Thousands attend a frugal mass cremation in Buleleng

Thousands of residents of the Sangsit Dauh Yeh customary village in Buleleng joined a mass cremation on Friday.

The ritual, known as a sawa karsian, is held once every five years and gives poorer residents an affordable way to cremate their deceased relatives.

Cremation is an expensive affair in Bali. Households typically spend up to Rp 50 million (US$5,200) to organize a simple ngaben cremation ritual for the deceased.

However, to participate in the sawa karsian ritual on Friday cost a family only Rp 1 million, paid to the customary village that organized the event.

The village leaders pooled the money received to finance the cremation of 682 deceased individuals from 73 dadya, or groupings of dozens of related families.

Unlike the more common ngaben ritual that calls for the cremation of the deceased on a pyre, a sawa karsian does not involve any bodies.

Instead, each family builds effigies of the deceased using precious wood, such as sandalwood, majegau, and golden flowers. The name of the ritual comes from the Balinese words used for effigy: sawa karsian.

Since early Friday morning, thousands of local residents, all dressed in traditional clothes, were seen flocking to the village’s soccer field, where the most of the preparatory rituals had taken place. In previous days, local residents participated in a massive street procession to fetch holy water for the cremation.

After hours of preparation, the people were ready to march to two cemeteries, the setra kaja and the setra kelod, carrying with them sawa karsian and other ritual paraphernalia. Walking under the sun with little shelter, the men and women formed a slow-moving procession that backed up traffic along the island’s main northern road.

After reaching the cemeteries, Balinese Hindu high priests led the faithful through a complex series of rituals that climaxed with the torching of the sawa karsian.

Each effigy was placed inside an earthenware bowl before being set afire with material that was previously sanctified by a sacred mantra.

The next step of the ritual takes place at dawn on Saturday, when the devoted will release the ashes of their sawa karsian into the sea.

Finally, in the last step, known as meajar-ajar, the families will conduct a two-day long pilgrimage to all the major temples of the island to announce to the gods that the mass cremation was successful.

For village elder Wayan Wisara, one of the true achievement of the ceremony was increasing the awareness of local residents of the vanity of using religious rituals as a pretext to flaunt their economic and social status.

“I am very happy that the people of Sangsih Dauh Yeh could organize a ritual in such a simple and modest way, and with a deep understanding of the essence of the ritual,” Wisara said.

He said that organizing a lavish and expensive ritual for the sake of displaying one’s economic power of the community is one of the main problems facing Balinese Hindus.

“In this mass cremation, we cut out several costly things that we sincerely believe have nothing to do with the essence of the ritual,” he said.

Among the things were new uniform shirts and kebaya for participants and a collective feast.

“We didn’t take out anything related to the offerings and ritual paraphernalia. In a sense, we have returned the ritual to its core,” Wisara said.

Saturday 10 November 2012

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