ODISHA & BALI (INDONESIA): CULTURAL SIMILARITIES

Irrespective of religion, the Indonesian culture was essentially Hindu culture and most of the people were Hindus (or Buddhists) at one time or the other. The term “Hindu” is used in Indonesia in a very broad sense. It is meant for both Buddhist and Brahmanical religion. So Buddhists are also treated as Hindus. The language of Indonesia which is also now the National language of Malaysia and Singapore is the Bahasa (i.e. ‘Bhasa’ of Sanskrit) Indonesia. That is primarily based on Sanskrit words but is not indebted as much to Arabic or Persian or a European language. So, we can find Muslims and Christians having Hindu names in Indonesia. But there are different dialects and scripts for different provinces, especially for Bali and Java. Javanese sounds much like Odia, ending in ‘O’, but not in Balinese. The old Balinese script and the old Javanese script were modelled after Pallava script.

The trading contacts between India and Indonesia along with Malaysia, Indo-China and the Philippines, resulted in the rise of the first Buddhist empire of Sri Vijay centred in Sumatra, or the Suvama Bhumi, about the 5^th century A.D. This empire spread over Western Indonesia and the present Malaysia. It was succeeded by the Hindu Kingdom of Sanjaya (Brahmanic) and Sailendra (Buddhist) dynasties in Java (Yawa Dwipa), succeeded by the Mataram (Hindu) empire till about the 10^th century. Then Indonesia was divided into small kingdoms till the 14^th century when the mighty Hindu empire again fell apart. Bali again not only became independent but the Javanese ruling family along with its retinue and Brahmanas fled and took shelter in Bali. It happened so because the son of a concubine of the king adopted Islam and by raising an army, attacked and usurped the throne, setting up thereby the first Muslim rule, though by a native Muslim. Under the Muslim Majapahit dynasty, Islam spread rapidly in the rest of the empire except Bali. Bali was frequently attacked, but it withstood, till it fell to the Dutch invaders only in 1908.

 

But study of Chinese records by scholars suggests that in the beginning there was also a flourishing Hindu kingdom around the 3^rd -4^th century A.D. in Indonesia, especially in Bali and Java, set up as believed, by the Kings of people from Kalinga in India. The Brahmana Odia emigrants are still called “Brahmana Buddha Kalinga” by the Balinese. It indicated that emigrants were from Kalinga(Odisha). Legends and traditions mention about the early Kalinga settlements in Indonesia. It is said that the Prince of Kalinga (Odisha) sent twenty thousand families to Java. In due course of time, they multiplied the population. They obeyed the almighty king named Kano. His successors continued to rule for about four hundred years.

 

 Since then, all over Indonesia and Malaysia all people from India had been described as “Kling’, whether they come from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bengal or Punjab. People in Indonesia or in Bali, have no idea as to the identity and location of the Kalinga country in India, and India has been synonymous with Kalinga. Islam came to Indonesia also from or via India, mainly through the Muslim traders from Gujarat in India around 10^th -11^th century. They had followed the Gujarati Hindus. People from Gouda or Bengal in India had also come to Indonesia by then. However, all Hindus coming from India were known as Klings; but it is being thought most Indians had come from Gujarat in India. Few people in Indonesia even know that Kalinga is Odisha, or the Odias were ever known as Kalingans.

 

The Bali-Yatra ceremony in Odisha on the auspicious day of Kartik Purnima when people across the state float tiny vessels lighted with lamps along with offerings of fruits as food in memory of starting to sail trading ships from Odisha, i.e. Kalinga to Bali, etc has some similarity with a South Balinese Hindu custom (Masakapam Kepesih ceremony) where every child floats a tiny vessel into the sea along with a lamp and fruit-offerings when he /she is six months old, perhaps this is a custom born out of a belief of sending the child to the ancestors in the original homeland of the Kalinga country in India.

 

 

 A number of basic words used in Odia, some crafts, some forms of worship and some peculiar food-habits prevalent in Odisha are common with Indonesia, especially with Bali and Java. For instance, mother is called Boo (bu) in Indonesia like Bou in Odia and father as Bopo (in Javanese) or Bapa (in Balinese as in Odia). Ground-nut is called Kacang China in Bali like Chinabadam in Odia.

In Bali three deities, represented by masks are worshipped which has very much resemblance to the trinity, Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra in Odisha. The masks are fitted to a wooden-body-like contraception and after worship; three persons get into these and move in a procession accompanied with dancing and singing. The visages of the masks are, one basically black, another white and the third green in colour. In fact, all worship in Bali is accompanied with dancing and singing, performed mostly by unmarried girls.

 Balinese are especially fond of leaves of sag as in Odisha, especially the young leaves of the drum-stick tree, known in Odisha as Sajana. They love to cook its sag along with mashed coconut as is done in Odisha. They also love to eat cooked banana-flowers and the core-stem of the banana plant, and also have their food on banana leaves as in Odisha and Bengal. They also prepare and eat a cake made of rice-flour with stuffings like those known as Manda and Enduripitha in Odisha, among other such cakes made of rice-flour. People of Bali worship a knotted bundle of paddy-sheaves as Shridevi, the goddess of crops or harvesting, who is worshipped with the same connotation as Lakshmi, in the month of Margasira in Odisha. Goddess Shri Lakshmi receives regular propitiation when the harvest is over. Lakshmi is regarded as the real owner of the rice fields.

 

 The Balinese and the Javanese, up to the present day, have betel chewing habit and every house have arrangements to prepare betel like the Odias. Most peculiar is the similarity of having a small wooden box moving on wheels containing the nut-cracker and containers, with ingredients of betel preparation and Catechu (Khair), as practiced in houses of middle-class Odias.

 

 The most salient feature of a common heritage is the old writings on palm-leaf with an iron stylus and the ancient Balinese manuscripts are all in palm-leaves as are the old Odia manuscripts. The practice is even now maintained in Bali by the Hindu pundits.

 

 The Balinese are celebrated for their arts and crafts all over the world now. The designs and special type of tie and dye weaving for which Bali only is noted in Indonesia, known as Patata designs in Bali, is same as the Sambalapuri design and style of weaving in Odisha.

Javanese women have the practice of rounding up hair in a typical bun the same way as the common Odia women do in villages. Youngsters of Java and Bali follow a habit of bending down and separating themselves notionally by stretching down the right hand towards the earth while passing among elders standing or sitting  on the way which is a common practise among Odias.

 

Hindus in Bali or Java, salute or pay obeisance to others by way of ‘Namaskara’ that is by raising folded hands and uttering ‘om swosti astu’ but not by touching the feet of an elder. The salutation is three-fold, like that of the Odias, that is saluting (a) deities by raising the folded hands to the forehead or above, (b) Brahmins, the King, or other superiors or elders by raising the folded hands up to the tip of the nose, and (c) equals or inferiors by raising the folded hands only up to the chest or ‘hridaya’.  While answering a query in the affirmative, like the Odias again, Balinese use ‘inge’ like ‘ajna’ in Odia, in case of replying to elders, and ‘hayn’ in case of equals or inferiors.

The Hindus of Indonesia including Bali, offer prayer as a part of daily ritual, to the Sun as ‘Aditya’, and to the ‘Sapta Kula-Parvatas’ of India, viz., Mahendra, Malay, Sahya, Vindhya, etc . and the seven, sometimes nine Gangas. It is peculiar that  especially the Mahendra range of mountains on the Odisha-Andhra border and the river Mahendratanaya flowing nearby in Odisha are venerated. The famous rivers mentioned in the rhyme for daily ablution include the Mahanadi of Odisha.  Mahanadi is considered one of the nine sacred rivers, with Ganga, Yamuna, Kaveri, Sarayu, Narmada and Godavari. The rhymes are only variants of those in vogue in India.

 

 

  But, people in Bali or Indonesia, in general, have no idea that either the mount Mahendra or the rivers as the Mahendratanaya or the Mahanadi are in Odisha. Only after coming to India and reading books written by historians like R.C. Majumdar, that I could learn about Ashoka’s Kalinga war and that the Kalinga country had spread around the present day Odisha in India, and only after visiting Odisha, I could learn that the mount Mahendra or the rivers Mahendratanaya, Mahanadi or Baitarani or Brahmani are situated mainly or wholly in Odisha.

Courtesy:   “Hinduism in Bali” an article written by Dr. I.G.P.Phalgunadi, eminent Hindu scholar from Bali (Indonesia) who conducted field work in Odisha and while staying with Odia families he studied the similarities between Odia and Indonesian culture. He spent more than decade in India for research on Hinduism and Indian immigration to Indonesia. He is the author the book “Evolution of Hindu Culture in Bali”.