Karangasem, On the Wallace Line

Plants of Oblation at Mother Temple Besakih

Besakih Temple is like a book composing of “Taman Gumi Banten’” that becomes a botanic encyclopedia for Hindu devotees. Having performed matur piuning ritual, the master plan of the parkland and the planting was designed accordingly.

Plants are divided into three parts. Firstly, pointer plant (boulevard) is the planting of ritual plants starting from the bridge of Arca River to the outermost courtyard of the temple that consists of 4,745 trees of majegau (Dysoxylum caulostachum), rijasa, teja, areca palm, champak and so forth. Secondly, the parkland at Penataran Agung and 18 other temples nearby with the number of trees reaching 5,870 consist of nagasari, sandalwood, water lily, Java ixora, tigaran et cetera. Thirdly, plants located on public land (belong to temple’s property) with 1,500 trees of jerungga, kaliasem (Eugenia polycephala), sentul (Sandoricum indicum), mundeh, mangosteen, durian, various kinds of bamboo and so forth.
As it has been known, Balinese are taught to behave amicably to nature. Numerous regulations and orders have been made by Balinese predecessors in treating nature and living beings. Determination of these plants for offerings is proof that Hindu devotees feel concern to nature. The more scarce the plants and animals are, the more sacred their position in day-to-day life of the Balinese is.
For instance, sandalwood, champak and majegau are three of a few kinds of endangered species plants that grow in Bali. These plants are then established and must not be used irresponsibly.
Predecessors of the Balinese classified the function and use of the plants as a replica of a kingdom. Some belong to kings, statesmen, demung and so forth in accordance with the hierarchy in the kingdom. Based on the observation of the Institute for Community Service (LPM) of University of Udayana (Unud) in 2002, plants for offering ingredients grow and scatter ranging from mountain ranges to coastal regions in many parts of Bali. These plants follow the structure of nature (soil, climate, etc.) to support their life.
Before the 1980s, it was not so hard to get these fruit, leafs, flowers and trees as the ingredients of offerings. But as development grew rapidly, many plants came to be scarce and are difficult to find. This scarcity immensely worried LPM Unud so it spontaneously performed planting and profound research on these miscellaneous plants of offerings. It resulted in some 22 kinds of coconut, 11 kinds of bamboo, 80 kinds of trees, 55 kinds of leafs, 17 kinds of flowers and 19 kinds of banana that are customarily used as ingredients of offerings.
(BTN/033)