Offerings

When we got on the boat to visit Trunyan Village and the Bali Aga Cemetery there were a couple of trays of offerings in the middle of the walk way. When we came back they had accumulated, spilled down the steps, and crept out onto the dock.

I was a bit taken aback. I’m used to holy objects never touching the ground at all, and here these were getting walked on.

Apparently in the Hindu religion, once an offering has been made, the object offered is no longer of any significance. What happens to it doesn’t matter.

Where it should be placed mostly has to do with which deity the supplicant wants to appease. If appealing to the kind of deity that inhabits low places and might be inclined to trip one up, then it is best to place an offering where such a being is likely to run across it.

Pathways, bridges, the ground around an old and venerated tree, or even just a street corner maybe considered fair game.

Most people have a round of places where they make their offerings each day. This will vary from person to person, but it isn’t uncommon to build and place fifty of these trays every day. Again, once placed, they don’t matter. That means no one bothers to pick them up. Offerings can quickly pile up, making a huge pile of trash abandoned on street corners. What took so much work is then litter.

Over half of the offerings will go into special niches, alcoves, and altars around the household. Some of these are temporary – such as the little boxes built into a penjor. Some are permanent – such as the collection of altars built into the property before any living space is put up.

The altars are often made of stone, but not always. They are frequently skirted. Sometimes they will have an umbrella. Each element – right down to the colors and patterns on a skirt – has it’s own reasons and meanings to the worshiper.

With so many people in need of so many offerings each day of the year, the elements that go into them provide a booming industry. It is not all all uncommon to see a orchard that doubles as a flower grower.

When I first saw them, I thought they were marigolds planted to provide protection from insects for the real crop. Nope. They are the primary crop.

The daily household offerings are just the beginning. On top of these will come regular offerings at the local temples. This can involve routine temple visits such as a Christian might make in going to church, or special holidays.

We happened to be closing in on Galungan during my visit. People were making more visits to holy places – including but not limited to temples – and making more offerings. in the picture to the right, notice that there are two kinds of offerings. On the dash is the daily offering made by the bus driving who used it to wish for safe travel for his bus and all who rode in it. On the street are two women carrying square baskets on their heads. Offering for the temple are inside the baskets.

Needless to say, temples tend to accumulate huge piles of offerings.

We visited Uluwatu Cliffside Temple. Near the exit is a place where the offerings are burned. It’s quite an impressive, charred pile. The place where the offerings is burned has holy rocks on either side and a revered tree behind. That seems to me like a far more appropriate final destination for such things.

The day after our visit to the rice terraces between Lovina and Jimbaran, we went to a a holy spring. Sorry, for various reasons I ended up with no pictures of the spring. I really wish I could show it to you. The spring pours off a large round stone outcropping in several (12?) carved channels, making shower-sized water falls. The worshipers were to wash up in front of one, then stand under each of the others in order, then wade through the water at the base to where a Hindu priest stood on a wooden walkway and there receive a blessing and a pinch of rice which was to be placed on our foreheads.

We participated. First we went to a pipe and washed up. Then we put together our little trays of flowers, incense, and rice for offerings and took these to the Hindu priest. There was some bell ringing and chanting going on around this point.

From there we hit the waterfalls. Our tour guide told us to stand under how ever many of these waterfalls was meaningful to us. Most did one or three. When it came time for the blessing, I felt it was rude to fake sipping the holy water, so I actually drank part of it. Big mistake. The next day Montezuma had found me. I’m so glad I brought medicine with me.

After we did the “wet ceremony” we changed out of our swimsuits and put on dry sarongs to participate in the dry version. This one involved the same little trays, and similar chants, only done in front of one of their super tall altars.

Then we packed it in and headed off to the next attraction.