Abstract
A significant number of anthropological studies on Balinese religion have been published in the past four decades. These studies—primarily tackling sociological issues connected with ritual, politics and hierarchy—have paid particular attention to the reformed version of Hinduism (Agama Hindu Bali) that came to the fore from the early twentieth century onwards. According to the most influential theories, Balinese religion emphasized orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy, lacking a proper theological and philosophical tradition as well as a set of shared beliefs carried by a body of canonized sacred scriptures. It was only after contact with the ideologies carried by representatives of Christian, Islamic and Indian Hindu faiths that the Balinese reformers sought to promote a shift from a kind of embedded orthopraxy to a universalistic and abstract dogmatic religion, the allegiance to a single deity and the ‘scripturalization’ of traditional beliefs.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for instance, Hornbacher (2014: 332, fn. 25), referring to Acri 2011a and 2013 (the latter article does not, however, appear in her bibliography); she claims that all the names, designations and personifications of the highest form of Śiva as the Absolute (such as Saṅ Hyaṅ Tuṅgal, Saṅ Hyaṅ Nora, etc.) that are found in Tuturs ‘get completely out of sight if one accepts the fact of monism and his sporadic connection with Śiva as a sufficient reason to interpret Tuturs overall as expression of an Indian Śivaite system’ (Sie geraten vollkommen aus dem Blick, wenn man die Tatsache des Monismus und seine sporadische Verbindung mit Shiva als hinreichenden Grund dafür nimmt, die tutur insgesamt als Ausdruck eines indischen Shivaitischen Systems zu deuten). This statement over-simplifies the matter; elsewhere (Acri 2011b: 7, 2011e: 549) I have pointed out that the proliferation of names of God in His various aspects that are rarely found, or altogether unattested, in the Śiva Sanskrit literature from South Asia is a distinctive feature of apparently late, more ‘localised’ Tuturs, but not of Tattvas, which follow Sanskrit prototypes more closely.
- 2.
- 3.
Gunawan (2015) has convincingly argued that the manuscripts that have been hitherto described as Nipahs (Nypa fructicans) were called by the pre-modern indigenous sources gebang, which corresponds to a different writing support (corypa gebanga or corypa utan).
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
On which see Rubinstein 2000 and, for an overview of this phenomenon and a description of its South Asian prototypes, Acri forthcoming.
- 7.
Hornbacher (2014: 332, fn. 25), referring to Acri 2011a and 2013 (the latter article does not, however, appear in her bibliography), claims that all the names, designations and personifications of the highest form of Śiva as the Absolute (such as Saṅ Hyaṅ Tuṅigal, Saṅ Hyaṅ Nora, etc.) that are found in Tuturs get completely out of sight if one accepts the fact of monism and his sporadic connection with Śiva as a sufficient reason to interpret Tuturs overall as expression of an Indian Śivaite system. This statement over-simplifies the matter; elsewhere (Acri 2011d: 549). I have pointed out that the proliferation of names of God in His various aspects that are rarely found, or altogether unattested, in the Śiva Sanskrit literature from South Asia is a distinctive feature of apparently late, more ‘localised’ Tuturs, but not of Tattva, which follow Sanskrit prototypes more closely.
- 8.
- 9.
On this corpus of texts, mainly formed by mildly Tantric, dualist scriptures, see Goodall (2004: xii–lvii).
- 10.
- 11.
Cf., e.g., Vṛhaspatitattva 2 and 52; similar passages are found throughout the Dharma Pātañjala.
- 12.
Cf. Ramstedt 2004: 14; with regard to karma and mokṣa, see Bakker 1993: 72–73, and Guermonprez 2001: 278. Howe (2001: 72), by contrast, maintains that ‘though ideas about karma can be found in indigenous Balinese texts, the doctrine has not had much influence among ordinary Balinese until relatively recently’. In agreeing with Howe that these elements already existed in the Tattva and Tutur literature, I should like to point out that local proverbs widespread among the Balinese of all social classes and ages seem to refer to the law of karma pala in prosaic terms, illustrating situations and images understandable to anybody (cf. Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan 1984: 6–10, 18–20; etc.).
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Acri, A. (2018). From Śivaśāsana to Agama Hindu Bali: Tracing the Indic Roots of Modern Balinese Hinduism. In: Saran, S. (eds) Cultural and Civilisational Links between India and Southeast Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7317-5_8
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