Dated: Dec. 21 is an ordinary day on the Balinese calendar, first translated from ancient lontar writings in the 1950s.

For anyone planning on the end of the world tomorrow as an antidote to Christmas shopping or New Year’s resolutions, this could be a real “Oops!” moment.

While some believe the Mayan calendar ends on Friday, Dec. 21, here in Bali it is calendar business as usual.

Balinese calendars are exquisite works of esotericism; for years ahead the very few calendar makers on the island must plot the holy days for temples, auspicious days for weddings and cremations, moon phases for the bimonthly ceremonies, and for 2012’s calendar, a clarification on the end of the world.

According to third generation Balinese calendar maker 49-year-old Mangku Nyoman Bambang Gde Bayu, the end of the world as we know it is still a long way off. And when, eons from now, the end does occur, it will be without cataclysm, mayhem and madness.

The television gets it wrong, says Mangku. The world’s end will be rather a returning of the enlightened to the cosmos. This world ending or maha pralaya (kiamat) is part of the never-ending cycle of creation and destruction, just like body cells that turn over constantly, the rotation of seasons, or moon, sun and star phases.

Clean: The Balinese calendar specifies the holy days of Hinduism, when people gather for certain ceremonies or rituals.“In the Balinese calendar there is no end of the world and there never can be an end of the world. Maybe in other religions, but we are not scared of this, because if we are from God and return to God, we will be born again,” says Mangku of the inevitable cycle of life, be it of mankind or the world itself.

That end of universal rotation is also far off into the mists of the absolute unknown, says Mangku. The world according to Balinese Hinduism must first reach the “Long Cycle”, give or take 155 trillion years in the future from Buddha’s birth. In math better understood by people, this means we first have to journey through the Yuga cycles at 14,000 years each, the Kalpa cycles that are made up of a whisker over 4 million years per cycle, and a century of Brahma years, which to mankind is 311 trillion years — quite a long time really.

Just where we are in this enormous series of cycles is unknown, says Mangku, but of one thing he is sure, mankind is currently somewhere within the Kaliyuga cycle, the next will be the Satyayuga.

“The kiamat will occur in the long cycle, but that will be very complex and we cannot know when that is. We are currently in the Kaliyuga cycle. This is a period of darkness for mankind where everything is upside down and inside out,” explains Mangku. He says under the Kaliyuga 14,000-year period it will be the bullies who come out on top, a time when brute force will be held in greater regard than humility, when a few people will hold most of the wealth of the world, leaving the majority impoverished, and wars and bloodshed will be the norm.

“Like the seasons change, this period will end with the beginning of a peaceful time known as the Satyayuga, life will be more peaceful, but unfortunately the next cycle of peace and enlightenment is still a thousand years away, the summer of the earth is still far and we are in the dark days,” says Mangku.

The idea of kiamat is very different within Hindu belief; according to Mangku humans need to have reached enlightenment, to be almost souls no longer in need of bodies, to have learned all the lessons that allow for a return to the cosmos and to perfection.

Within Hindus belief the end of the world would be a seamless transition into a new cycle rather than the fiery violence envisioned by television and film producers.

“So as Hindu we don’t understand the idea of Dec. 21 being the end of the world, because there is nowhere to go,” says Mangku of the fact that humans are still an awfully long way from the state of perfection that would allow for kiamat.

The construction of Balinese calendars is deeply complex, with knowledge drawn from ancient texts written on lontar or palm leaves.

Forever: For a Balinese family following the Balinese calendar, this world is one without end.
Until the 1950s very few Balinese could read these esoteric calendars. At that time Mangku’s grandfather, I Ketut Bambang Gde Rawi, decided to take on the task of translating the calendars into Indonesian so his family members could read them and know the dates of religious ceremonies, the best days to get married or hold cremations and all the other important occasions that mark a lifespan.

“In the very beginning, Grandfather translated the lontar for the family to understand the good days, then the people from our area started coming to ask what was a good day for this or that.

“More and more people were coming so the national Hindu organization supported grandfather and the calendar was published,” says Mangku, who continues in the extraordinary profession of Hindu calendar making.

These calendars have 30 different names for weeks and run both the Hindu and common year cycles; in Hinduism it is now 1933.

Mangku works a couple of years ahead and the only difficulty is waiting on government and religious holidays. The calendars can’t be completed until these are confirmed.

“Having Christmas in Indonesia now fixed as the 25th of December helps a lot. I remember when we had to wait for confirmation — Christmas could be either the 25th or 26th of December, that was stressing,” says Mangku.

With the end of the world tomorrow looking very unlikely, it seems there will be Christmas next week. Oops!

— Photos By J.B. Djwan