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Yogyakarta, Bali get ready for Nyepi

Religious procession: Jakarta’s Hindus participate in a religious procession along with giant ogoh-ogoh effigies in connection with the observance of Nyepi (Hindu Day of Silence) at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Jakarta on Sunday

The Jakarta Post
Mon, March 11, 2013

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Yogyakarta, Bali get ready for Nyepi

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span class="inline inline-center">Religious procession: Jakarta’s Hindus participate in a religious procession along with giant ogoh-ogoh effigies in connection with the observance of Nyepi (Hindu Day of Silence) at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Jakarta on Sunday. Hindus in Indonesia will observe Nyepi on Tuesday this year. JP/Wendra Ajistyatama

Thousands of Balinese Hindus from the Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces performed the Melasti ritual on Parangkusumo Beach in Parangtritis village, Kretek district, in Bantul regency, Yogyakarta, on Saturday, ahead of Nyepi, the Day of Silence, which falls on Tuesday.

In the ritual, which started at around 2 p.m., the Hindu faithful brought various offerings from the Cepuri area to Parangkusumo Beach, accompanied by the sounds of Balinese music.

They prayed for the ritual offerings, which were put on a 50-meter-long wooden raft and then left to float out to sea.

The Melasti ritual has become something of a tourist attraction. Hundreds of domestic and foreign tourists enjoyed the ritual processions held on Saturday.

“Melasti is one of the rituals held ahead of Nyepi and this year it coincided with the Saka New Year 1935,” chairman of the Yogyakarta branch of the Indonesian Hindu Dharma Council (PHDI), Ida Bagus Agung MTN, said on Saturday.

He said that Melasti was aimed at cleansing human beings and the environment from impurities. They dispose of the ritual offerings into the sea to symbolize the throwing away of all those impurities.

To purify the environment, the Hindus held a procession in which they used holy water from Nuur Toya Suci in Sendang Beji, Bantul. After sprinkling the holy water, they prayed at Jagatnata Temple in Plumbon, Bantul, and then headed to Parangkusumo Beach to float their offerings out to sea.

On the beach, Hindu priests took some water from the sea and put it in large earthenware bowls containing water from three sites: Sendang Pitu on Mount Merapi, Ngobaran Beach on Gunung Kidul and the Hindu temple of Prambanan.

“We hope that with this purification, Sang Hyang Widhi [God the Almighty] will give us both physical and spiritual strength to embrace the coming of Nyepi,” Ida Bagus said.

Meanwhile in Bali, the main streets and junctions across the island will be the catwalk for demons tonight as thousands of Balinese youths carry hundreds of ogoh-ogoh (giant papier-m'ché effigies) in a noisy procession called ngerupuk. At the end of the procession, the ogoh-ogoh will be torched in cemeteries or at intersections, a symbolic act of destroying all the negative and demonic elements in the universe. When the flames die out, the world, the Balinese world at least, will be ready for the total silence that marks the new beginning, a restored hope. That total silence, known as Nyepi, will be observed by Balinese Hindus across the island on the day following ngerupuk.

Hindu pundits have repeatedly declared that the ogoh-ogoh parade is not an integral part of ngerupuk, which is essentially a religious procession. The core of ngerupuk lies in the caru sacrificial ritual held in every household and the subsequent torch procession.

“Jl. Bypass Ngurah Rai, particularly from Sanur up to the Dewa Ruci intersection, and Jl. Raya Sesetan will see a lot of activity during ngerupuk,” South Denpasar Police chief Comr. Agus Tri Waluyo said, predicting that traffic would start to slow down around 3 p.m., four hours before the parade kicks off.

In the Sanur area, Agus pointed out, much of the fanfare takes place at the intersection near Sanur Paradise Plaza Hotel and at Mertasari. The police will deploy most of their officers to these two intersections.

The 2002 Bali Bombing monument in Legian will be the starting point for the parade in Kuta.

I Wayan Juniartha contributed to the article from Denpasar

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