hildred Geertz (1994:95) has pointed out, kings were 'seen past the Balinese as the potent guardians of their realm's well-being. As long every bit they were indeed potent, they were supported by the populace.' Hence the need for ongoing demonstrations of power and mastery, such as one sees in the calonarang performed at midnight in the cremation grounds. Hither, those who dare (B. bani) will volunteer to act as living corpses (B. bangké idup, bangké-bangkéan), with their decease rites carried out while they are still alive. This act of bravado renders them vulnerable to attack, and so comprises a challenge to all comers, be they sorcerers, demons, or other potential masters of the realm. To survive the confrontation is a tacit demonstration of mastery. When articulated in this idiom of life as never-ending warfare, offerings become a crucial bolt in one'southward arsenal.

Purity through Propriety and Separation

Alongside exchange and boxing sits a 3rd idiom: that of purity. The materials used in making an offering must be pure or 'unused', what is mostly called (B.) sukla, which, in practise, is to say that these materials must non exist 'used', 'left over', or 'bandage off' (One thousand./B. lungsuran) as office of something offered earlier, whether to a human person or to some other sort of being.^²¹ So, for instance, the bananas used in the segehan offerings made each afternoon should ideally exist picked or purchased for the purpose, and the water used in their dedication is drawn freshly from the well or from the tap. Similarly, the rice for the morning saiban offerings (also known as jotan or banten tugu) is taken from the cooking pot earlier anyone gets to consume.^²² This idea appears to be based on the principle of hierarchy, co-ordinate to which leftovers may be consumed merely by an junior. To offer something to a superior that one has left behind would be a unsafe act of impropriety. This overlaps with the ideal of well-being through exchange, and perhaps more specifically with the service (B. ayah) owed by client to patron, petitioner to protector.

In addition to the idea of purity every bit propriety, there is also the more general notion that formalism spaces and ritual instruments must be purified ahead of their use.^²³ The little instruments nosotros have been calling 'offerings' are an important means to this end. The cardinal term in this example is not sukla, but rather suci. Sometimes the names of these offerings make their purpose clear, as in the example of banten suci, suci gedé, and pasucian, or the process of purification itself equally nyuciyang.^²⁴ Here the organizing principle would appear to be that of contagion. One becomes 'impure', for example, when at that place has been a death or a miscarriage in the family; and the duration of this impurity is determined by the proximity of ane's relationship to the deceased. Similarly, one is 'impure' during periods of menstruation, during which time 1 is not permitted to enter temples, visit priests, or dedicate offerings.^²⁵ If the thought of sukla was opposed to lungsuran, or 'leftovers', then suci is opposed to sebel or leteh, terms ordinarily understood as a form of impurity through contact.^²⁶ In passing information technology should be noted that the cardinal positive terms for purity—both sukla and suci—are Sanskritic in derivation, while their well-nigh normally used antonyms are Malay or Austronesian in origin.^²⁷ This is something to which I shall render in just a moment.

I should perchance at this point state clearly that my aim is not to argue à la Dumont for a Balinese man hierarchicus. Still, if the foregoing model of power through domination seemed aloof in nature, and that preceding it demotic, then the idiom of purity with its paired emphases of hierarchy and contagion would appear on the face up of it to be rather priestly, or, more than specifically, brahmanical. Maybe appropriately, then, the community ideal is reminiscent of Mary Douglas (1966), with the common good achieved through the isolation and/or elimination of impurity, understood as matter out of place.

Rest and Harmony

Moving on from the priestly to the bureaucratic, we take the idiom of social and spiritual remainder and harmony, or keseimbangan dan kerukunan. This is the ideal of the Indonesian state that is broadcast on television and disseminated through compulsory religious education. With balance and harmony, authority is generally located in the exegesis of textual precedent, with passages cited and translated into Indonesian either from well-known Hindu scriptures such as the Bhagawadgita, or the more arcane palm-foliage manuscripts ethnic to the Javano-Balinese world (Fox 2011:93–5). On this account, offerings are bandage quite explicitly as 'a pure sacrifice performed sincerely and without hope for recompense' (I. korban suci yang dilaksanakan dengan tulus ikhlas tanpa pamrih akan hasilnya).

This, of course, contrasts sharply with the before ideal of offerings equally a form of exchange—as the payment of a debt, for instance, or perchance as a supplication in hope of continued sustenance and safe. We may notation this also draws on the language of purity—with the korban suci, the 'pure sacrifice'—but now rearticulating this ideal in terms of a moralized and private spirituality. What in the past was commonly known as supplicatory donation (B. maaturan) is now increasingly called praying (I. sembahyang). And one is taught to pray individually—or with members of ane's immediate family—three times per mean solar day, with a modest offer and the recitation of the tri-sandhya mantra.

In this idiom one'south offerings in prayer are made to restore the natural balance and harmony—once again, keseimbangan dan kerukunan, or even keharmonisan—of the threefold cosmos, understood every bit comprising a series of relationships: human with man, man with God, and human being with nature. Taken together, this is known under the neo-Sanskritic soubriquet of Tri Hita Karana. The community of practice is configured as the umat Hindu, and its rites are normative, every bit opposed to constitutive. This contrasts sharply with the ideal of the customs as gumi, which we saw with the model of power and domination. The normalized and country-sanctioned umat, characterized past its 'remainder and harmony', is one of v, or now six, discrete religious communities which together make upwards the organically integrated nation, while, by contrast, there is nothing 'organic' or 'natural' almost the unity of the gumi, which, once more, must be forged through collective endeavour under the spell of a powerful ruler.

Here I should mention that linguistic communication has been extremely important in discerning the differences between these various styles of reasoning, with something so subtle equally a recurring shift in annals often being the first clue as to something more than significant. For case, despite beingness comparatively difficult to clear in colloquial Balinese, these ideas about residue and harmony sound quite natural when spoken in Indonesian, replete with a Sanskritic technical vocabulary (for instance, the various daftar istilah learnt in school and enumerated on television set). I suggested this equally a bureaucratic ideal both for its taxonomic style of reasoning and for the simple fact that it is promulgated past the Parisada Hindu Dharma Republic of indonesia (Indonesian Hindu Dharma Council) with the interests of the bureaucratic state in mind. To make offerings in this idiom is, at 1 level, I suppose, a form of substitution—just it is one in which we cannot hope for annihilation in return for our donation (B. dana punia). That is to say, in do, it is rather like gotong royong, the 'mutual cooperation' and then efficiently exploited under old President Soeharto's then-chosen New Order authorities.

Flows and Concentrations

In addition to the more than readily credible languages of 'balance and harmony', 'purity', 'well-being' and 'power', what I have constitute to be especially interesting in thinking well-nigh offerings are a set of ideals that are at once most hard to specify and at the same time very clearly important for Balinese cocky-agreement and social exercise. It is perhaps not unlike the way one can hear the English, Dutch, or French syntax at work backside the utterances of American and European speakers of Indonesian. In much the same style, when one listens carefully, I believe one can discern a subtle echo rippling through the language of well-being, of power, and of purity. This 'repeat', for lack of a better metaphor, gives form to a series of habits, sensibilities, and desires that are organized around an platonic that I am provisionally calling 'flows and concentrations'. It is my working conjecture that these ideals are very closely connected to the centrality of water (B. yéh) in Balinese geographic and anatomical idea (see Weck 1937; Hobart 1978; Schulte Nordholt 1986; Bellows 2003).^²⁸ The specific graphic symbol of these 'flows and concentrations' must remain largely conjectural for now, simply it seems quite clear to me that there is a certain 'watery' logic underpinning the use of what I have, until at present, maybe rather facilely called 'offerings'.

This world of 'flows and concentrations' would be i of dynamic alter, in which a subtle life force moves freely over surfaces and is channelled into diverse byways and passages. It flows where information technology meets no resistance. It concentrates in those locations that mark a substantial rupture in the continuity of form, such as the unusual geography of large rocks, trees, or river gullies, but as well in living things such as animals and man beings. Information technology is at precisely these points of potential blockage that offerings must be made at regular intervals.

We find similarly that houseyard architecture is designed with apertures and causeways to ensure the gratuitous motility of unseen beings and forces (Howe 1983). Based largely on their placement, I am beginning to think that many of the little instruments we telephone call 'offerings' may have something to do with this. If one juxtaposes indigenous anatomical schemes of the man trunk with maps of village roads, irrigation canals, and houseyard architecture, one finds a common clan between well-being and fluid movement. Massage is employed along similar lines to unblock stoppage and to go along i's energy flowing. In fact, a common folk etymology for beauty, or 'the good', rahayu, is that of having 'good blood' (B. rah ayu), which is to say claret that flows well. If the blood ceases to flow smoothly, ane becomes ill (B. gelem), which is also what happens if one fails to make offerings where unseen forces are thought to congregate.^²⁹ Turning to a street map, we find offerings are made at precisely those locations where in that location is a threat of stoppage, or concentration (see Figure vi). Without wishing to tie things up likewise neatly, I believe this might speak directly to the opening example of the panumbak jalan, little altars placed exactly at those points where the flow of traffic—both tangible and otherwise—might go congested.

I would similar to suggest that part of the reason this language of 'flows and concentrations' is so difficult to see conspicuously—despite its importance—is that information technology has been translated and partially (just not wholly) displaced by a series of Indo-European sensibilities that are associated both with 'purity' and a soul-centred anthropology.^³⁰ In other words, there are several very good reasons to believe that much of daily life in Bali—prior to secondary and 3rd elaboration—carries on perfectly well without either the concepts of purity or a unique and unitary soul (that is, a roh, atma(n), or jiwa). Here I believe it is meaning that there is no fashion to refer to this 'soul thing' in Balinese without using a Sanskrit or an Arabic loan word. All the same vernacular Balinese, by contrast, offers myriad ways to articulate the idea of a more-or-less amorphous and free-flowing soul-stuff or energy.

We find, for instance, any number of pocket-sized rites linked to illness and recovery that betoken abroad from the model of a unitary soul, and toward something more conducive to quantification, than simple absenteeism or presence.^³¹ Contrary to nowadays-day estimation, and so also does the idea of rebirth (B./K. numitis)—once, that is, ane gets away from the Indic model of transmigrating souls. As a menstruum, or sprinkling (B./G. titis), it, besides, has water every bit its organizing principle. Its relative concentration, or dissipation, is seen to determine wellness and illness, vigour and lassitude, serenity and distress. Accordingly, the gathering-up of these constituents is at the centre of a serial of rites directed to healing and invigoration, prophylactic, and protection. Although at odds with much of what is said of 'Hindu Bali', these observations fit well with more than general trends in the wider Southeast Asian region. The ethnographic literature offers numerous examples of what might be described as a decentred, or internally complex, human field of study, for which agency tends to be understood as the product of sustained endeavour, and often ceremonial work. Here we might compare, for example, the rites of (pa)ngulapan in Bali with those of the pralung in Cambodia (Thompson 2004) or the kwhan among the Thai-Lao (Yukio 2003; compare Tambiah 1970:223–51).

Admitting conjectural, I believe a similar line of reasoning might be helpful in interpreting a serial of of import terms in contemporary Balinese—such as tenget and taksu—that are exceedingly difficult to translate in the present-day idiom, but which make very good sense when approached from the perspective of a sure vital energy that may be concentrated and managed (if one is able) in greater or bottom quantity, and to greater or lesser outcome.^³² Before uses of terms now associated with impurity—such every bit leteh and sebel, mentioned above—may also potentially lend further support to this idea.^³³

To be sure, etymology is not destiny. But I believe, in add-on to the other, more than readily apparent ideals of purity, ability, and so on, that the practices of making banten, or 'offerings', are at least partially organized effectually this ready of 'watery' sensibilities that are largely lost to the more deliberate theorizing of present-24-hour interval life. It is my running conjecture that these sensibilities have been transformed in diverse ways through their collision with the other languages in which Balinese social life is organized.^³⁴ Despite the strength of these other languages (Asad 1986), I suspect the sensibilities associated with what I am calling 'flows and concentrations' take persisted in part due to their close ties to practices of social system, architecture, agriculture, and healing; just this requires further reflection, and more enquiry.

Some Concluding Remarks

And so why do Balinese make offerings? I began by suggesting that offerings are made for a multifariousness of purposes, and this was followed by a brief outline of what I take to be five of the most important styles of reasoning embodied therein. On reflection, I would provisionally argue that each of these styles—or what I might fifty-fifty call 'languages'—of ceremonial piece of work is irreducible to whatsoever of the others. That is, they are each premised on different understandings of human bureau, community, and the common good, and, equally we accept seen, these ideals are often in tension with one some other. To have a rather conspicuous instance, the sensibilities associated with ability-through-domination negate much of what is essential to the ideal of rest and harmony that is promulgated by the state. The recent scholarship on Bali has fabricated note of this contrast between 'state credo' and 'village-level practice' (run into, for instance, Warren 1993; Parker 2003). Withal it seems that, on closer inspection, what we find is non a duality, only rather a multiplicity of ideals; it appears in that location is no natural meta-linguistic communication that tin can embrace them all unproblematically.

Depending on circumstance these disparate 'languages', or styles of reasoning, may transform, supplant, or be assimilated to one some other. In the messiness of day-to-solar day life they rub up against each other, and, at times, their incongruity—experienced every bit antagonisms or equally displacements that arise betwixt them—becomes palpable and requires articulation. A recent example would be the seemingly growing need to instruct local temple priests and other ritual experts in the 'proper' execution of their ceremonial work. One might similarly wait to weekly tv programmes, such as Upakara on BaliTV, in which a brahmin specialist offers point-past-point instructions for the preparation of complex offerings and other ritual instruments.

By mode of conclusion I would similar to conceptualize what I take to exist a few of the more likely objections to my argument. At that place is, first, what I would call the textualist objection, that I have failed to identify the textual precedents for the practices I have described. I take lilliputian doubtfulness that one could locate literary parallels to several of these practices and the ethics they embody, and I call back this is potentially a worthwhile endeavour. Nevertheless, for such parallels to be of whatsoever historical value, it would be incumbent on the textual scholar to account empirically for the relationship betwixt their palm-leaf manuscripts and the practices of contemporary Balinese. As sociologists well know, the appearance of a correlation does non an explanation make. A more serious objection would come from those of a socio-economic aptitude. These might argue that, in attempting to have Balinese understandings seriously, I have ignored the existent cloth conditions under which offerings are made and accounts of them given. To address this objection properly would take u.s. into difficult theoretical territory extending far beyond the scope of the present essay. The central issue is that of adjudicating between conflicting presuppositions regarding the nature of the world and our ability to know it. Put some other way, information technology is a question of how Balinese explanations relate to their broadly Western counterparts. Earlier rushing to dismiss indigenous metaphysics, in favour of social scientific discipline, we might be well advised to reflect on the difficulties entailed in our own explanations. Nosotros might enquire, for instance, whether an argument from 'material conditions' requires a coherent theory of affair; or whether the attribution of rational selection entails a universal and consistent account of reason. As the history of European philosophy makes abundantly clear, neither of these can be taken as unproblematic. Similar questions might be asked of any number of our basic categories—from the classic examples of space, time, and causality to such things as life and agency. It is precisely these difficulties that necessitate a more nuanced approach to local practices. On this matter there is but one final objection that I wish to mention, which is that I am unjustified in extrapolating to 'Bali' from such a limited sample. This, I must admit, would come as a most welcome criticism, as ane of my central aims has been to clear the way for further inquiry of a more open-concluded nature. In a discussion, this is meant equally a beginning, and hopefully non just for myself.

My working list of 5 ideals neither precludes there being others, nor is it much more than a provisional respond to my initial question equally to why Balinese make offerings.^³⁵ The existent question is now: How did things come to exist the way they are? That is, what were the historical circumstances out of which each of these ideals arose? How have they inverse through time? And why? I perhaps overstated my example in referring to the first iii as demotic, aristocratic, and brahmanical;^³⁶ I believe, though, that the more general notion of their each having a specific genealogy is correct. Coming to grips with this history and its inherent complication would be no modest feat. It would likely crave the collaborative efforts of experts in literature, language, and monumental architecture, many of whom have long bemoaned the inattentiveness to history of their more ethnographically inclined colleagues. At that place is no dubiousness some truth to the merits that the anthropological study of religion in Bali requires greater attention to the longue durée. Only ethnographic sensibilities would likewise have much to contribute to philological approaches to history and precedent, which, to date, remain both philosophically and politically fraught.

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Source: https://brill.com/view/journals/bki/171/1/article-p29_2.xml?language=en

25 Lauren Chubb

Art as Offerings and Reading the Ancient Literature Is Only Accessible for Balinese High Priests

Abstract

Introduction

Piercing the Road

Figure 1

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 2

Effigy 3

Figure 3

Rival Styles of Reasoning

Well-Existence through Exchange

Figure 4

Effigy 4

Power through Domination

Figure 5

Effigy 5

Purity through Propriety and Separation

Rest and Harmony

Flows and Concentrations

Figure vi

Figure 6

Some Concluding Remarks

References

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