Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
RELIGION
Some ninety percent of Balinese are Hindus, with Islam the dominant minority faith,
practised mostly in the west and north by migrants from Java. The reverse is true on
Lombok, where around 85 percent of the population is Muslim, with Balinese Hinduism
followed mainly in the west by those of Balinese heritage.
Religious activity permeates almost every aspect of
Balinese
life. Every morning, tiny palm-
leaf offerings are laid down for the gods and spirits who need twenty-four-hour propitiation;
in the afternoons, processions of people parade the streets en route to temple celebrations,
towers of offertory fruit and rice cakes balanced on their heads.
While Islam is as pervasive on
Lombok
as Hinduism is on Bali, it has a much more austere
presence. You'll hear the call to prayer five times a day, and streets are often deserted on
Fridays around noon, when a large proportion of the population go to the mosque. Marriage
and circumcision are celebrated, but the exuberant festivals of Balinese Hinduism have no
Muslim equivalents.
Balinese Hinduism
Though it's not a proselytizing faith,
Balinese Hinduism
is a demanding one, which requires
participation from every citizen. Despite certain obvious similarities, Balinese Hinduism dif-
fers dramatically from Indian and Nepalese Hinduism. Bali's is a blend of theories and prac-
tices borrowed from Hinduism and Buddhism, grafted onto the far stronger indigenous vision
of a world that is populated by good and bad spirits.
Early influences
The
animism
of the Stone- and Bronze-Age Balinese probably differed very little from the
beliefs of their twenty-first-century descendants, who worship sacred mountains and rivers
and conduct elaborate rituals to ensure that the souls of their dead ancestors are kept sweet.
In among these animist practices are elements borrowed from the
Mahayana Buddhism
that
dominated much of Southeast Asia in the eighth century - certain Buddhist saints, for ex-
ample, some of which are still visible at Goa Gajah, and a penchant for highly ornate imagery.
The strongest influences arrived with the droves of
East Javanese Hindu priests
who fled
Muslim invaders en masse in the early sixteenth century. High-caste, educated pillars of the
Majapahit kingdom, these strict followers of the Hindu faith settled all over Bali and quickly
set about formalizing the island's embryonic Hindu practices. Balinese Hinduism, or
agama
Hindu
as it's usually termed, became the official religion, and the Majapahit priests have,
ever since, been worshipped as the true Balinese ancestors.
As Bali's Hinduism gained strength, so its neighbouring islands turned towards Islam, and
Bali is now a tiny Hindu enclave in an archipelago that contains the biggest Islamic popu-
lation in the world. Hindu Bali's role within the predominantly Muslim Indonesian state has
