Kuningan, from Bali to Rome

Kuningan. Frascati, 18 June 2022

The good fortune to relate to foreign communities living in Rome is also to have the opportunity to attend events or rituals typical of the country of origin.

Very often they are symbolic reproductions on a smaller scale, as exemplified perfectly and in a plastic way, for the community of Bangladesh, by the temporary construction of the Shaheed Minar which reproduces the one that stands on the campus of Dhaka, where “21st February” is celebrated, the Mother Language Day in honor of the martyrs killed on that day: in a smaller format and in colored polystyrene, for just one day, but still capable of taking on all its symbolic value.

 

Every community that lives in other places brings with them the rituals, objects, clothes, or festivals, both for their own profession of faith and to soothe the pain of nostalgia for being away from home.

I think of the Bolivian carnival that brings to life the colors and joy of the Oruro Carnival through the Fori Imperiali street, in the shadow of the Colosseum, or the parade of Filipino reine (queens) during Flores de Mayo.

For this reason, I was deeply happy and grateful to Ida Ayu Ratih for inviting me to participate in a ritual typical of Balinese culture, which I had never seen in my life.

I have known Ida Ayu and her family for a few months and we already have to say goodbye because she will soon return to Indonesia, but she was the one thanks to whom I was able to glimpse a small part of the millenary and stratified culture of Bali, an island that I have never visited despite in ten years I have been almost ten times in Indonesia.

In Rome, there are about a hundred Indonesian families, around 1200 people, of which only three families come from Bali. All the people I have known over the years are either Muslim or Catholic, so I was very surprised to know that Ida Rayu's family is Hindu-Buddhist, in the Balinese tradition.

She and her husband, Ida Bagus Kade Winaja, come from a Brahman family, the one that in classical Hinduism is considered the highest caste, that is the priests: even in Bali it is the highest social status, but unlike India, Bali castes are called warna (colors), to soften the differences between the four social levels, and – as her husband explained to me – there are no restrictions or prohibitions between one “color” and another, even in marriages.

 

On Saturday 18 June the few Balinese families and other friends met in a villa on the outskirts of Frascati, not far from Rome, to celebrate the Kuningan, in the garden where statues of Buddha and monkeys rest.

It was a good opportunity to go and study this ritual.

Bali is known precisely as “the island of the gods” or “the island of a thousand temples”, due to the large concentration of ritual ceremonies that can be classified into five categories: Dewa yadna (rituals for God and his manifestations), Rsi yadna (rituals for priests), Pitra yadna (rituals for ancestors), Manusa yadna (rituals of passage) and Buta yadna (rituals for the underworld and demons).

Of all the celebrations, Galungan and Kuningan represent two of the most important events for Balinese Hinduism. These two celebrations take place every 210 days, 10 days apart, and after Nyepi, Galungan is the most important because it is linked to the cult of the spirits of deceased relatives who return to visit their old homes.

In Balinese Galungan means “victory”; on this day, in fact, the victory of the Dharma over Adharma is celebrated, that is, of good over evil, and it is a warning and an incitement to all human beings to fight bad habits and evil behaviors.

Legend has it that the Balinese king Mayadenawa opposed the Hindu cult and no one could defeat him because he was cunning and powerful. Only Indra, the god of thunder and rain, was able to hit him with one of his magical arrows: the place where Mayadenawa bled to death became a sacred spring, the very one on which the Tirta Empul temple stands.

The Galungan was created to honor Indra and his moral victory – or dharma – over the evil King Mahadenawa, who represents adharma.

The most recognizable feature of the Galungan is a decoration called Penjor. The Penjor is a tall bamboo pole decorated with coconut palm leaves, rice, fruit, tubers, and coconuts representing the gifts of nature; it is erected at the entrance of Balinese houses as a symbol of support for Hinduism, wisdom and prosperity, and protection from disease.

According to local belief, ancestors and deities visit the earth during Galungan and stay with humans for ten days. The tenth day is called Kuningan, and indicates the end of the celebrations and the return to heaven of the divine and ancestral spirits: kuningan derives from the word kuning which means yellow, or the color of the god Visnu, “the protector” one of the three divinities that form the Hindu Trimurti.

The ceremony is held in the family temple before the sun turns west – that is, before noon – because from that moment on, the deities and ancestors return to their respective residences in the invisible upper world, the Niskala.

 

During the ritual, the water that purifies from evil and white rice (bija) is used by the brahman.

Each believer is first blessed by water then receives rice seeds that they place in the main point of the forehead (cuda mani), called 'ajna chakra', so that it increases the wisdom of the person. Its position is the same in which Indian Hindu women apply the red dot with vermilion, not far from the sindoor at the base of the hair, and it has a powerful meaning in the Hindu world: there are legends that revolve around Hindu mythology that narrate how Radha, who was Lord Krishna's wife, transformed the sindoor into a shape, which resembled a flame on her forehead.

After its application, the mantra 'Om Sriyam Bhawantu' is recited which means to be intelligent by the grace of God.

Secondly, the rice grains are placed on the chest, outside the lower esophagus, as a symbol of the chakra graduation so that happiness grows, reciting the mantra 'Om Sukham Bhawantu', which means that we can achieve happiness by the grace of Him.

Finally, three bija seeds are swallowed and must not be chewed, reciting the mantra 'Om Purnam Bhawantu, Om Ksama Ksampurna ye Namah Svaha'.

 

The small ceremony ended with a rich lunch of Indonesian cuisine and relaxation in the garden.

A way of perceiving the profound culture of an island that has made mass tourism its distinctive feature, replacing the feet of local boys with branded sneakers for sandals – as the Italian husband of a Balinese woman tells me, owner of the villa – but that in its distant and secret corners still maintains its secular and magical charm.

 

Italian version