0 Preparing for Nyepi in Prambanan

On that Monday morning, amid the flow of domestic and foreign tourists, dozens of Hindu youth were tying up bamboo poles that they would use to carry ogoh-ogoh (giant papier-mâché figures) during the Tawur sacrificial ritual at noon. One of the ogoh-ogoh, red and giant with fiery eyes, stood next to these youth, while another one, a yellow troll with pointed fangs and long nails, had become a favorite photo buddy for the tourists roaming the spacious yard of Prambanan temple. 

Several meters away, the women were busy preparing all the paraphernalia and offerings for the Tawur, an important rite to restore the balance of the universe. Balinese Hindus believe that human activities always disturb the balance. “By taking something from the earth, by introducing something to the earth, man has continuously disrupted that balance, thus, endangers not only his own race but also all the other races of sentient beings,” religious scholar Ketut Sumarta once said. Through Tawur, Balinese Hindus try to give back to the earth what they had taken, thus, restoring the balance. 

The annual Tawur is usually held one day before Nyepi, the celebration of the Saka lunar new year. The Hindu followers in Yogyakarta and Central Java organized this year’s Tawur in Prambanan, a sprawling Hindu temple complex built in the ninth century by Rakai Pikatan, a king of the Sanjaya dynasty, which was later on expanded by his successors, Lokapala and Balitung. At the height of the Mataram kingdom’s glory, Prambanan was believed to comprise 240 temples. It is still the largest Hindu temple site in Indonesia. In 1991, UNESCO acknowledged it as a World Heritage Site. 

The local Hindus started to use the temple as a site to carry out religious rituals in the 1990s. Soon, devotees from Bali came in large numbers to carry out pilgrimages to this temple. “This area has become the main site for Nyepi-related rituals,” organizing committee head Gede Bayu Suparta said. The three towering main temples, dedicated to Brahma the Creator, Wisnu the Sustainer and Siwa the Destroyer, provide a dramatic backdrop for the Tawur ritual. 

The ritual saw Balinese and Javanese girls perform the sacred Rejang dance, portraying the heavenly nymphs greeting the arrival of the divine. Uniquely, the Balinese gamelan was played alongside the Javanese gamelan, creating a strange, yet hauntingly beautiful, melody. Throughout the ritual, tourists gathered around the site and observed in solemn silence as the Hindu devotees presented their offerings and appealed for the grace of the gods to forgive their violations and restore the cosmic balance.

source : bali daily