GOESCHOLAR-Dokumenten-und Publikationsserver der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (original) (raw)

The tiny island of Bali (Indonesia) is well-known for its "thousand temples" and their prolific Hindu rituals as advertised in tourist promotions all over the world. Though depicted as an backdrop of Balinese culture that has unchangeably existed for hundreds of years, temple rituals are a dynamic and contested arena. Most of the temple rituals are carried out according to a "script" focussing on the day the ritual has to be carried out, the number, contents, and composition of the offerings to be dedicated to individual deities and their shrines as well as on its plot and the main actors. To some extent rituals may indeed appear as firmly standardized and being simply reproduced at regular intervals. However, a ritual needs to be successful in order to reach its goal: to please the gods and the ancestors and to ensure the well-being of the humans, their livestock as well as their fields. This goal can be reached only if the rituals are carried out according to explicit rules on the one hand and exigencies set by the gods, sometimes without conveying them ahead to the human actors, on the other; such exigencies, therefore, are beyond human control. It is failure that people mostly fear since it will result in catastrophes like illness and unexpected death of humans and animals (even epidemics), or droughts destroying the fields. Failure implies a disrupted relationship between humans and gods/ancestors that can be restored, if ever, only with great difficulties and sometimes even after suffering great loss.