RITES
AND FESTIVALS
SOCIETY
AND RELIGION
Other
shrines that are never missing are the little houses for
Ngrurah Alit and Ngrurah Gede , the " secretaries " of the
gods, who watch that the proper offerings are made, and
the stone niche for the Taksu, the interpreter of the deities.
It is the Taksu who enters the bodies of mediums when in
a trance and speaks through them to make known the decisions
of the gods to the people. There is still one more shrine,
the Waospait, dedicated to the totemic gods of the settlers
from Madjapahit, the " original deer " (medjangan seluang)
. This can be recognized by a small sculpture of a deer's
head or by the stylization of antlers carved in wood.
There are, besides, other pavilions; one in the middle of
the temple which serves as a communal seat for the gods,
the pepelik, or paruman , and the bale piasan , simple sheds
for offerings. This lengthy description is still far from
complete and is limited to the main features of a would-be
average temple, but unfortunately such typical temples could
hardly be found in Bali.
Despite the rules, practically every temple has curious
contradictory individual features; besides, such is the
variety of types of temples and so great the local differences,
that only for the purpose of a general understanding of
the spirit of Balinese temples can this " typical " temple
be of use. To note down all the variants of Balinese temples
would require a great volume.
Besides the family shrines, every Balinese " complete "
community, a desa, should have at least the three reglementary
temples: first a " naval " temple, pura pusch, the old temple
of the original community from which the village sprang;
a second, pura desa, the town temple for official celebrations
of the entire village, which, in case it has a bale agung,
the old-fashioned assembly hall of the village Elders, receives
the name of pura bale agung; and third, a pura dalam, thetemple
of the dead, built out in the cemetery, dedicated to the
deities of death and cremation.
It
often happens that the pura puseh, despite its being the
most important centre of worship, is located in another
village or even in another district, because it was from
there that came the settlers of the later village. In some
places the pura pus6h an the pura desa are combined into
one, with only a wall separating the two departments. There
are still the private temples of the princes; the royal
temples (pura panataran) , and the pura dadia, the private
temple of origin of the family, the connecting link between
the scattered branches of a common stock. Other important
temples are the pura bedugul, the rice temple of each agricultural
guild; the pura pamaksan, little temples of each hill lage
ward (bandjar) , from which the pura puseh evolves; hill
temples (pura bukit) , sea temples on the beaches (pura
segara) temples for the deities of seed and markets (pura
melanting bathing-temples, temples in lakes, caves, springs,
trees, and s, forth.
Except for the old pemangku, the keeper and officiating
priest of the temple, who can be seen there occasionally
sweeping the yard, the temples are ordinarily deserted because
the Balinese go into them only for public gatherings, festivals,
and meetings Pemangkus are simple people of the common class
with old fashioned manners, polite, good-natured, and with
a charming modesty, who live near the temple and perform
all of its duties from sweeping it to invoking and impersonating
the deities. The haughty Brahmanic priests, the pedandas,
refer to them con temptuously as djero saptih, " sweepers,"
but the pemangkus are the really active priests of the people's
ritual and alone officiate at temple feasts, when the pedandas
do not take an active part Furthermore there are villages
where the pedandas are ever barred from the temple.
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