DEATH
AND CREMATION
Between
incarnations, until the time comes , for its return to this
earth, the soul goes to Indra's heaven, the swarga, a reservoir
where " life is just as in Bali, but devoid of all
trouble and illness." But this process does not go
on forever; when the individual has attained the highest
wisdom and has reached the highest position among men, that
of a Brahmana who has been ordained as a priest, he hopes
to obtain liberation from this cycle of births and become
a god. The man of low caste attributes his state to former
misconduct, redeemable in future lives only through a virtuous
existence, which entitles him to be reborn into a higher
and higher caste.
A man's life on this earth is but an incident in the long
process of the soul's evolution. The grand send-off of the
soul into heaven, in the form of a rich and complete cremation,
is the life-ambition of every Balinese. He looks forward
to it, often making provision during life with savings or
property that can be pawned or sold to finance his cremation.
The
greatest happiness that comes to a Balinese family is to
have, in this way, accomplished the liberation of the souls
of their dead, but complete cremation ceremonies are so
costly that a family of limited means have to wait often
for years, haunted by the fact that their dead are not yet
cremated, and are sometimes obliged to sacrifice their crops
and their lands in order to pay for the ceremonies.
The
expenses of a cremation are enormous; besides the priest's
fees, the great amounts of holy water used, and the costly
towers, coffins, offerings, and so forth, there is the food
and entertainment provided for days for the hundreds of
guests and assistants that help in the ceremonies.
A rich cremation adds greatly to the prestige of a well-to-do
family, giving occasion for gay, extravagant festivities
that are eagerly anticipated despite the financial burden
they represent A good average for a great cremation is seldom
less than a thousand ringgits or about two million kepengs
(a ringgit is worth about one gold dollar in normal exchange)
, but there have been cremations of princes that cost as
much as fifty thousand guilders (at the time of writing,
about twenty-five thousand dollars).
The cremation of the mother of Naseh, a former servant of
ours, was the poorest we ever witnessed. She was burned
three days after her death with only the most essential
rites, but even then the costs amounted to more than the
fifty guilders that Naseh had succeeded in borrowing. A
unique and rather improvised cremation of a nobleman of
Pemetjutan cost only three hundred and fifty guilders because
the body had to be burned on the same day the death occurred
and I was told by the relatives that had the corpse been
kept for the reglementary fortytwo days, the cremation would
have cost over two thousand guilders.
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