Melasti Ritual

Bali is well known for the importance of the Hindu religion which is part of everyone’s life in the island. As such, rituals are common in Bali and some of them keep Balinese people busy in a way that looks very unusual to foreigners. This is why we thought it might be of interest to our readers to get a better insight into one of these : Nyepi (silence day). This consists in a series of rituals that will be described in the next three blog posts. The first one is Melasti Ritual, 4 days before Nyepi. It is dedicated to Sanghyang Widhi Wasa, the “All-In-One God” or supreme god of Indonesian Hinduism, a term invented in the 1930s by Christian missionaries to describe the Christian god to the Balinese. Thousands of white dressed Hindu people bring all the ceremonies equipment and the symbol of gods (spears, banners, statues, …) to the sea or other water sources that are believed by Hindus as a place to purify everyone’s heart or soul and all other elements in the universe. Melasti’s ceremony is supposed to keep people and things away from bad influences. Dajuma’s team went to the village temple together with 3000 people in the morning. Later in the afternoon, our team carried out the same smaller scale ceremony in Dajuma’s sea temple. The next couple of days, all the community will be busy preparing more offerings for rituals. Next week, we shall explain Ogoh-Ogoh, the evening before Nyepi or Silent day.