Asian and African Area Studies, 5 (2): 121-136, 2006

Between Adat and Agama:
The Future of the Religious Role of the Balinese Shadow Puppeteer, Dalang
Umeda Hideharu*
Abstract
The fact that a Baliense dalang is a priest as well as the performer of wayang shadow
puppet theater has already been pointed out in many studies. But the dalang’s role that isemphasized in Bali today is purely that of performer. While dalang’s religious role may nothave been forgotten, the places where this role is carried out have definitely become fewer
and fewer.
What is important when considering the background of the changes in the dalang’s
religious role is the series of reforms that has taken place under the leadership of the Council of Hinduism in Indonesia, in the course of its campaign to have Hinduism recognized asa state religion.
In this movement which began in the latter half of the 1950s, what I want to give
particular attention to here is the process whereby most Balinese rituals and beliefs have,as adat (custom), been eliminated from Hindu doctrine, scripture, and religious education
as agama (religion). And with this, the religious functions of the dalang have been
categorized as adat and likewise eliminated.
This study focusing on the religious role of the dalang will clarify how he was strippedof that role and changed with Bali’s religious and cultural policies and elucidate further theunstable state of the dalang’s religious role, a role which, with the blurring of policy that
followed the split in the Council of Hinduism in Indonesia Province in Bali Province of2001, is oscillating between adat and agama.

Introduction
The fact that a Balinese dalang is a priest as well as the performer of wayang shadow puppet
theater has already been pointed out in many studies. As a performer the dalang charms the audience as an entertainer, bringing into play all kinds of theatrical and musical skills—manipulating
the puppets for the characters of the ancient Indian epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana, speaking
the lines without a script, and reciting the metrical poems. But in performing the wayang forsupernatural beings like gods and demons, the dalang performs the role of a priest, acting as amediator between this world and the other world and performing purification rituals to rid people ofdefilement.
* ൱ᅒᗔ౳⏋Faculty of Music, Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts
Accepted September 26, 2005

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Asian and African Area Studies, 5 (2)But the dalang’s role that is emphasized in Bali today is purely that of performer. The dalang’s
theatrical skills are what are valued today, and this is reflected in his reputation and the frequency
with which he is asked to perform. While the dalang’s religious role may not have been forgotten,
the places where this role is carried out have definitely become fewer and fewer.
What is important when considering the background of the changes in the dalang’s religious
role is the series of reforms that has taken place under the leadership of the Council of Hinduism
in Indonesia, Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia (hereafter Parisada), in the course of its campaign
to have Hinduism recognized as a state religion. In this movement, which began in the latter halfof the 1950s, reforms such as the systematization of doctrines and scriptures, simplification andstandardization of rituals, and publication of doctrinal books have been carried out, but what I want
to give particular attention to here is the process whereby most native Balinese rituals and beliefs
have, as adat (custom), been eliminated from Hindu doctrine, scripture, and religious education as
agama (religion). And with this, the religious functions of the dalang have been categorized as adat
and likewise eliminated. Furthermore, under the cultural policies that has been formulated andimplemented according to Parisada’s policy, the dalang’s religious role today, a half century since thereforms, is firmly established as adat. Today the younger generation of dalangs has almost no ideaof the priestly aspect of the dalang and cannot properly carry out the rituals that a dalang should
perform.
However, with the moves toward decentralization that accompanied the enactment of Law
No. 22/1999 concerning Regional Government some Bali Province Parisada officials have revolted
against the directorate general of Parisada, which has been promoting the rationalization and standardization of Hinduism, and in November 2001 Parisada in Bali Province split in two. Since thesplit each sect has come out with its respective religious position, with one of the sects rejecting theexcessive rationalization and standardization of Hinduism and calling for revivalist reforms aimed
at a Hinduism that recognizes to some extent regional characteristics. Although informal, signs oflocalization in religion, an area which was not in fact subject to decentralization, had begun to be
seen at almost the same time as the beginning of administrative decentralization.
This study focusing on the religious role of the dalang will clarify how he was stripped of thatrole and changed with Bali’s religious and cultural policies inaugurated in the latter half of the 1950s
and elucidate further the unstable state of the dalang’s religious role, a role which, with the blurringof policy that followed the split in Bali Province Parisada of 2001, is oscillating between adat andagama.

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1. The Dalang’s Religious RoleIn Bali a dalang who has the skills of a priest is generally called a mangku dalang.1) “Mangku”
is a generic name for religious functionaries of a lower caste (kasta) who supervise various kinds oftemples and performs temple rituals.
To become a mangku dalang, in addition to having acquired the skills to perform wayang, one
has to have undergone the investiture rites, called mawinten, after learning the mantras and method
for making holy water and acquiring the knowledge to perform purification rituals.2)
The religious role of mangku dalang can be roughly divided into two: performance of wayang
for supernatural beings, and the conducting of the purification ritual3) called sudamala. The former
is the performance of wayang for the relevant gods and demons on temple anniversaries and rites of
passage, the audience being, not humans, but invisible supernatural beings like gods and demons.
Wayang stories are closely associated with the temple anniversary or rite of passage, and gods usually appear in them. And this wayang is mostly performed in a style called wayang lemah4) without
the use of a screen, and can be performed either in the day or at night. Margaret Mead has left thefollowing description of wayang lemah.
There was a shadow play, but without the screen and the lamp. The dalang sat and recited andwaved his figures in the dark and no one listened. And finally, late at night, there was an excitedhush [Mead 1977: 193].
The latter role, however, has nothing to do with the dalang’s skill as a performer. The mangku
dalang prepares holy water using three or four set wayang puppets, a ritual formula, flowers andofferings and pours it over the head of the person who needs the purification ritual. The Balinese callthis holy water “wayang holy water”(tirta ringgit, toya ringgit) or “purification holy water”(tirta
panglukatan) and believe that this holy water is effective in ridding human beings of defilement,
called mala, or ridding the spirits of the dead of defilement, and have it poured over their head manytimes in the various life course rituals that they undergo from birth to death. McPhee has recorded
one series of such rituals.

1) Mangku dalang is also called amangku dalang [Hooykaas 1973: 14].
2) According to Hinzler there are two types of investiture rite. One is the mawinten mentioned here, the other, alarge-scale ritual called masakapan ring wayang (marriage with wayang) [Hinzler 1981: 42-43]. Hinzler statesthat performance of magical wayang is possible on completion of the latter investiture rite, but my researchshowed that almost all dalang’s perform all kinds of wayang after completing only mawinten.
3) Sudamala is a compound of suda (purification) and mala (defilement) and means “purification of defilement.”4) Lemah means “midday”or “the earth”in Balinese.

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Asian and African Area Studies, 5 (2)At the end, about 3 a.m., the puppets were put away as usual, with the exception of Kajon,
together with Tjintia, Siwa, Toealen and Bima. 5) Offerings were brought before the figures,
and as the dalang, a brahmana, prayed he took each figure, decorated it with a flower, anddipped the handle in the holy water. When this was ended, the dalang descended to perform thenjodamala [sudamala] ceremony, and liberate the child from the curse. Offerings were first madeon the ground to the evil spirits, and then, approaching a special shrine made for the occasion, thedalang went through many prayer formulae. The child, held all this time in the arms of its mother,
was then stripped of its ceremonial garments and stood naked upon the ground in the midst of theofferings to the demons. Bowl after bowl of holy water was poured over the shivering infant, andthe ceremony was finished [McPhee 1981: 29-30].

Mala is not only the inherent defilement that afflicts one from the time of birth, but one canalso acquire a state of impurity in one’s daily life or through various mistakes that one makes. So
a person must undergo the purging of mala by a mangku dalang at the time of the various rites of
passage. All of these rituals are called sudamala and they are performed not only for human beings
but also for the spirits of the dead who died in a state of mala [Hooykaas 1973: 15].

2. Steps toward a State Religion
The influence of Hinduism in Island Southeast Asia is said to date back to before the time ofChrist, but it is clear from inscriptions that its influence in Bali dates from around the 8th century.
Balinese Hinduism is the religion that developed with the subsequent fusion of Hinduism with native
Balinese beliefs.
Hinduism in Bali in the 1950s was a practical religion, religious acts being conducted as thepractice of ritual [Geertz 1973: 170-189]. In other words, it was not a religion based on a systematic
doctrine, but a ritualistic religion in which religious practices are performed as rule-following behavior [Sugishima 1999: 309-310].
But because of these characteristics, Balinese Hinduism was not considered a state-authorized
religion. Indonesia, which attained final independence in 1949 and made monotheism one of thenational credos, at first recognized only three religions, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism, as
state-authorized agama (religions), but not Hinduism. This was because the Ministry of Religion5) Kajon [Kayon] is a puppet symbolizing the “cosmic tree;” Tjintia [Cintya], an indigenous Balinese god; Siwa, theHindu god; Toealen, one of the puppets used as a retainer in wayang but according to surviving legends in Bali,
the brother of Siwa; while Bima is one of the five Pandawa brothers in the Mahabharata.

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took as criteria for a state-authorized religion whether or not the religion had a name, a rational
doctrinal philosophy, the notion of God, and scriptures, and it considered the ritualistic religion ofBalinese Hinduism as not fulfilling those requirements [Bakker 1993: 226].
Over against the concept of agama is the concept of adat. All religious beliefs and acts that do
not fall under the category of agama are called adat and, as local religious concepts and local customs, are considered distinct from agama [Fukushima 2002: 326]. Hinduism in Bali was assessed tobe adat by a 1952 decision of the Minister of Religion. In response, from 1953 various actions weretaken by the Bali provincial government and Balinese intellectuals to get the central government torecognize Hinduism as a state-authorized religion. In the process its doctrines and scriptures weresystematized, a Hinduism section was set up in the Ministry of Religion in 1962, and, under a 1965
presidential decree, Hinduism was finally recognized as a state religion.
In the course of these developments, Parisada was established in 1958 in Bali as the unified
organization of Hinduism in Indonesia, and this organization has been the heart of Hindu reforms
down to the present. In order to get Hinduism raised to the status of a state religion, since 1961
it has been Parisada policy to cut out the customary parts of Balinese religious acts and save only
those that passed as agama [Kagami 2000: 39-41]. The history of the stripping of the dalang of
his religious role starts from the time, during these reforms, that the dalang’s religious role wascategorized as adat, not agama.

3. Parisada’s Religious Reforms and Changes in the Religious Nature of Dalang
The first time Parisada officially referred to the dalang was in the “regulations on religion”
item in the platform adopted at a national Hindu Congress held in 1968 (Ketetapan Sabha Parisada
Hindu Dharma ke II no. V/KEP/PHDP/68).
Parisada divided the many types of priests that had existed up until then into two groups,
pendeta (or sulinggih) and pinandita. Pendeta was the highest rank of priest, one who could unitewith Siwa or Buddha and who was indispensable for conducting the major rituals, using mantras,
mudra (symbolic hand gestures), various ritual implements, flowers, etc., to make holy water.
Parisada created a system that made it necessary to obtain Parisada authorization in order to be
assigned as a pendeta [Rudyansjah 1986: 11]. A pinandita, meanwhile, was defined as an assistantto a pendeta and ranked below the latter. Also, although the pinandita was allowed to conduct theregular temple anniversary festivals and rites of passage, he had to use holy water prepared by apendeta.
In the aforementioned “regulations on religion,” mangku dalang are classified as pinandita.6)125

Asian and African Area Studies, 5 (2)Therefore mangku dalang are certified as priests by Parisada. The problem lies in the contradictionthat exists between the religious powers of the pinandita authorized by Parisada and the religious
acts which the mangku dalang have always performed.
Parisada made the pinandita an assistant to the pendeta. But the religious acts proper to a
mangku dalang greatly overstep the bounds of the pinandita’s role as set by Parisada. In performing
purification rituals the mangku dalang himself makes the holy water and pours it on the head of theperson undergoing the purification, without needing any help at all from a pendeta. Furthermore,
the mangku dalang performs wayang for supernatural beings in various rituals that pendeta are not
involved in. All these religious acts of the mangku dalang Parisada has classified as adat. But thewayang lemah performed at temple anniversaries for the origin god of the temple is an exception
and is recognized as comparable to agama. This is because wayang lemah is an integral part of theritual of preparing holy water by a pendeta at temple anniversaries [Umeda 2001: 102-103], so there
was no problem in authorizing it as the job of the mangku dalang as pinandita.
Opinion within Parisada was by no means unanimous on these policies. At the first seminaron regulations on Hinduism held by Parisada in 1985, there was an interpretation expressing thatthe mangku dalang was one kind of mangku and classifying the purification ritual (sudamala)conducted by the mangku dalang as falling within the role of a mangku [Parisada Hindu Dharma
Pusat 1985: 41]. However this was no more than the expression of one possible interpretation, andafter that Parisada never referred to this point again.
While Parisada was systematizing Hindu doctrine, it also carried articles on doctrine for thefaithful in its periodical, Warta Hindu Dharma.7) In the first article that appeared in the periodicalon the wayang and the dalang, “Hubungan Upatjara, Wayang dan Pendidikan” [Relationshipbetween Ritual, Wayang and Education], the educational merits of wayang performances as
instruments of communicating to the audience things like morality, language, customs, andancient literature were highly esteemed. On the other hand, the acts of the dalang as a priest who
purifies human beings were dealt with as mystical (mystik) and magic (magis) [Oka 1970: 3-4],
the insinuation being that these acts fell under the category of adat, not agama based on rational
doctrinal philosophy. In most subsequent articles the focus was on the literary and theatrical

6) There are five types of priest included in pinandita in addition to mangku dalang: pemangku, wasi, mangku
balian/dukun, pengemban, and dharma acarya.
7) Warta Hindu Dharma is Parisada’s official organ and began publication in October 1967. It has continued
publication to the present and is read by Hindu organizations and the faithful throughout Indonesia. As it comesout on the day of the full moon, some years there are thirteen editions.

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aspects of the dalang, there being virtually no articles on his religious acts. The back cover of edition
No. 332 in 1994 featured a color photograph of a dalang performing wayang lemah. As was alreadymentioned, wayang lemah is the only religious act of the mangku dalang that is recognized by
Parisada.
The views of Parisada on the dalang were clearly spelled out at the All Bali Dalang Congress(Penataran Dalang Seluruh Bali) held from 8-10 November 1976 by the Yayasan Pewayangan Bali
(Bali Wayang Foundation) that I will discuss below. A presentation was made there in the name of
Parisada on the role of the wayang and the dalang in Hinduism (Peranan Dalang dan Pewayangandalam Agama Hindu) that stated that the dalang should fulfill two roles, that of “moral educationin keeping with the spirit (kerohanian) of art, entertainment, and religion” and that of “conducting
Hindu rituals by performing the prescribed wayang stories”[Surpha 1976: 8]. Both of these arefunctions of the dalang as the performer of wayang; the function of the mangku dalang as priest isignored.
Thus Parisada, in the course of its religious reform of Hinduism, consciously excluded fromagama the religious acts of the dalang. Furthermore, the religious role of dalang was eliminated in
the context of the cultural policy that I will discuss below.

4. Cultural Policy and Changes in the Religious Role of Dalang
Cultural policy in Bali started from the latter part of the 1950s during the Sukarno years.
And the period of the start of cultural policy relating to the dalang and wayang is approximately
the same as the period of the Hindu campaign to get recognition from the central government as
an official religion—from 1952, when Hinduism was not officially recognized, to the first halfof the 1960s. The start of the cultural policy in Bali is symbolized by wayang education at theConservatory for Traditional Music (Konservatori Karawitan Indonesia) that opened in Denpasarin 1960. This high school offered three areas of specialization, traditional music, traditional dance,
and wayang, and was the first public educational institution at which it was possible to specialize in
Balinese performing arts.
From 1963 Sugriwa’s Ilmu Pedalangan/Pewayangan (Knowledge of Wayang Puppetry and
Performance) [Sugriwa 1963] was used as a textbook. This textbook is the first reference bookthat brings together in a single volume in the Indonesian language literature on Balinese wayang.
In addition to treating wayang’s history, types, philosophy, overview of stories in relation to thevarious Hindu rituals, iconographic features of the wayang puppets, and the theatrical skills needed
for a performance, it contains, transcribed in the roman alphabet, the sections of the Dharma
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Asian and African Area Studies, 5 (2)Pewayangan, the dalang’s sacred text written in Balinese script, that are particularly important for
performing, and with the exception of mantras, translated into Indonesian. It is noteworthy that
there is no mention of the mangku dalang’s priestly role of purifying human beings. This textbook
set the direction for dalang education at public institutions in Bali from 1963 on. And this educational policy was taken over not only by educational institutions at the high school level but also at
the Academy of Indonesian Dance, Denpasar (Akademi Seni Tari Indonesia Denpasar) establishedin 1966,8) where it continues to the present. So Bali dalang education that started within the culture
policy framework excluded those parts of the dalang’s religious role that fell under adat and has
been confined only to those aspects of the dalang as performer.
This cultural policy continued to be implemented after Suharto came to power in 1966 as well.
What I would like to call attention to in connection with culture policy during the Suharto era is theestablishment and activities of the Majelis Pertimbangan dan Pembinaan Kubudayaan (Commission
for Evaluating and Promoting Culture), a body directly under the Bali provincial government.9)
This commission, established in 1966 with the two functions of preserving and fostering culture in
tourism development and monitoring cultural and artistic activities tied to the outlawed Communist
Party of Indonesia (PKI), contributed greatly to culture policy on wayang. In relation to wayang’s
religious role, it sponsored contests and published research on wayang in Bali.
Beginning with a gamelan music contest in 1968, the commission sponsored various artistic
contests. One of these was the 1971 Festival Wayang Kulit, a wayang contest for dalangs from allover Bali.10) In this contest dalangs were ranked by their performance, their knowledge and skills
with regard to religious acts classified as adat not being considered at all. Here too the dalang was
being identified as a performer, and in subsequent wayang contests as well, it was only the theatricalaspects of the dalang that were judged.
In 1971 a seminar was held on “sacred and profane arts in dance”(Seminar Seni Sacral dan
Provan Bidang Tari), sponsored by a project team of the Bali Provincial Department of Education
and Culture comprised mainly of members of the Commission for Evaluating and Promoting
Culture, the object of which was to categorize what in Balinese performing arts was sacred andwhat profane and to stipulate that the art that was sacred could not be provided for tourism [Umeda
8) This educational institution was upgraded to a university in 1986, becoming Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia,
Denpasar, and in 2003, an institute with a master’s course, Institut Seni Indonesia, Denpasar.
9) The commission is usually called “Listibiya.” It still exists but is inactive now, as its work has been transferred toother cultural administrative organs.
10) This festival was the first case of wayang being systematically directed and judged. For details about the festival,
see Arthanegara [1974].

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2003: 80]. But the seminar failed in its objective and ended up dividing art into three groups, wali:
sacred art which, because it is part of Hindu religious ritual, cannot be performed apart fromreligious ritual; bebali: art which is performed as accompaniment to such ritual; balih-balihan: art
which is performed purely for entertainment, having no connection with religious ritual.
It was not only dance that was discussed at this seminar but wayang as well, and wayang was
categorized not as wali, a sacred art which is part of religious ritual, but at the next level, as bebali.11)
This categorization had an influence on the only religious role of the dalang that Parisada
recognized. As has been mentioned, the wayang lemah at temple anniversaries was performed as
an integral part of the ritual for preparing holy water by the pendeta. But with wayang being
considered as bebali, temple anniversaries could be held without wayang lemah. Thus the position of
the dalang as priest became even more tenuous.
The resolution that was adopted at the seminar was immediately reported to the governorof Bali. And in 1973 a law incorporating that report in toto, a provincial law “prohibiting theperformance of sacred dance in tourism or in general events”(No. 2:/Kesra.II/d/26/73) was enacted.
The Commission for Evaluating and Promoting Culture, on the other hand, actively
involved itself in wayang research. Two volumes of research prepared for the Second All-Indonesia
Wayang Congress (Pakan Wayang Indonesia II) held in Jakarta in 1974 are particularly important[Listibiya 1974a; 1974b]. One volume is a collection of articles on wayang that discuss such things
as wayang’s history, performance styles, music performed with wayang, the significance of the1971 wayang festival mentioned above, and wayang in relation to tourism. A large part of the othervolume, however, is taken up with phenomena falling under the category of adat, that is, runningcounter to the direction of the cultural policy of eliminating the religious nature of the dalang, things
like the holy water prepared by the dalang and the puppets used at that time. To understand this
it is important to note that this research was published with a readership outside of Bali in mind.
In other words, the native elements of wayang and the religious role of the dalang are referred topresumably in order to convincingly argue that Balinese wayang has an old tradition and is historically authentic. But with the exception of this collection, there is almost nothing in wayang-related
reports by cultural policy organs on phenomena related to the dalang’s religious role classified asadat.
The Bali Wayang Foundation (Yayasan Pewayangan Daerah Bali) that was established with

11) At the seminar the discussion on wali proceeded on the premise that wali did not have a “story aspect,” and thatwas why wayang was classified as bebali.

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Asian and African Area Studies, 5 (2)financial assistance from the province in 1974 was closely connected to the Commission for Evaluating and Promoting Culture. The foundation is a separate organization from the commission and its
funds come from a different source. But it is run from the same office and with the same staff as thecommission. The foundation has published a collection of wayang stories (pakem) and romanizedversions of lontar leaf manuscripts written in Balinese script. There are 13 publications in all, including those published with financial or other assistance of the foundation. But in none of these can one
find any attention given to the religious role of the dalang.
Then from the latter half of the 1970s the Academy of Indonesian Dance, Denpasar publishedmaterial on wayang. These publications can be roughly divided into two types. The first consists oftextbooks used in classes and the reports from seminars held by the academy,12) the other, research
papers published in the academy bulletin. Because the first type were written in line with the university’s educational policy they make no mention of the religious role of the dalang that falls under theadat category. In the second type however, the religious role of the dalang as priest that was taken
away by Parisada has been discussed in recent years [Suteja 1995; Wicaksana 1996; 1998]. But thishas had no influence on the curriculum at the academy.

5. Internal Dissent and the Split in Parisada in Bali
With the downfall of the Suharto regime in 1998, Suharto’s successor, President Habibie,
under the banner of “reform”(reformasi) undertook, along with democratization through measures
like reform of the election system and abolition of restrictions on freedom of speech, a review ofIndonesia’s political system of centralized authority, enacting Law No. 22/1999 concerning Regional
Government and Law No. 25/1999 concerning the Balance of Financial Budget between the Central
and Local Governments in May 1999. These went into effect in January 2001 and, with this, various powers passed from the central government to local governments, but foreign affairs, defense,
the judiciary, finance, and religion did not come under the scope of these laws [Matsui 2002: 209].
Parisada held its eighth national congress (Maha Sabha VIII Parisada Hindu DharmaIndonesia), a congress held once every five years, in September 2001 in Bali against this politicalbackground. The theme of the congress committed Parisada to carrying out “reforms to raise thepower of Hindus,” a theme consciously reflecting the dramatic political and economic reforms inIndonesia. And changes in the articles of association and policy on activities were in fact passed. But

12) Most of the textbooks and reports on wayang were written by I Ketut Rota, a teacher at the academy [Rota1993: 44-49].

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Umeda: Between Adat and Agamalater, conflicts over these changes arose within Bali Province Parisada.
The change in the articles of association that triggered the split had to do with Article 5,paragraph 20, which stipulated the method of electing the organization’s secretary-general (ketuaumum). At the congress a revision of this item was adopted to allow for the election of the secretarygeneral from among not only the high ranking pendeta priests but from among lay persons (walaka)
well-versed in Hindu learning as well [Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia Pusat 2001: 67].
Also, Parisada’s activities policy was changed so as to positively evaluate the Sai Baba andKrishna cults,13) called sampradaya, and recognize them as contributing to Hinduism [Parisada
Hindu Dharma Indonesia Pusat 2001: 98].
Some members of Bali Province Parisada strongly objected to these changes in the articles ofassociation and activities policy on the grounds that they would have a bad influence on Hinduism
in Bali.14) This confrontation showed the growing estrangement between the sect that wanted toincorporate the Sai Baba and Krishna cults and separate out Hinduism as a state religion fromlocal Balinese features and the sect that wanted to retain the organization’s charter that was drawn
up after Parisada’s establishment in 1961 and to call for the restoration of the native Balinese
Hinduism. Then, in November 2001, this confrontation developed into a split in the Bali Province
Parisada.
These events grabbed the interest of the Balinese, and almost every day from the end of November 2001 until mid-December news of the dispute was carried in local Bali papers, and the magazine
Raditya, whose theme is Hinduism, ran a feature on the subject. Later the governor of Bali mediatedto try and reconcile the two sects, but the confrontation was still going on as of February 2005.
Since both sects call themselves Bali Province Parisada, in order to distinguish between themin Bali they add to their names the place where they respectively held their first meeting. Parisada

13) The Sai Baba cult is a cult that worships the Indian religious figure Satya Sai Baba (1926-). Krishna cult isa general term for the cultthat arose in the 16th century in the Bengal region whose exponent was Caitanya(1486-1533). But here it refers to the Hare Krishna movement promoted by the International Society for Krishna
Consciousness. On the reception of these cults in Bali, see Howe [2001: 184-198].
14) The following is an abridged translation of an interpretation of the Sai Baba and Krishna cults from apublication of Parisada Campuan [Parisada Hindu Dharma Propinsi Bali 2002: 9-11]. “Today education ofBalinese people has advanced, and some even go overseas. And in this age of globalization, various information
reaches Bali from around the world. Among these are the Sai Baba and Krishna cults. These are not bad beliefs.
But if they come to Bali, Bali’s own beliefs will be destroyed. Putting perfume in lawar (a traditional Balinesedish) doesn’t make sense. Lawar is fine just as it is, and no matter how wonderful the perfume, if it were put inlawar you would have to throw out the lawar. And if you put more combs in beautiful hair, you only damage thehair. Parisada cannot accept these cults, and the Indonesian government and Parisada must guard against theircoming to Bali.”131

Asian and African Area Studies, 5 (2)Besakih is the sect that calls for rationalizing and universalizing Hinduism as a state religion, andParisada Campuhan is calling for the restoration of Balinese style Hinduism. These names will be
used hereafter as well.

6. The Parisada Split and the Reevaluation of the Religious Role of the Dalang
Parisada Campuhan distances itself from the Directorate General of Parisada in Jakarta andcontinues to control publication of the Parisada organ, Warta Hindu Dharma. The present chief
editor is a person who as a walaka held a heavy responsibility for many years in the Parisada
headquarters. He vehemently opposed organizational reforms and the introduction of the Sai Baba
and Krishna sects at the Parisada national congress in 2001 and was active in setting up ParisadaCampuhan. However he did not leave the position of chief editor. So it is no exaggeration to say that
the Parisada organ is edited by Parisada Campuhan. Of course to this day the magazine has nevercarried an article about the internal Bali Province Parisada row.
Nevertheless, since the split the position of Parisada Campuhan has been clearly reflected in
Warta Hindu Dharma. This is seen too in the inclusion of an article mentioning the importance ofthe religious role of the dalang, something Parisada had previously rejected.
This article entitled “Apresiasi Wayang di Jakarta”(Appreciation of Wayang in Jakarta) not
only contained a description and explanation of a wayang performance in Jakarta in 2002 by amangku dalang and the sapu leger, 15) a kind of purification ritual, that was performed then, but thecultural significance of the ritual was also discussed. This was a three-page article with a photo andwas carried in the section devoted to contributions from the magazine’s Hindu readers [Diya 2002:
18-19, 35].
The sapu leger ritual is not only a wayang performance for supernatural beings done without apendeta, it contains a purification ritual for cleansing human defilement. Thus sapu leger is clearlya ritual that falls under the adat category and one never before taken up in a Parisada publication.
Considering the fact that there had never been an article in Warta Hindu Dharma before referringto the cultural significance of rituals inconsistent with Parisada policy, one can say that this article
represents a big change in the magazine’s editorial policy.
The split in Parisada also occasioned the holding of a seminar to rethink the relationshipbetween Balinese culture and religion. The Commission for Evaluating and Promoting Culture, with
15) Sapu means “to sweep”or “drive out.”Leger comes from reget, which means “dirty,”or leger, meaning “blighted
leaves.” This ritual is performed only for children born in the 27th week of the wuku calendar (wuku wayang or
wuku ringgit). For details about the ritual, see [Umeda 1997].

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Umeda: Between Adat and Agamafinancial assistance from the provincial government, got together scholars from various fields in the“seminar on sacred arts”(Semiloka Seni Sakral) in December 2002, the first such seminar since theone held 31 years earlier, in 1971, on “sacred and profane arts in dance.” At this seminar, which was
about a year in preparation and which had the strong backing of the chairperson of the Commission
for Evaluating and Promoting Culture, who is also secretary-general of Parisada Campuhan, there
was critical discussion of the resolutions that came out of the 1971 seminar and the provincial lawsthat were based on them, including presentations referring to the religious nature of wayang and thedalang.
In a presentation on “sacredness in the performing arts” one of the speakers, a teacher of
wayang at the College of Indonesian Arts, Denpasar (Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia Denpasar) andhimself a dalang, after criticizing the categorizing at the 1971 seminar of various kinds of wayang
as art that is merely incidental to religious ritual, that is, as bebali as well as touching on wayang as
indispensable to religious ritual and on the importance of the religious role of the performer, stressed
the necessity for new provincial laws. It seems that this speech expresses dissatisfaction of dalang inBali more or less.
The statements in the seminar critical of Parisada’s position to date and the cultural policies
based on them came out of a deep dissatisfaction by the participants, who keenly felt that the ritualand religious acts that, as adat, had been excluded from agama, were important elements of Balinese
belief. But this dissatisfaction had only been able to come out in the open through the circumstancesof Bali Parisada splitting, and Parisada Campuhan being set up.

Conclusion
In this study I have focused on the religious role of the dalang in Bali and tried to clarify
concretely how that role has changed with the cultural policies carried out in line with the reforms
and policies that were undertaken by Parisada to get Hinduism made a state religion in Indonesia.
An entry in a 1991 Hindu dictionary put out by a publishing company under Parisada supervision shows in all its starkness the definition of dalang that grew out of the policies starting in the
1950s. The “dalang” entry merely states “a puppeteer, someone engaged in religious education,”with no explanation of the dalang’s role as priest [Musna 1991: 16]. The dalang has become no
more than a performer of wayang, changed from a priest to a religious educator.
In order to get the Hinduism that had been the native faith in Bali recognized as a state religion,and to give a modern religious form to Hinduism in Indonesia and make it universal, the rationalization of the religion was necessary. Bakker says that in pursuing these reforms Parisada ended up
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Asian and African Area Studies, 5 (2)abandoning adat when in clashed with its own concept of Hinduism [Bakker 1993: 290].
Not that this rationalization was able to reform overnight the ritualism deeply rooted in
Balinese society. As Boon says, at least up to the first part of the 1970s, ordinary people living in thevillages carried out, mainly with low caste priests, nearly unreformed rituals even as they were, to acertain extent, accepting Parisada reforms [Boon 1977: 217-218]. In considering the changes in thereligious role of the dalang that have been discussed up to now, it can be said that, even though thosechanges originated in the Parisada reforms, the direct cause of those big changes were the cultural
policies that were carried out based on Parisada’s platform. Most religious aspects of the dalang
clashed with Parisada’s principles and policies and in the beginning were abandoned or ignored,
later, after many years, to be swallowed up in the waves of religious reforms and cultural policies.
As the result of Parisada’s excluding it for half a century from agama, the dalang’s religious
role as adat was gradually distanced from the religious life of the Balinese. But the administrative
decentralization moves, which by all rights should not have affected religion, had no small influenceon the establishment of Parisada Campuhan, which radically rejected the streamlining of Hinduism
in Indonesia.
This sect aimed at returning to the organizational structure at the time of Parisada’s founding
in 1959 and the charter16) drawn up in 1961 [Kusma 2001: 2; Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia
Propinsi Bali 2001: 98]. One can see in the charter the beginnings of religious rationalization inthings like the rejection of the traditional concept of “impurity” and references to placing a throne
for a unitary god in the temple. But it does not say that local Balinese features should be strippedfrom the state religion of Hinduism [Sekretariat Parisada Hindu Dharma Pusat 1970: 12-17]. This
charter was drawn up when preparations were underway in Bali to make Hindu a state religion, atime when a rational and systematic doctrinal philosophy and uniform method of worship had not
yet been created. Thus various rituals, including ritual acts by the mangku dalang as priest, thatwere carried out as rule-following behavior had not, as adat, been excluded from agama.
The Directorate General of Parisada does not recognize the existence of Parisada Campuhan
and regards its activities as having nothing to do with Parisada. There is no doubt that the issues
raised by Parisada Campuhan sparked the dissatisfaction with Parisada that had been smoldering
among Balinese people. And by speaking out at the seminar in 2002 the scholar-cum-dalang was
issuing the opening salvo in the battle with Parisada to restore his own religious role as dalang. Will

16) The charter is called Piagam Campuan (Campuan Charter) because it was written in Campuan. It is carried inits entirety in Sekretariat Parisada Hindu Dharma Pusat [1970: 12-17].

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Umeda: Between Adat and Agama

the religious role of the dalang be raised to the level of agama, or will it continue to be buried in a
Hinduism that pursues the path of rationalization? Now this role is caught in the fissure between
adat and agama.
Acknowledgement
This paper is a modified version of the presentation,ŋThe History of DeprivedņReligiousŉRole in
Balinese Dalang and Signs of Restoration in theņTransition Periodŉof Bali,Ōgiven at the 21 Century COE
Program International Workshop in Jakarta: The Micrology of Indonesian Local Societies, which was held inJakarta in 23 March, 2004. I am grateful to the participants for their critical comments. The research for thispaper was carried out over the three years from 2001 to 2003 under the project entitledŋAnthropologicalStudy on Indonesian Local Societies after the Downfall of the Suharto RegimeŌ(Representative: Takashi
Sugishima) with a grant-in-aid for scientific research by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science,and under research permits from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) (No. 4454/II/KS/2001;
No. 4295/SUKS/2002; No. 7219/SU/KS/2003). The Commission for Evaluating and Promoting Culture
invited me to participate in its Seminar on Sacred Art (Semiloka Seni Sakral). I wish to express my gratitude
to these institutions.
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