Tabanan, Rainbow over Ricefields

Subak Museum
Portrait of Balinese Traditional Agriculture

Apart from painting museums, Bali also has a Subak Museum. Subak means an agricultural area or farmers’ organization that manages its irrigation systems. This museum exhibits various traditional agricultural tools, like hoes, ploughs, fish nets, palm-leaf manuscripts on agricultural affairs, statue of goddess fecundity, Goddess Sri and so forth. The museum is located at Sanggulan, Tabanan.

The Museum was inaugurated by the Governor of Bali Prof. Dr. Ida Bagus Mantra on 13 October 1981, and inspired by the existence of Subak since time immemorial (the eleventh century) and developed up to now and characterized by its independent feature based on the concept of Tri Hita Karana. So, the aim of establishing the Subak Museum is to unify various data and articles pertaining to Subak, so it can be presented as information, education and documentation of Subak. Besides, it can also function as a tourist object.
This Subak Museum comprises a building or sacred complex like Padmasana, a main building that consists of two buildings as a center of information and exhibition, and an open museum that is made as a mini subak using a display of diverse subak activities, starting from irrigation systems to farmers’ activity in the rice fields. Up to 1999 the existence of subak in Bali amounted to 1506 with the extent of the area being 97,337 hectares.
The museum is open Monday to Saturday, from 08:00 to 16:30 Local Time, while on Friday it is open from 08:00 to 13:00 LT. On Sunday and other national holidays the museum is closed. (BTN/doc)