The Ubud

The Ubud Area from the Bronze Age to the Information Age By Kadek Susilawati

Megalithic Monuments and Wandering Mystics For millennia, Ubud and the areas immediately surrounding it have been "centre stage" for the fascinating drama of Balinese history. During the Bronze Age (from 300BC), the Ubud area was already a wellspring of culture. This is evidenced by numerous archaeological finds in the area, including megalithic ruins and stepped pyramids, some of which are now the foundations of active Hindu temples. Remarkable Bronze Age artifacts around Ubud include the enormous bronze gong known as "The Moon of Pejeng." It is still displayed in Pura Panataran Sasih in Pejeng, east of Ubud. Nearby at the archaeological museum in Bedulu are a collection of stone sarcophagi unearthed in the area, which give mute testimony to the death rituals of the its people's ancestors. In the 8th Century, a Javanese mystic, called Rsi Markandya came to Bali from Java on pilgrimage with a group of followers. He meditated where the East and West Wos Rivers meet in Campuan, on the edge of Ubud, and declared the place holy. Accordingly, a shrine was built, and later expanded by Nirartha, the Javanese priest who is regarded as the father of Bali's religious institutions and practices. This temple is now known as Pura Gunung Lebah or Pura Campuan. With the spread of Hindu-Buddhist culture in Bali in the 10th to 12th Centuries, Shivaite holy men established hermitages and teaching monasteries near Ubud, at the bequest of local rulers. The temple-memorial complex at Gunung Kawi and the cave temples at Goa Gajah (east and northeast of Ubud) are undoubtedly the most impressive architectural remains from this period. By this time, the people of the Ubud area already practiced sophisticated wet rice farming, kept a variety of livestock and employed techniques of stone and woodcarving, metalworking and thatching that are still very much alive. Many of the dances, dramas, puppet plays and elaborate rituals and superstitions that animate Ubud culture today originated in these early kingdoms nearby. The Balinese legend of Rangda the witch originated in the Ubud area at this time, when the half-Balinese King Airlangga ruled Java and Bali, with its capital located then in Batuan, southeast of Ubud. The Barong and Calonarong dances which visitors still enjoy derived from the story of Airlangga's struggle against the plagues and evil spells cast by Rangda, who is purportedly buried in a tomb near Kutri, southeast of Ubud. The "Golden Age" of the Majapahit Kingdoms Airlangga's sons divided his empire, and Bali was ruled by Anak Wungsu, who established a flourishing kingdom between the Petanu and Pakerisan Rivers, east of Ubud. This strip of land is regarded as the richest archaeological and architectural region in Bali, and is best explored by making Ubud one's home base and renting a car or motorbike for explorations by day. The Javanese Majapahit dynasty "conquered" Bali in 1343, when its military forces led by the great hero, Gajah Mada subjugated the Pejeng Dynasty, based in Bedulu, just east of Ubud. According to Majapahit reports, the "vile, long-haired Balinese princes were wiped out," and more refined models of Javanese culture were adopted. Indeed, a great flowering of Balinese culture took place under the Majapahit rulers, who were chosen from the military leaders of the Javanese incursion. Balinese genealogies, known as babad, which were written at this time on palm leaves, document the Majapahit ancestry of Bali's aristocratic families, who still inhabit the palaces of Ubud. Facing the Islamisation of Java and the subsequent decline of the Majapahit Empire in the 16th Century, many scholars, dancers, craftsmen, intellectuals and priests migrated to Bali, bringing along their skills and sacred texts. Many settled in the small kingdoms in and around Ubud, among them Nirartha, the "super-priest" who is regarded as the progenitor of all of Bali's pedanda Siwa high priests and their prominent Brahmana families. The seat of the Majapahit overlord of Bali was moved from Samprangan near Gianyar, to Gelgel, and Bali entered a cultural "Golden Age" under the Gelgel kings. Competing Rajadoms Rise and Fall and Rise Again When Gelgel fell, and its remnants regrouped in Klungkung, secondary kingdoms arose throughout the island and engaged in ongoing power struggles. In the early 18th Century, a palace was established in Timbul, south of Ubud, by a descendant of the Gelgel line. His ambition to create a dream kingdom, based on the ideal of Majapahit Java was more or less fulfilled, as he drew to his court the finest musicians, dancers, carvers and artisans, and built a splendid palace filled with lavish gardens. As the story goes, his cultural accomplishments were so great that upon witnessing them, people could not help but exclaim, "My heart's delight!" In Balinese, "sukahatine." The word evolved into "Sukawati," which is now the name of this visionary king's line of descendants, and the town where he built his palace. Throughout the 18th Century, control of the areas around Ubud and Gianyar passed back and forth between the Sukawati Dynasty whose princes are called "Tjokordas" and the Gianyar Dynasty, with its "Anak Agungs" and "Dewas". Ultimately, the region became a patchwork of small dominions ruled by princes from one faction or the other, or the scion of an intermarriage between them. This is still the case, and while Ubud's palaces house a core line of the Sukawati family, other palaces in the region belong to Gelgel-Gianyar stock or a separate royal line from Blahbatuh. During the 19th Century, Ubud became an important court under its Sukawati feudal lord, owing allegiance to Gianyar. In 1884 Gianyar was overthrown by Sukawati princes from the nearby town of Negara, and after ten years of conflict, a Sukawati from the palace in Ubud sided with Gianyar and cooled the conflict. Perhaps the experience of centuries of adept politicking between these two dynasties gave them both the ability to understand the value of diplomacy and compromise when the Dutch asserted their power in Bali. Ubud as a Darling of the Dutch Colonists At the end of the 19th Century, the Dutch began to involve themselves in Balinese internal affairs, fueling conflicts among rival kingdoms, which collectively were referred to as "The Wars of the Rajas." The raja of the kingdom of Gianyar, and associated feudal lords, including the Sukawatis who established the royal palace of Ubud, capitulated to the Dutch and benefited by their protection. To escape prevailing turmoil elsewhere, artists, musicians and literati took refuge in Ubud, and were welcomed by eager patronage from the palace and the Dutch colonial administrators who stood behind and beside it. During the latter part of the 19th Century and the first decade of this one, Bali's kingdoms fell one by one to the Dutch, following bloody battles, and in some cases, ritual mass suicides called puputan (meaning "finishing"). The Gianyar region was spared from large-scale tragedy, which in part accounts for its cultural wealth and consistent prosperity, not to mention the survival of its royal bloodlines. Under Dutch colonial controllers, Ubud was favored as a cooperative and exemplary Balinese community, and the palace was given relative autonomy to preserve and develop traditional arts and culture with the encouragement of its colonial overseers. During the 20s and 30s, Ubud was heralded as a cultural hotspot, and became a chic destination for adventurous foreign writers, anthropologists, artists and other creative spirits and culture vultures. Tjokorda Gede Agung Sukawati opened the main palace of Ubud to foreigners by creating within its walls, Ubud's first hotel (still in operation under the management of Tjokorda Putra, a son of the last king). Yet Another Era of Battle, International and Internal With the Japanese occupation from 1942 to 45, however, the celebration of a new bohemian paradise was temporarily suspended. Ubud's rulers both struggled against and cooperated with the Japanese in efforts to preserve their cultural heritage and their sphere of influence. When the Japa nese were defeated on the global battlefield, the Dutch tried to regain control, but on 17 August 1945 Indonesia declared its independence under Sukarno. Four years of fighting with the Dutch ensued, and many Ubudians were imprisoned, including members of the royal family, who took a leading role in the Dutch attempt to establish an alternative government in Bali. In 1949 the Dutch capitulated to the new Republic of Indonesia, and once again Ubud became very chic with those in the know as the government of Bali slowly opened its doors and its bank accounts to tourists. In 1965-66, a coup in Jakarta and its repercussions led to a chaotic campaign to cleanse Bali of "communists," and at least 5% of its population was massacred methodically or by mobs run amok. Ubud was not excluded from the bloodbath, which at times ran along class and caste lines, and in certain interpretations, reflected a consolidation of power among the Balinese "of caste," in response to the threat of a people's movement demanding land reform and the revocation of hereditary privilege. The World Sends Its Curious to Call Beginning in the 1970s, a young generation of backpackers began to arrive in Ubud as they scoured Asia looking for inspiration, mystical experience and a good place to hang out. Ubud responded by providing an increasing number of services to accommodate the wishes of their western guests. Cafes, bungalows and bars began to appear, and young Balinese from Ubud started to hang out with their foreign friends, learn English, learn business, and adopt whatever aspects of western culture appealed to their aesthetic sensibilities. In more than a few cases, these Ubudians married their foreign friends, and founded all manner of businesses and other projects together -- not to mention families. As a consequence of the easy mixing of locals and foreigners for decades, Ubud seems to have become one of the most socially integrated places in Southeast Asia. The Prognosis for Paradise The challenge for Ubud now, is to avoid becoming a victim of its own popularity; of being loved to death. It is undergoing rapid development, and has been "discovered" by a tide of jetsetters and successful business people and glamour from around the world, and from the increasingly unpleasant Indonesian capital in Jakarta. Land development is largely without planning. Commercial forces hold sway in most arenas. In reaction to the rapid influx of foreign ways, there is a strong current of reactionary neo conservatism, leading the retreat into an accumulation of increasingly expensive rituals and their innumerable concomitant tasks and responsibilities. Those who have prospered from tourist dollars continue to do so, and social and economic inequalities are becoming uncomfortably apparent. Brand new BMWs park alongside rice fields sprouting "For Sale" signs, where women are bent double, cutting crops by hand for about ten cents a day. Elite, high-caste ladies wear silk, French brocade and solid gold jewelry to the temples. While they sip coffee, gossip, and complain about their husbands' alleged indiscretions with foreign lovers, the men in question huddle in dark corners to answer hand phones which are pressed tight to their ears to shut out the sound of the gamelan, their hands lavishly adorned by Rolex watches and enormous rings. How Ubud's future takes shape will be partly determined by the wider economic and political milieu . Far more influential will be the actions of its leaders, many of whom are descendants of the Sukawati royal family who still control vast tracts of land and exercise various hereditary privileges, not all of them uncontroversial. These leaders have taken it upon themselves to serve as the custodians of Ubud's cultural integrity, and as such are the preservers of much of its value. Their sensitivity and their potential for benevolent and humanitarian leadership will make or break this town.

History of Bali

THE DUTCH CAMPAIGNS

At the beginning of the 19th Century, Bali remained relatively unaffected by the Western influences which were already transforming much of the Indonesian archipelago. Bali's 16th Century Hindu civilization was still inviolate to any serious religious, commercial, or political infiltration either by Muslims or by Christians.

Dutch traders, agents and colonial officials failed to gain a foothold in Bali at first. By 1830, Dutch officials in The Hague, Amsterdam and Batavia, having engaged in a prolonged exchange of government and company papers formulating various policy alternatives with regard to Bali, decided to infiltrate traders, then assert sovereignty. The N.H.M., successor to the trading interests of the long since bankrupt and defunct V.0.C., was intimately involved in these intrigues.

A time-honorefkbalinese concept of ship salvage eventually'provided the catalyst for Dutch military intervention. In accordance with their principle of regpf rights, tqwan karang, honoring the sea deity Batara Baruna, the rajas accepted as a gift of the gods whatever ship came to grief on the treacherous reefs which ringed their island. They took the ship, the cargo, the crew and the passengers as their pefsgnal pro, perty, naturally sharing with those who Actually performed the act of salvage or rescue, but entertaining no doubts at all regarding the sanctity of the deed. From the Dutch point of view, it was bad enough if the Balinese exercised their so-called reef rights upon a Chinese, an Arab, a Bugis or a Javanese craft, many of which sailed under the Dutch flag and expected Dutch protection. It was quite intolerable if the ship in question was Dutch owned and operated.

A Sorry Shipwreck, a Defiant Pledge

By the end of the 1830s, all circumstances combined to prompt the Dutch to address themselves quite earnestly to discussion with the Balinese rajas of the delicate subjects of trade and politics, slavery and plunder. They tried to blanket these various topics with treaties of friendship and commerce, in fact, recognition- of Dutch sovereignty and monopoly.

A famous Dutch colonial official known as a "contractsluiter" or contract-maker, H.J. van Huskus Koopman, was dispatched to the island to try to coax the rajas into giving the Dutch virtual sovereignty over the island. His efforts met with little success. The Dutch finally decided to resort to force. As a pretext for invasion. they used the wreck of the Dutch frigate Overijssel on the Kuta reef - and the plunder of its cargo by Balinese exercising their reef rights. The sorry saga of the Overijssel began on July 19, 1841, when the vessel, on its maiden voyage from Plymouth to Surabaya with a valuable cargo of machinery, hit the Kuta reef and was promptly plundered. Subsequent Dutch outrage served in part to cloak humiliation that a large and heavily armed frigate was wrecked by reason of a flagrant navigational error. The captain had mistaken the coast of Bali for Java. The Dutch were equally embarrassed that the ship was looted despite the presumed vigilance of the ship's company against exactly that contingency.

As the furor over the incident increased in Holland, a Dutch mission was sent to Bali to protest continuing outrages and demand reconfirmation of earlier promises that the Balinese would give up the practice of salvaging ships that foundered off their shores. A new Dutch commissioner for Bali arrived with a new set of agreements scheduled to be formally ratified by the rajas and rigidly enforced by the Dutch. He landed at Buleleng to meet with its raja and council of state. It was on this occasion that the great hero of mid-19th Century Bali identified himself. He was Gusti Ktut Jelantik, a dramatic, dynamic young prince, the brother of the rajas of Buleleng and Karangasem. He defied the Dutch commissioner in the following apocryphal words:

Never while 1 live shall the state recognize the sovereignty of the Netherlands in the sense in which you interpret it. After my death, the Raja may do as he chooses. Not by a mere scrap of paper shall any man become the master of another's lands. Rather let the kris decide.

Preparations for War

The Dutch began preparations for an expeditionary force, which assembled at Besuki, to sail to Bali on the cast monsoon of 1846. Jelantik began building fortifications, raising troops, and acquiring arms, relying, as the Dutch correctly surmised, upon certain enterprising merchants in the British colony of Singapore for large shipments of weapons. Balinese-Dutch relations were rapidly moving into a new and tragic phase.

Balinese military preparations centered upon the northern rajadom of Buleleng, ruled by Gusti Madva Karangasem, the elder brother of the Raja of Karangasem. Buleleng and Karangasem, the two most powerful rajadoms of the island but longtime rivals, were now closely allied in opposing.

the political and military aims of the Dutch. They had the blessing of the Dewa Agung of Klungkung, who was in no posi-. tion to provide much more'than that. The Raja of Badung in the south, who wished to preserve the profits of trade and was no friend of the turbulent northerners, sought to remain detached from the conflict and exercised his influence upon his friendly neighbor, the Raja of Tabanan to do likewise. The other states were allied r&her tenuously with Klungkung but were attentive to Badung. They were not disposed to become involved.

Once the Dutch set themselves to subdue Bali, the outcome was never in doubt. But it took three campaigns to shatter the Balinese defenses and morale, campaigns in which the Dutch did not always by any means., achieve either glory or victory.

The Dutch Take the North

As a result of the military expeditions, the Dutch began to exercise rapidly increasing control over northern Bali and to interfere more frequently and vigorously in Balinese domestic affairs.

Buleleng became the first of the Balinese principalities to fall under Dutch administration. In 1855, the Dutch also assumed coiitrol over Jembrana. In each case, the Dutcli adopted the administrative device they bad found to be effective in Java. Thev appointed a member of the royal family as regent and assigned him a Dutch controleur who, as the title clearly implied, controlled both the regent and the kingdom. Thus, as of the mid-1850s, the Dutch actually began to acquire the sovereign power which they had long claimed, at least in northern and western Bali. Half a century later, they ruled the entire islarrd.

The colonial administration in Bali remained centered in the port town of Buleleng and the adjoining royal capital of Singaraja. The first resident Dutch official

Was Herr P.L Van Bloeman Waanders, who like certain of his successors, was to become a serious and sympathetic student of Balinese life and customs. After the difficulties of the first few years were overcome and the Dutch and Balinese had made certain basic accommodations to each other, the latter part of the 19th Century was reasonably peaceful and saw satisfactory development for the northern states. But continuing strife between the warring factions in the states of the south resulted in several more Dutch military campaigns.

Meanwhile, the Dutch under van Blocmen Waanders and his successor announced strict new regulations against slavery and undertook to improve economic conditions. They encouraged extension of the irrigation system to improve the rice harvest, the planting of coffee as a cash crop and by 1875, northern Bali was already a distinctly profitable colonial enterprise. The ever-increasing contact between Buleleng and the outside world resulted in an attempt to introduce Christian missions. But they met with little success. The colonial successes and failures produced a policy of benevolent paternalism which resulted in Bali in a relatively enlightened administration. Still, the darkest days of the Dutch colonial penetration lie ahead.

The Punitive Expeditions, 1846-49

The First Dutch Military Expedition against Bali in 1846 seemed a formidable enough force to cope with any native impudence. The invasion fleet consisted of 58 vessels and nearly 3,000 men well-armed and equipped. The force anchored off Buleleng on June 22 and the Dutch sent ultimatums to the rajas ashore. The rajas ignored them and the Dutch attack began six days later. The Balinese put up a strong defense under the guiding hand of Jelantik, but the Dutch nevertheless won a swift victory, losing only 18 dead while the Balinese suffered severe losses of life and property. The Dutch victory was empty, however, unless they could enforce their will upon the rajas who were firmly entrenched in the nearby hills.

A flamboyant Danish trader who had set up a profitable enterprise in Kuta, Mads Lange, stepped into the stalemate. He helped negotiate a truce. But the Balinese rajas led by Jelantik failed to deliver on promises to pay reparations and to provision a Dutch garrison on the island.

A second military expedition against Bali was thus mounted in 1848. This time the Dutch sent even more men and ships. But the Balinese, boldly and brilliantly led bv Jelantik, had installed 25 cannon and mustered 16,000 men, 1,500 equipped with firearms. They fought off three attacks inflicting severe casualties upon the Dutch, who retreated to plan and prepare an even more forceful assault.

The third expedition arrived off Buleleng in March 1849. This time the fleet numbered over 100 vessels, - heavily armed frigates, steamships, schooners, and scores of large and small auxiliary craft and manned by 3,000 sailors and 5,000 landing troops. They marched into Buleleng and Singaraja, where the Dutch general set up his headquarters in the raja's palace.

The final showdown occurred on April 4. The Dutch deployed their troops in full dress uniform. The Balinese troops were dressed in their most splendid costumes as if prepared not for battle but for the baris warrior dance. They carried themselves haughtily, struck theatrical stances, and fingered their weapons suggestively. The Raja and Jelantik were especially magnificent in brilliant red sarongs nattily gathered up to display short tight trousers, below and above which gleamed bare, bronze skin. Their waists were nipped in by golden girdles. At the back each displayed a huge jeweled kris, the ornate handles extending above shoulder height for quick dramatic draw. Their thick, flowing black hair was bound by white headclothes in which the raja wore a green sprig and Jelantik wore a crimson flower.

The encounter, which started as a triumph of Dutch and Balinese showmanship, deteriorated into a miserable failure of statesmanship. It ended without a fight or an agreement. Several weeks later, the Dutch attacked the Balinese fortifications at Jagaraga. They suffered 33 dead and 148 wounded. The Balinese lostthousands. Among the victims was the wife of Jelantik and a party of high-born ladies whom she led in the rite of the puptitan, advancing in a state of near trance directly into the line of Dutch fire in a deliberate act of self-destruction.

Pitched battles continued well into the following year. The Dutch managed to gain allies and troops from Lombok. The Raja of Karangasem, despairing at the news, killed his family and himself. The Dutch battled their way to the gates of the Dewa Agung in Klungkung. But they were repelled.

The fluctuating fortunes of war were dramatically signalled by the commander of the Lombok forces, who visited a Dutch colonel on shipboard and displayed to him three especially valuable and significant prizes. The first was the kris of the Raja of Karangasem, signifying his death and the fall of that kingdom; the second was the kris of the Raja of Buleleng; the third that of Gusti Ktut Jelantik. The Raja of Buieleng and Jelantik had been ambushed by the wily troops from Lombok. The Raja had been killed on the spot; Jelantik, seeing no escape, had taken poison.

With Jelantik and the two rajas dead, with the Dewa Agung and his surviving protectors deeply grieved and dismayed, the Balinese resistance was in a state of complete disarray. The Dutch, decimated though they were by tropical diseases, could scaircely even have blundered into defeat.

Again, Mads Lange stepped in. He negotiated a new agreement between the Dutch and the Dewa Agung. It was a difficult task which involved the installation of new rulers, the redefinition of overlordvassal relationships, and also, of course, a whole new Balinese-Dutch modus vivendi.

by balivision