The Island of a Thousand Temples (15)
The Arrangement and Manner of “Merajan Kamulan”

The manner of building a religious shrine, or worshiping medium, is a little bit complicated compared to an ordinary building such as a house. The first point to consider is the location and direction. The sacred shrine should be on the keluwan (Uranus) from the house area. Uranus, in Hindu Balinese belief is usually is referred to as the top part of the house area.

After defining the direction, location, and width, the next steps in row are: (1) ngeruwak, (2) nyukat, (3) memakuh/melaspas, (4) ngurip and mendem pedagingan.
The ceremony of ngeruwak consists of the function and meaning to transform the land status, for example, the yard area – may be farmland, field land, forest, etc – transform becomes a sacred area for Merajan Kamulan, Merajan Gede or Merajan Agung, Dadia/Panti, Pedharman, etc.
Land utility arrangement does exist in the Hindu religion. Some parts of the land are used for house construction, and other parts are for public areas such as a village meeting hall, market, and so on. For the occupying house, land is divided into areas, for bed rooms, kitchens, ceremony halls, and certainly for the sacred shrine.
Means and functions of the Ngeruwak ceremony should appropriate with land utility arrangements. Some are dedicated to determine the entire area of the occupying place, whilst others are to determine parts of the yard, such as building for the bed room, for the kitchen, for Merajan Kamulan, and so on. Ngeruwak is kind of bhuta yadnya ceremony. Why is it called a part of the butha yadnya ceremony?
Because, the ceremony is dedicated to change the butha status (of land area) – for example, from the ordinary site/area becoming a sacred worshipping place. Bhuta trustily means the elements of the universe. That is the existence reason of panca maha bhuta (five elements of the nature creator) they are, pertiwi (solid), apah (liquid), teja (energy/light), bayu (air), and akasa (ether).
The top area of a house that changed status becomes the sacred site for Merajan, through the ritual ceremony of Ngeruwak. The ceremony consists of caru (holy sacrifice) pengeruwak, byakala and prayascita coupled with other holy sacrifices called segehan agung and penyambleh.
Caru pengeruwak means ceremonies of religious offerings that spiritually determine to harmonize the relationship between physical and non-physical elements, which is the location of the sacred shrine, and the adherent of that sacred shrine. Upacara (ceremony) in Sanskrit means to get closer; meanwhile, caru in the Samhitaswara holy book means harmony or beauty. Therefore, the meaning of the upacara (ceremony) is to get closer/being closer, and to harmonize within the family that built Merajan Kamulan with their sacred shrine area.
The width, shape and measurement of the sacred shrine area depends on the related family. According to Lontar Asta Bumi (manuscript), a minimum of 10% from the entire width of the house yard is determined for the sacred place. Lontar Asta Bumi also gives many choices of the shape of the sacred shrine.
Banten (offering) ngeruwak medium is berumbun chicken (a chicken consisting of five different colors: red, white, black, the color of its foot skin is yellow and half of its feathers mixed with those four colors). These five colors are the symbols of the five directions of the universe, which are, east-west, south-north, and center. It declares in Weda (Hindus Holy book), that the universe is the kingdom of God. For that, the sacred place is the symbol of bhuwana agung (the universe).
Therefore, Merajan Kamulan area symbolized as the replica from bhuwana agung. The berumbun chicken with five-colored feathers is the symbol of awakening the magical power of the universe. For that reason, it is declared in ceremonial terms as pengurip bumi – pengurip come from urip=life/awake, pengurip=enliven/awakening, and bumi=nature. By the religious magical natural power within the sacred area, it’s expected that the family member inside the area would gain a positive vibration.
It previously explains the completeness manner of banten ngeruwak is banten byakala and prayascitta. Banten byakala meaning the external purifying symbol, and Byakala means the symbol to motivate the external power process positively in building Merajan Kamulan, whereas, banten prayascita means the symbol of mind purity (cita refer to mind). Therefore, byakala and prayascitta mean the symbol of external purity from the family in building the Merajan Kamulan. Without unity and external purity, it can cause vacillation in efforts of building Merajan Kamulan. Finally, the banten segehan agung and penyambleh function is to neutralize negative power into positive power in the Merajan Kamulan area.
(Ketut Wiana and Berata Ashrama, editor)