Balinese Essay

It was a beautiful morning. Breakfast in bed: local fruits, nuts, toast and coffee. Little I expected that before dinner time I will see half burned body of a local official during traditional cremation ceremony. I skipped the supper that night.

Close to 85% of Balinese identify themselves as Hindu believers, and yet their rituals differ being deeply influenced by local Balinese cosmology and believes from before the time Hinduism was introduced on the island in the 1st century.

Basic principles of the faith are unyielding with the two at its base, the karma phala, according to which positive or negative behaviour may influence oneself or one’s family member life and the second one, reincarnation. As such cremation (ngaben) is one of the most

The soul is cleansed, ascends to heaven and reincarnated. The family of the dead plays crucial role in the process as they are responsible for the ceremony in order to ensure the proper crossing over of the soul.

The ceremonial funeral process is long and complex and it starts long before the cremation itself.

The first stage is the funeral organized shortly after death. Since the cost of cremation is significantly high reaching $3.000 most Balinese who passed away will be buried and then exhumed and cremated. The burial that is taking place in the family temple complex known as “the temple of the dead” plays an important role in the process as this way the solid body is being returned to the earth. This time is also needed for the family to raise needed money to hold a proper ngaben.

It is crucial not to postpone the ceremony longer than few years, because until the full ceremony is complete the soul cannot be reincarnated. Many Balinese believe that the soul suffers during that time and the deceased may cause sickness in members of the family. To allow less well-off to cremate their relatives in reasonable time mass cremation are organized every 2.8 years, during which several corpses are cremated at the same