Bali Artilce

The Balinese village us described by the world desa. This denotes both the settlement and its immediate physical environs ( tanah desa) and at the same time refers to a religious community made up of local householders and their families who are responsible for maintaining the ritual purity and spiritual well-being of the tanah desa.

The latter is achieved by observing the local customary laws (desa adat) and by participant in the cycle of religious ceremonies that take place at the village temples.

Village Layout

The Balinese village is laid out on a kaja-kelod axis running between the mountains and the sea, often in defiance of local topographical considerations.

The approach is signaled by a candi bentar (split gateway), with the road typically executing a sharp S-bend a little after this. Like the aling-aling `blind` wall immediately inside the entrance to the S-bend strategy outside it is another tactic intended to prevent malevolent spirits from entering the village –the spirits are said to hall (bale agung) and a drum tower (bale kulkul ), for summoning the community to meetings. There may also be a special pavilion for holding cockfights. This is called a wantilan and is often quite an impressive structure with a soaring roof and elegant columns.

Kahyangan Tiga

Balinese villages should ideally have at least three temples, which between them serve the religious needs of the community. In addition to the main village temple, which is situated at the centre of the village, there is also a temple honouring the founding fathers of the community and another dedicated to the dead.

Their respective locations, in relation to the centre of the village, can be understood in the context of Balinese ideas of ritual sancity and pollution: the ancestral temple (pura puseh) is placed at the kaja end of the village as benefits the deified status of the community founders, while the temple for the dead, the pura dalem, is located at the kelod end, reflecting the polluting nature of death. By the same reasoning, the community graveyard and cremation ground too are, typically, situated nearby.

The practice of having three village temples is said to have been begun by Mpu Kuturan, the revered Javanese priest, sage and temple architect who was responsible for a reformation of Balinese Hinduism during the 11th century, at a time when the religion was in decline. The three temples are known collectively as the kahyangan tiga and they are identified with the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Siwa.