BALINESE HINDUISM

      Signs of Hindu devotion are everywhere. Small gifts of flowers and rice, scrupolusy prepared, are laid on the dashboard of a bemo, or a counter bontique. Women and gilrs, resplendent is Sarong and Kebaya place efferings in temples, incese and crossroads. They stop awhile to pray, or perhaps light incese to attract of the gods. Small clues to the spiritual life in Balinese.

     Most Balinese practice a variation of the Hindu religion called Agama Hindu ( the religion of the Hindu Doctrine) but sometimes known as Agama Tirta (the Religion of Holy Water). Balinese Hinduism is unique mixture of Buddhism and Hinduism, combined with a pinch of animism from centuries past.  The basic tenet of Hindu Darma is that the soul (amtan) is reincarnated after death. In what from, depent of personal actions of Karma, and eventually, a soul may archieve unity with the devine (Moksa).

  The Balinese practice their faith with an earthy exuberance, endeavouring to rchieve a balance phisoloshopy, morals an rituals. And balance is everything. The Balinese are aware of the ever present forces of a god and evil. One cannot exist without the other, and indeed, nothing but a balance between the gods and the demons endeavouring to please one, and appease the other.

      Comic stability depents on the co-existence of opposite. In the same way, everything is born, dies is reborn. The soul ives in the heavens or on the earth. Volcanoes eroup and kill, and leter the volcanic as provides fertile loams for cultivation. And those mangy dogs (cecing)  that howl all night and devour ofeeringsl, are merely evil spirits put on earth to balance all things beautiful. The notion opposites is epitomized in the kaja-kelod axis.

     Contrary popular opinion, the educated Hindus subscribe to a monotheistic religion. Ida SangHyang Widi is supreme gos capable of many manifestations, the most natoble being the holy trinity or Trimurti : Brahma,  the crator; isnu the preserver; and Siwa, the destroyer. Belief in  one God is  a first of the five principles of the Republic of Indonesia, known as the panca sila. Event so, average Balinese, not troubled with resolving a plethora of Hindu god with the Islamic notion of the god, acknowledges a multitude of different deties who wach over the family.