Panca Bali Krama (3)

Now came the time for more ceremonies focused in the spot of Yajna. The Brahmanic high priests led the process of “measuring the land”. With the help of consecrated cotton yarn they made a square area in the outer courtyard of the great temple. This will became the exact spot of the spreading of mandala offerings, the centre of all compass orientations. This is also marking the sacrificial arena of Panca Bali. The yarn then used as further guide to make lines, applied on the ground by help of white flour. Only after these white flour lines gave two dimensional form of sacrificial arena, the concrete walls, pavilions, and other specific three dimensional building for the Yajna were erected and arranged on the spot.
Next we came to the ceremony for obtaining sacred ingredients of the Yajna. The most important were the making of sacred cakes and oils. This is the most holiest offering in the Yajna for worshipping the benevolent Devatas. These were obtained from sanctified white, blemish less, healthy cow. Some high priests then blessed the honourable cow and ceremoniously collected her milk, dung, urine, tears, and saliva. They mixed them in special way to produce the holy substance. This substance was then mixed again with molasses, pure honey, butter, and flour to form the sacred cakes. Other part was mixed with boiling coconut milk to produce sacred oils. Every mixing process used the special sticks made from bunches of kusa grass.
After all the ingredients for the Yajna were readily available, then they perform Bhumi-suddhi (Pemarisuddha) the ceremony of purifying and blessing the sacrificial arena. The high priests were again invoking the local earthly devas, fixing their power and other celestials to protect the spot, then dedicated the area solely only for spiritual purpose. From now, the area wasn’t part of mundane earth anymore, but represented the unlimited space, large enough to contain the whole universe. Indeed, the Panca Bali was to invoke the whole universe, and then offered it to The Lord of Universe who will destroy it in His wrathful fire, and again recreating it in a new, fresh form.

Panca Bali Krama (2)

The Panca Bali begins by preliminary ritual weeks before. I shall try to describe them in brief. The first process was obtaining two consecrated holy water for distributed to all part of Bali. Every village chiefs came to Besakih with decorated bamboo jar (a substitution for kalasha, I think). Every of them got two kind of holy water. One was for purification of their respective villages and peoples, and the other, I think has such an interesting significance. This one consecrated water was used as magical seal applied on the departed souls that not yet ceremoniously purified. That’s mean the souls of the not yet ceremoniously cremated deaths, ones without proper funeral ritual, ignored Pitri of those who hasn’t had their Sraddha, Pinda, and Tarpana performed yet, and other ghostly beings. The religious authorities of Balinese Hindu banned any kind of personal religious activity without any connection with the grand Panca Bali ceremony in Besakih, that including funeral ceremony, wedding, etc. With no proper ritual, we expected will be many impure departed souls in Bali. They could bring bad energy and disturb the purity of people’s mind, thus became further disturbance to the great sacrificial ceremony. The village chiefs took the two jars of holy water and ceremoniously placed them in the Death Temples, Lord Siva’s places of worship. He then distributed it among his peoples for sprinkled in their own houses and family shrines. By the first holy water the whole village was purified. By the second one, all wandering souls were sealed by the authority of the Yamaraja, Lord of Death and Cemetery. The villagers then asked the Ancestral Lord, Prajapati, whose shrine was near the cremation ground, to take care the souls of their departed relatives for a while, till the grand ceremony of Panca Bali was completed.