Balinese Celebrations The timing of celebrations are based on one of two calendars in use in Bali, although predominately it is the wuku or the pawukon, which is a year of 210 days, rather than the saka calendar brought by the Majapahit, which follows the series of 12 lunar months. Annual temple festivals occur with both. Auspicious dates for such things as launching a new fishing boat or getting 31.
Life Cycle Rites The other ceremonies at the temples are ritual life cycle rites.
Starting at birth and ending at death and cremation. Until the 42nd day of a child’s life, the mother and child are both still considered impure and cannot enter temples. One curious custom is that the Balinese do not let a baby touch the ground until the 105th day ceremony.
Another ceremony partly unique to the Balinese is tooth filing for adolescents: It is believed that it is tooth shape that distinguishes gods and humans from birds and animals. The purpose of this matatah is to remove impurity by eliminating or reducing the Sad Ripu, or the six weaknesses or deadly sins: lust, greed, anger, drunkenness, confusion, and jealousy.
The Sad Ripu are symbolically eliminated by flattening the two upper canines, teeth that most resemble an animal’s, and the four incisors. The lower teeth are left alone, as they represent desire and passion, which should not be killed completely.
Every Balinese will have his teeth filed and it can even happen after death. Married are determined by these calendars. As neither follow the Western calendar, festival dates change from month to month and year to year.
Bizarrely, and slightly out of character, cockfights are an integral part of religious ceremony. Villagers are obliged to keep fighting cocks and to donate them to the cockfights that follow the ceremonies. The men take great care of their fighting cocks, fawning over them and massaging them and occasionally even letting them fight each other.
Cockfighting has its origins in blood sacrifices, although the more skeptical might suggest that the gambling surrounding the cockfights nowadays is more the reason for keeping this tradition alive. In 1981 the government made all forms of gambling illegal.
Cockfighting now takes place in more remote locations than in the past and can be easily dismantled in a moment’s notice. Betting can go up to 1 to 2 months wages in a single fight. The dedication or inauguration day of a temple is considered its birthday (odalan) and the celebration takes place every 210 days; this is the most important regular ceremony for a temple.
The ceremonies continue into the evening with either pendet or rejang dances, led by the priests and by elderly women who act as assistants to the priests. Many spend the whole night in the temple.
The two most important ceremonies are the purification ceremony, Panca Wali Krama, which takes place once every 10 years, and the Eka Dasa Rudra, the greatest ceremony of all taking place only every 100 years.
Common to all temples are Galungan (10 days) and Kuningan (the final day of galungan), which take place every 210 days and celebrate the triumph of light over evil and the creation of the universe.
As these are common to all temples, this is also a public holiday although not for quite the full 10 days.
