That may explain the Balinese’ obsession with death. The way people die, the way they greet death, and, most importantly, how their community treat their death often eclipses the way they spend their life.

For members of the ksatriya (royal family and warrior class), dying in a bloody battle is certainly a more noble end than meeting your maker on a sickbed.

For the brahmana (high priest class) having prior knowledge of the exact hour and day of one’s death and a tranquil manner in accepting one’s own death are viewed as ultimate signs of spiritual mastery.

Yet death is not merely a personal event. In Bali death is also a very public event. The responsibility for organizing death-related rituals does not fall on the deceased’s family, but on the deceased’s traditional communities — banjar (hamlet) or desa pekraman (customary village).

Final journey: Fire destroys the wooden sarcophagus of a white bull in which the body of Ida Dewa Agung Peliatan IX has been placed.  The size of the post-mortem ritual and the number of people involved are and indication of the deceased’s social stature as well as the level of support he or she enjoyed from members of the traditional communities.

For decades the island’s royal families have used post-mortem rituals, and any other rituals for that matter, not only as a medium to pay their tribute to the deceased members of their respective royal houses, but also as a vehicle to display their economic achievements, political sphere of influences and social stature.

Tuesday’s royal cremation of Peliatan’s king, Ida Dewa Agung Peliatan IX, was no exception.

Peliatan is one of the three powerful royal houses in Gianyar. The other two are Ubud and Gianyar.

Thanks to the royal houses’ patronage, traditional institutions, such as customary villages, art troupes and religious institutions have succeeded in remaining political and social influences.

The current regent of Gianyar is a member of Ubud’s royal house while the future king of Peliatan, Tjokorda Gde Putra Nindia, now serves as the regency’s secretary, the third highest government official in the region.

Hundreds of people from Peliatan, Ubud, and the surrounding villages have worked for months to prepare the cremation.

The 120-household-strong Pande (blacksmith) clan of Peliatan presented a gigantic wooden sarcophagus in the form of white bull with gold-plated horns for the cremation. The clan’s elder Pande Wayan Sutedja Neka summoned the clan’s best artisans from outside Bali to craft the biggest bull sarcophagus.

 

Royal gathering: Prince Tjokorda Gde Putra Sukawati of Ubud (left), Peliatan’s heir to the throne Tjokorda Gde Putra Nindia and Prince Tjokorda Raka Kerthyasa of Ubud (right) share a light moment on the naga banda carried by their subjects. “The present underlines the strong historical and emotional bonds between Peliatan’s royal house and the Pande clan,” Neka said, adding that his ancestors had served as the court blacksmith for Ida Dewa Agung Peliatan III.

The royal family’s influence and its bonds with the traditional communities were more evident on the day of the cremation, with as many as 6,800 men from 30 hamlets participating in the cremation as the pallbearers. They took turn in carrying the 25-meter tall Bade cremation tower, the naga banda and the white bull sarcophagus.

The elaborately decorated Bade with 11 pyramid-shaped tiers, glittering paraphernalia, thousands of uniform white t-shirts and meals packages distributed to everybody involved in the ritual were a clear testimony of the Peliatan royal family’s wealth and social stature.

It was a grandiose ritual that succeeded in hypnotizing thousands of people, from locals to foreign visitors and awestruck journalists.

Yet, at the end of the ritual, when fiery flames of fire consumed the sarcophagus and the king’s body inside it, when exhausted pallbearers silently deserted the cemetery, when the commotion succumbed to the descending night, one was reminded of the transient nature of everything.

The glittering Bade, the social status, the political influences, and human life are all ephemeral. At the end of the day, the king journeyed alone to the after-life, unaccompanied and unadorned.  

— Photos by JP/Agung Parameswara