TEMPLE AND KING: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, RITUALS AND REDISTRIBUTION IN EARLY BALI (original) (raw)
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History and Anthropology, 2004
Since early colonial times, Dutch government officials as well as anthropologists have made a distinction between what have been called "Bali Aga", the allegedly aboriginal inhabitants of Bali (Indonesia), and those inhabitants associated with title-bearing groups oriented towards royal courts and brahmana ritual specialists. While the former have been described as constituting a society characterized by equality and democracy, the latter have been portrayed as being almost the opposite. This article questions the basic assumptions about the "Bali Aga", especially the role of their ritual networks focusing on regional temples. These have been interpreted as a demonstration of equality and of a bounded "Bali Aga" ethnicity. This article suggests a different interpretation, one in which the ritual networks are understood as basic segments, not restricted to the Bali Aga, in the ritual organization of the pre-colonial Balinese state.
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The Batur Temple (Pura Ulun Danu Batur) in Kintamani is located at the geographic apex of a so-called ritual water hierarchy and has conventionally been described as a purely religious institution responsible for the coordination and distribution of the irrigation water. However, an analysis of historical palm leaf manuscripts reveals that the temple had a firm economic base with corresponding interests and that it was one of the most important landowners in late pre-colonial Bali. The article therefore explores from a socio-political and economic perspective the implications of this form of temple landlordism and its combination with ritual water control, particularly for the peasants and the portion of their annual surplus that they were obliged to deliver to this temple.
An Ancient Temple and a New King: Revitalisation, Ritual and Politics in the Highlands of Bali
Faith in the Future, 2012
This chapter discusses how the political sea change of 1998 triggered a post-2002 Balinese cultural revitalisation movement but have also helped set the scene for an unexpected revitalisation push by the indigenous Bali Aga people. It documents how the Bali Aga people were able to gain political autonomy in addition to the ritual autonomy and unity they had managed to preserve across centuries of southern Balinese political domination. The existing ritual network was used as a political platform. Keywords:Bali; Politics; revitalisation; ritual
2003 UCLA Anthropology PhD dissertation. This dissertation considers the origins, development, and function of complex social organization in Bali, Indonesia. It contributes to theory and method in and beyond the field of archaeology. Ethnographic depictions of Balinese social organization show a pluralistic collectivism pattern consisting of many function- specific corporate actor groups with intersecting memberships, most functioning also as temple congregations. This heterarchy also features many cases of concentric integration, since village, state, and irrigation management groups are each arranged into separate nested hierarchies. Drawing on work by Lansing and others, I posit that the geographic and technological growth of wet rice agriculture on Bali’s dissected slopes shaped the coevolution of the various hierarchies, favoring the independence of water management groups (subaks) and their self-organization into a yield-enhancing “complex adaptive system.” This may have limited legitimacy and finance mechanisms available to extractive polities, leading to development of the expressive negara form of the 19th century. Evaluation of this diachronic model begins by examining some of the early historical data; completion will require further archaeological investigation of changes in the agricultural economy and in patterns of social organization. As groundwork, I attempt to identify ideological strategizing meant to create and maintain solidarity, alliance, autonomy, and relative power among villages, states, and subaks. I stress the role of material culture in promulgation of ideological statements, since effective communication and control of ideas requires materialization (attachment to objects or events). In modern Bali, processions and courtyard temples employ indexical aspects of multiplex signs to link places and social groups. Such observations provide ethnoarchaeological support to analyses at two localities in Tampaksiring, Gianyar Regency. At Tirtha Empul, the past and present roles of the Manukaya inscription show how objects are used and reused to define relationships. Similarity and spatial proximity among large monuments at Gunung Kawi signify a strong statement of affiliation; the site thus reveals both the authority of the 11th century state and the limits of its power. These limits may have resulted from power negotiations among predecessors of the groups constituting today’s multicentric social system.
Power, Ecstasy, and Enlightenment: the role of the Bale Kambang in 17th century Balinese kingship
Our current understanding of Balinese political mechanisms during the pre-colonial period is imbalanced. Most recent studies either emphasize the performative ritual aspects of Balinese courts or the genealogical texts to reconstruct the social, political and religious environment of pre-colonial Bali. While both methods have provided valuable insight into Balinese statecraft, scholars employing these methods often downplay the role of art historical evidence. My research is the first comprehensive art historical case study of the Bale Kambang at Puri Semarapura. This work examines the meaning and significance of the Bale Kambang, both art and architecture, to posit the function of the site within its historical context. By placing the Bale Kambang within this historical and cultural milieu, there is convincing evidence to suggest that the Bale Kambang was significant for royal attainment of spiritual power and essential to the maintenance of a king’s realm.
Dams and Dynasty, and the Colonial Transformation of Balinese Irrigation Management
Human ecology: an interdisciplinary journal, 2011
This article takes issue with Stephen Lansing's bottom-up model of Balinese irrigation management. Based on archival research and extensive fieldwork in the former south Balinese kingdom of Mengwi, it is argued that in pre-colonial days large scale irrigation depended largely on dynastic involvement. During the colonial period (1906-1942) the Dutch took over the role of regional irrigation management while they strengthened the autonomy of local irrigation associations.
World Archaeology, 2004
Geertz has described nineteenth-century Balinese states existing for and because of ceremony-an incomplete portrayal nonetheless pointing up the importance of ideology as a source of social power. But Bali has not been static; power strategies wax and wane as strategic choices respond to changes in a landscape of control opportunities shaped by multiple interacting ecological, economic, social, and perceptual systems. Ideological statements are made by village-level institutions, as well as by states. Reviewing textual, ethnographic, and archaeological evidence of power strategy changes over the last millennium provides a chance to discuss the causes and impacts of specific ideological messages being materialized in specific ways over time. As its focal case, this paper examines the ideological uses made of the Inscription of Manukaya at two different points in time. This stone demonstrates the co-option of forms and traditions: carved to serve the ideological aims of a king, it is now integrated into ceremonies that assert the autonomy and solidarity of local groups.