New Year’s day is perhaps is the oddest day in Bali, On this day, throughout the island , silence is observed and inactivity reigns supreme. Also called Nyepi Day, the Balinese Day of Silence, New Year’s Day falls on the day following the dark moon of the spring equinox, and opens a new year of the Saka Hindu era which began in 78 A.D.
On Nyepi day, which starts with sunrise, don’t expect to be able to do anything. You will have to stay in your hotel. No traffic is allowed, not only cars, but also people, who have to stay in their individual house. Light is kept to a minimum, radio tuned down, and no one works, of course.
Even love making, this ultimate activity of all leisure-timers, is not supposed to take place, nor even attempted. A whole day simply filled with the barking of few dogs, the shrill of insects and simple long, long quiet day in the calendar of this hectic island.
Nyepi is religious event. Bali is a Hindu society, one that believes in the karmapala principle, according to which the dynamics of life and of Man’s individual fate is set in motion by “action”. Man is in the midst of a Samsara cycle of incarnation, each of which is determined by the quality of his actions (karma) in his former existence. His “ideal” is thus to put the system to rest, i.e., to control one’s actions, and thus to subdue one’s “demons”. Only in such a way can Man hope to achieve “deliverance” from his cycles of life (moksa) and eventually merge with the Oneness of the Void, the Ultimate Silence of Sunya.
The day of Silence is a symbolic replay of these philosophical principles. At he beginning of the year, the world is “clean”. The previous days, all the effigies of the gods from all the village temples have been taken to the river in long and colorful ceremonies. There they have been bathed by the Neptunus of Balinese lore, the god Baruna, before being taken back to residence in their shrines of origin. The day before Nyepi, all villages have also a large exorcist ceremony at the main village crossroad, the meeting place of the demons of the Bali world were let loose on the roads in a carnival of fantastic monsters, the Ogoh-ogoh.
The parade is held all over Bali after sunset. All the banjar neighborhoods and hundreds of youth associations make their own Ogoh-ogoh monsters. Some are giants from the classical Balinese lore, while others are guitarists, bikers or even AIDS microbes. All with fangs, bulging eyes and scary hair, illuminated by torches and with the accompaniment of the most demonic gamelan music (bleganjur) of the Balinese repertoire. They surge suddenly by the hundreds from every street, some more “horrible” than the others, each carried on the shoulder of four to thirty youths, jerking this way or that way so as to give the impression of a dance, or sudden turning in circle, much to the fascination of the spectators.
And, believe it, this is not small “procession”, it lasts for three to four hours, as if Bali has an inexhaustible pool of demons. No more than it gods and goddesses for sure. Thus, on Silence day, the world is clean and everything starts anew, with Man showing his symbolic control over himself and the “force” of the World. Hence the mandatory religious prohibitions of mati lelangon (no pleasure), mati lelungan (no traffic), mati geni (no fire), and mati pekaryan (no work).
Source : Visitors Guide to Bali 2001/2002
On Nyepi day, which starts with sunrise, don’t expect to be able to do anything. You will have to stay in your hotel. No traffic is allowed, not only cars, but also people, who have to stay in their individual house. Light is kept to a minimum, radio tuned down, and no one works, of course.
Even love making, this ultimate activity of all leisure-timers, is not supposed to take place, nor even attempted. A whole day simply filled with the barking of few dogs, the shrill of insects and simple long, long quiet day in the calendar of this hectic island.
Nyepi is religious event. Bali is a Hindu society, one that believes in the karmapala principle, according to which the dynamics of life and of Man’s individual fate is set in motion by “action”. Man is in the midst of a Samsara cycle of incarnation, each of which is determined by the quality of his actions (karma) in his former existence. His “ideal” is thus to put the system to rest, i.e., to control one’s actions, and thus to subdue one’s “demons”. Only in such a way can Man hope to achieve “deliverance” from his cycles of life (moksa) and eventually merge with the Oneness of the Void, the Ultimate Silence of Sunya.
The day of Silence is a symbolic replay of these philosophical principles. At he beginning of the year, the world is “clean”. The previous days, all the effigies of the gods from all the village temples have been taken to the river in long and colorful ceremonies. There they have been bathed by the Neptunus of Balinese lore, the god Baruna, before being taken back to residence in their shrines of origin. The day before Nyepi, all villages have also a large exorcist ceremony at the main village crossroad, the meeting place of the demons of the Bali world were let loose on the roads in a carnival of fantastic monsters, the Ogoh-ogoh.
The parade is held all over Bali after sunset. All the banjar neighborhoods and hundreds of youth associations make their own Ogoh-ogoh monsters. Some are giants from the classical Balinese lore, while others are guitarists, bikers or even AIDS microbes. All with fangs, bulging eyes and scary hair, illuminated by torches and with the accompaniment of the most demonic gamelan music (bleganjur) of the Balinese repertoire. They surge suddenly by the hundreds from every street, some more “horrible” than the others, each carried on the shoulder of four to thirty youths, jerking this way or that way so as to give the impression of a dance, or sudden turning in circle, much to the fascination of the spectators.
And, believe it, this is not small “procession”, it lasts for three to four hours, as if Bali has an inexhaustible pool of demons. No more than it gods and goddesses for sure. Thus, on Silence day, the world is clean and everything starts anew, with Man showing his symbolic control over himself and the “force” of the World. Hence the mandatory religious prohibitions of mati lelangon (no pleasure), mati lelungan (no traffic), mati geni (no fire), and mati pekaryan (no work).
Source : Visitors Guide to Bali 2001/2002
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