NOTES
ON THE HISTORY OF BALI
It
seems difficult to reconcile the soft-mannered, peace-loving Balinese
we know with the intrigue and violence of their turbulent past.
For a thousand years the history of the island is a series of
wars and heroic episodes that reached a dramatic climax only thirty
years ago when the Balinese made a desperate but futile last stand
against a modem army.
Bali
was under the rule of Javanese kings from the earliest days of
Hindu Java, but we first bear of Balinese dynasties in the tenth
century of our era. In 991 A.D. a child was born of a Balinese
king and a Javanese princess. He was named Erlangga and was sent
to Java to marry a princess and to become a local chief in the
kingdom of his father-in-law. Dharmawangsa, the ruler, was murdered
suddenly and Erlangga took charge, saving the kingdom from total
collapse and bringing it into even greater glory. Erlangga ruled
during thirty difficult years, creating a strong bond between
Java and his native Bali, which was then governed by Erlangga's
brother in his name. Then, as befits a model hero of Hindu ideas,
Erlangga suddenly renounced the kingdom be bad made great and
died a hermit under the guidance of his religious teacher, Mpu'
Bharadah. Erlangga's kingdom was nearly destroyed by a plague
supposedly brought by the dreadful witch Rangda, queen of evil
spirits, who was, according to historians, Erlangga's own mother.
Out of the mythical struggle between the magic of the witch and
that of the great king, arose the legend Calon Arang that made
Erlangga the most famous figure of Balinese mythical history.
In
later years Bali became independent of Java, but was again subjugated
in 1284 by the army of Kertanagara, the king of Singasari (of
the Tumapel dynasty) . Singasari was destroyed eight years later
by the new dynasty of Madjapahit, and Bali again became free,
only to be reconquered in 1343 by General Gadja Mada for King
Radjasanagara, under whom the entire Archipelago became a vassal
of Madjapahit. During the next hundred years the power of the
empire was undermined by civil wars and revolts in the colonies,.
and soon the great empire went into decline. The Balinese revolted
against Madjapahit time and again, but the uprisings were put
down in memorable battles, after which military figures like Arya
Damar and Gadjah Mada became rulers of Bali and to them the present
Balinese aristocracy traces its origin. Gadja Mada was sent to
Bali to subjugate the king of the Balinese Pedjeng dynasty, Dalem
Bedaulu', who was supposed to have bad the head of a pig. He was
the owner of the famous horse of Tenganan. Bedaul' was a semi-demoniac
character of supernatural origin who refused to recognize Madjapahit
supremacy. He was defeated by Gadjah Mada, and Bali
once more came under Javanese rule. The expeditions of Gadjah
Mada were the last military displays of the empire. In the meantime
Mohammedan missionaries were becoming influential in Java and
were converting princes who proclaimed themselves sultans of their
districts, repudiating their allegiance to Madjapahit. Soon peaceful
propaganda turned into armed force; Mohammedan fanatics made war
on Madjapahit, which finally collapsed after it was weakened by
internal trouble. Stutterheim is of the opinion that the empires
destruction came gradually somewhere about the' year 1520.
However,
in the more picturesque but less reliable historic records (babad)
' it is stated that Madjapahit fell in 1478 under the reign of
Bra Widjaya V (Kertabhumi), according to StutteTbeim) . Bra Widjaya
was told by his chief priest that after forty days the title of
Radja of Madjapahit would cease to exist. The king bad such implicit
faith in the prediction that at the expiration of that time he
had himself burned alive. His son, unable to withstand the Mohammedan
invasion and not daring to disobey the sentence of the priest,
escaped to his last remaining colony; followed by his court, his
priests, and his artists, be crossed over into Bali, settling
on the south coast of Gelgel, at the foot of the Gunung Agung.
There he proclaimed himself the king of Bali, the Dewa Agung,
the hereditary title of the Raja of Klungkung. The Dewa Agung
divided the island into Principalities which be gave to his relatives
and generals to govern. By degrees these local chiefs grew independent
of the Dewa Agung and became the Raja of the smaller kingdoms
into which Bali was later divided.
It
was of extreme significance for the cultural development of Bali
that in the exodus of the rulers, the priests, and the intellectuals
of what was the most civilized race of the Eastern islands, the
cream of Javanese culture was transplanted as a unit into Bali.
There the art, the religion and philosophy of the Hindu Javanese
were preserved and- have flourished practically undisturbed until
today. When the fury of intolerant Islamism drove the intellectuals
of Java into Bali, they brought with them their classics and continued
to cultivate their poetry and art, so that when Sir Stamford Raffles
wanted to write the history of Java, be had to turn to Bali for
what remains of the once great literature of Java.