Contents:

Bali Travel Guidebook:
Maligia-Baligia - Purification Ceremony

Introduction
Background on Bali
Activities & Tours
Language
Climate & Clothing
Money
Shopping
Health
Balinese Culture
   Naming System
   Religion
   Temples
   Ceremonies for        Children
   Wedding &
       Tooth Filing
   Royal Odalan &
       Tooth Filing
  Purification
       Ceremony
   Cremation
   Royal Cremation
   Special Days
   

Visitors to Bali are often overawed by the number of temples there are scattered throughout the island. It would be a rare occasion where someone holidaying even for a short time in Bali would not get the opportunity to witness one of the many ceremonies going on at any one time. This is particularly the case in the Ubud area, considered to be the cultural heart of Bali. While the hundreds of temples in this area of Bali are celebrating their odalan (anniversary) every 210 days, the extended family of the Puri (Palace) of Ubud tends to lead the way with the spectacular ceremonies that are held as a part of their religious practice. This is the case for the Maligia Ceremony that was held in November 2000, a ceremony that is only held around once every 20 years. I have included a write-up of this ceremony on our web site to share with you the brilliant colour of the event as it was carried out, together with a tooth filing ceremony for 30 of the youth from the Ksatria caste - the family of Puri Ubud - including our own daughter, Sari. A more complete collection of photos taken during this time may be viewed in our library at KLUB KOKOS, but I hope that you find the following selection of interest. The accompanying photos may be enlarged for better viewing by clicking on the image.

Every ceremony carried out by the Hindu-Balinese, from the smallest to the greatest, are always based on the holy Hindu Scriptures as a way that mankind can give thanks to God. The Maligia-Baligia Ceremony that was carried out by the extended family of Puri Ubud in November 2000 is a further step following a cremation ceremony (Pelebon) & represents the purification of the soul of the deceased.

The extended family of Puri Ubud together with all the community of the Kahyangan Tiga (3 main community temples) of Ubud, as well as all of the banjar (local councils) of the Ubud area, about 30 in all, agreed to carry out the huge 8-day Maligia-Baligia Ceremony, the climax of the ceremony on November 13th, 2000.

While work was going on with preparations for the Maligia Ceremony for over a month before the ceremony began, on the opening day of the ceremony the Puri was opened to thousands of visitors invited for the occasion. An official welcoming party had been organised in the outer courtyard of the Puri, consisting mainly of the youth who later in the week were to be a part of the tooth filing ceremony.

The fabulous carvings evident in many parts of the Puri were on show for guests from all over Bali & other parts of Indonesia who had come to share in this very important occasion with the family. Since the last Maligia Ceremony back in 1980, quite a few from the extended family of Puri Ubud had died, with a cremation ceremony (Pelebon) being organised soon after their death, followed by a Mengasti Ceremony some time later. This Maligia Ceremony was to further raise the state of purification of the deceased's souls to a higher deified level.

The Hindu-Balinese show their respect & sympathy on the death of a person by striving to free the deceased's soul from his/her physical body and from the world, while raising the purity of the soul so that it is able to achieve a place in heaven. At the time of the cremation ceremony, the soul is called Pitra. Once the next step is held with a ceremony called Mengasti, the soul is then called Dewa Pitara (The soul that has reached the level of a godly state). After reaching the level of Dewa Pitara, the next stage of ceremony for the purification of the soul is called Maligia. After this ceremony the soul/spirit of the deceased will be given a place of honour in the Kemulan shrine of the family temple, so that daily offerings & prayers may be made by the family & descendants of that person.

In Bali everyone that believes in God will try to do everything within their capability to give sacrifices to the gods. The most important part of making these sacrifices is that they come from deep in your heart, rather than how large or small your sacrifice is. Based on Hindu teachings, it is explained that hutang karma (spiritual debt) to your parents or ancestors must be paid. Therefore, it is most fitting that ceremonies are carried out by the children, grandchildren or nearest relatives to the deceased. One of the ways to repay this debt is to hold a purification ceremony for the soul. The Soul is considered immortal, and cannot be destroyed by fire. Once the physical body has decomposed, the soul continues to live in the spiritual world.

For the soul, the physical body is merely a vehicle or tool given by God so that he/she may live in this world. The birth into the world is an opportunity to raise the soul's level of purity until eventually the soul reaches the level of purity to be united with God. But life in this world is full of obstacles & challenges, and it is possible that you slip back, influenced by worldly pleasures so that your purity becomes tainted, and the higher level of purity that you strive for is not reached. Finally, your soul reaches a level of purity that equates with the level of goodness & faithfulness that you had on earth (karma). Karma in this context has a wide meaning, i.e. karma of your descendants as well as your own karma. The good karma from your descendants may aid in the forgiveness of wrongdoings that you may have done while living in this world. One thing that can easily be carried out is to hold a purification ceremony for the soul. This ceremony can be carried out several times because there is a belief that the purer the soul the better & closer the soul is to God.

There were in total 64 different souls of deceased members of the Puri to be a part of this Maligia Ceremony, including Krishna's grandfather, Tjok Raka, who died in 1973, & Krishna's older sister, who died in 1968. About 50 souls from families closely connected with giving service to the Puri were also part of the purification ceremony. All members of the families involved with the Maligia were decked out in fine gold, pale yellow & white costumes with white headbands, while all of the numerous temporary structures erected for the occasion were decorated in yellow & white, giving a most festive touch to the whole scene. Here is one of the few photos with me on the other side of the camera, together with Krishna & our two girls, Sari & Kristi, dressed for the opening day of the ceremony.

On each day of the ceremony, both the Puri & the street running to the north past the Puri walls were filled with the sounds of gamelan orchestras playing in every corner. Continuous dancing was to be seen by any visitors to the area at that time, including some of the old masters of dance, rarely seen to make public performances.

Here a dalang (puppeteer) has tucked himself away in front of a garage entrance to enact some of the stories from the Hindu Scriptures for the occasion.

Once the ceremony was about to commence, the chanting of Scripture from the old lontar palm leaves could be heard over the loudspeaker, as the 4 different pedanda (high priests) to be carrying out the ceremony prepared themselves for prayer.

A topeng (mask) dancer amused the crowds gathered around the streets in preparation for prayer as they awaited the carrying out of the mecaru (cleansing) ceremony & the signal for communal prayer. In fact, the street leading to the north from the central intersection in Ubud was closed for the entire week to traffic as the ceremony took place.

Well over a thousand people from the extended family of Puri Ubud were there on the opening day of the ceremony, to return each day for communal prayer, as well as catching up on all they had missed while being away from Ubud. This was a time for family from far away to take their annual leave from whatever job they may hold, to be with the rest of the family for this united ceremony in honour of their ancestors.

On the opening day of the ceremony effigies of each of the souls were prepared & brought to a huge shelter that had been built for them in the grounds of Puri Kantor. In this ceremony an effigy or stana is made for the soul from the leaves of the banyan tree, leaves from the Meduri putih tree, several kinds of fragrant flowers & leaves of Ilalang grass (used for thatched roofs), as well as other ingredients, and the skeleton is made from two types of bamboo.

One of the most important ingredients in making this effigy is the leaves of the banyan tree, indicated by a special ceremony being held at the time that these leaves are picked from the tree, called a Ngangget Don Bingin Ceremony, held in the previous week. Also, the amount of leaves used in the effigy depends on the position & caste of the deceased, while the position of the leaves in the effigy also depends upon the sex of the deceased who's soul is to be purified - for a female, the shiny side of the leaf faces out, while for a male the shiny side faces in. The role of the leaves of the banyan tree is based on the story of the birth of Sang Hyang Kala. It is told that the leaves of the banyan tree was the fuel used by the gods to fire the magic egg that hatched Sang Hyang Kala, who could then run straight to his father, Sang Hyang Siwa, to ask for food. The symbolic connection of this story with any purification ceremony is that it is hoped that the soul may be freed from the shell of the egg (i.e. the physical body) to be then able to journey towards its father (Siwa) to ask for food (i.e. strength for an immortal life).

Apart from the use of the effigy in the purification ceremony, a stick is also used, cut from a branch of the Aebas tree. This stick is carried circling the Surya shrine - the place of Siwa (the tallest of the shrines built for the ceremony) - following the white buffalo. During the climax of the Maligia Ceremony on the following day, the circling around the Surya shrine is clockwise, unlike in a cremation ceremony, which circles in an anti-clockwise direction. After the blessing given by the pedanda in attendance, Krishna had the honour of carrying his older sister's effigy around with all the others as they circled, stopping to give each of the rest of the immediate family the opportunity to take turns in a symbolic carrying of the deceased's soul by placing the effigy on each of our heads in turn for a few moments.

Later that evening all the group of Tjokorda cousins gathered at Puri Saren for prayers & a get-together in a lead-up to their tooth filing ceremony on the following day. I have written in more detail about a tooth filing ceremony when it was a part of a wedding ceremony of a couple in our village of Bangkiang Sidem, but have included a few photos of this particular high caste tooth filing ceremony, it being such a colourful event & including our own daughter, Sari.

On the following morning, all those to be a part of the tooth filing were taken through a cleansing ceremony first, before being escorted to the family temple at Puri Saren for prayer together with other member of their family. A series of rituals were carried out by the two pedanda in attendance upon each of those to have their teeth filed in turn, before they all returned to the Puri verandah to wait their turn at having their teeth filed.

Each of the group was escorted in pairs down a path covered with white cloth to the special pavilion (Balé Mepandas) for the ceremony. Here Sari's cousin Dea is being escorted by Krishna's aunt & her parents for her tooth filing. The tooth filees are 'king' & 'queen' for the day on such an important time as this in their lives.

With each pair taking around 15 to 20 minutes for the filing, it was a very long afternoon for the group of 30 as they waited in turn. The filing was done by the pedanda, with close family gathered around to give them moral support. Once the tooth filing is complete, they all return to their rooms in the Puri to change into their full ceremonial outfit, identical to the ones that Krishna & I wore for our wedding day back in 1984.

Later that evening everyone gathered once more at Puri Kantor for further prayers by the place of the effigies of the souls, & then the younger children of the extended Puri family joined with their older brothers & sisters who had had their teeth filed to be part of another ceremony, where a lock of hair was taken from each of their heads to be placed inside a small woven container, to be later buried by the entrance to their family temple. Our younger daughter Kristi was also a part of this ceremony, as was the two children of Krishna's step-uncle, who was to lose his mother just a week after this ceremony was over.

Later in the week a huge procession of cars filled the streets of Ubud, to escort the effigies of each of the souls, together with all their associated offerings & small badé (tower) to the beach near Sukawati, about 15 km away.

After a police escort through to Sukawati, there was another kilometre walk to reach the beach, everything carried in procession. While the towers were placed in the sand, to later be washed away with the tide after the ceremony was over, all of the offerings & effigies were carried up to a big platform erected for the occasion, & everyone gathered for prayers.

After communal prayers, the effigies were taken down, & with immediate family huddled around in a circle, each effigy was burnt in a clay dish, to be then ground into a fine paste. Each member of the immediate family then took a little of the ashes to place on their forehead, before the remaining paste is scraped up & placed inside a small metal thimble-like container, to be reinserted into the effigy structure & re-decorated.

One of the families closely connected with giving service to the Puri is that of the family of I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, a famous Balinese artist who is reputed to have been 117 years old when he died in 1978. Here they gather to burn the effigies of Lempad & other members of the family that have died in the past few decades.

After a final blessing by the pedanda, everyone moved back down onto the beach with the ashes to wait in turn for a boat to carry them out to the sea. While Krishna's younger brother Felix (Tjok Putra) carried his sister's ashes, the ashes of their grandfather were carried by Tjok Gdé, one of the sons of Krishna's cousin, the Bupati of Gianyar. Using an outboard motor, the traditional jukung boats soon sped far out to sea to disperse the ashes & offerings of each of the souls of these ancestors.

The final day of the Maligia Ceremony, on November 19th, took all of the extended family of Puri Ubud firstly to Goa Lawah (Bat Caves), on the east coast of Bali near Klungkung, about 45km from Ubud. A convoy of buses, trucks & cars took thousands of us early in the morning to this important temple for the Hindu-Balinese, a place where all Balinese will visit to pray after an important family ceremony. On our arrival, as people waited for the pedanda & others to organise everything, they were entertained by groups of enterprising people running a gambling game on the lawns nearby.

Then everyone gathered on the sand on the beach to pray together for the souls of their ancestors. While the ceremony at Sukawati had been for the dispersal of the ashes of the deceased, now everyone had gathered to recall the freed soul from the sea, so that it may regain a place in it's more purified form within the family temple back in Ubud. The movement of the family to these places of worship, as on other days, was always accompanied by a few different gamelan orchestra groups.

After the beach everyone moved across the road to pray within the temple of Goa Lawah, renowned by visitors to Bali for the thousands of bats that it harbours behind the shrines of the temple.

The next stop for the convoy was inland, as the rain began to fall & the temperature drop. Everyone stopped to pray at the Pura Dalem (Temple of the Dead) in the Besakih area, then moved on to Pura Besakih, the Mother Temple for the whole of Bali. Within this huge complex are many other temples, including the private temple of Krishna's extended family, where the family goes to pray before entering the main body of the temple proper. The drizzle managed to hold off for an hour or so while all the family gathered at Besakih to pray. Then as night fell, the deified souls of the ancestors were carefully escorted from Besakih back to Ubud & their own family temple.

[next - Ngaben - Cremation Ceremony]

Thispage was last updated on May 27, 2001