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Dear friends,
At this time I want share you about a ceremony in Bali. I guess all of you eveer hear the word "Ngaben". It is a way of cremating human body in funeral ceremony for Balinese Hinduism. So Ngaben should not be a tourism object or a comodity for tourism, actually. But it is as a funeral ceremony. In Bali, Ngaben is a way of cremating human body in funeral ceremony for Balinese Hinduism. Ngaben is not identic with cremation. I can not explain it exactly to you, but you can read the following story for more information that i get.
Ngaben has a wider and complicated understanding than just cremating a human body. Beginning with a belief of Hindu the five basic elements which compose anything in the universe. The five unit elements is called Panca Maha Buta which consists of soil, water, ether, wind and fire. And a human body is composed by these elements. At the end of a human life, his body should be extracted so every element could back to its original source as soon as possible. Spiritually this process, which is known as Ngaben or cremation, is intented to support the soul of the died man in getting paradise.
And that is another belief behind this process. When the process of firing the body in the cemetery finished, the dust as the result of cremation will be taken and bring to the sea and blow it out there. This is a symbolic of unifiying the creation (human, the dust) and his Creator (the God, the sea). Some parts of the dust will bring back to home and put in the family temple. When the process of making the soul of the died body holy, all the process of Ngaben will complete. After that, all his anchestors will owrship to the holy soul for safety, walfare, and happiness. So the belief continue, and the family does not loose one or more of their members because of death. They still live together, but at different place and dimension. Some time this will take more than a day, usually 12 days. From this very very very short story you know that cremation, or firing the body in the cemetery, is not the point or the most important thing or the only one process in Ngaben ceremony. It's just a part of a number of processes.
Cremating the Body.This process will be done in a local cemetery. The process begin with putting the body on a wooden sarcophagus, then bring it and put it down on a 'bade' (a high special artistic tower for this occasion). The bade is very weight and made from bamboo, wood and paper. The bade containing sarcophagus (and the body inside) then are carried out by hundreds of villagers and its family to the cemetery. This procession is very attractive and fascinating. At every cross road they breakthrough the bade will be rotated three times before keeping on the cemetery. Sometime when the bade is rotating some people will go down to the river (if any) and wash the bade with water of the river. Reaching the cemetery, again the bade will be rotated three time before putting it down and getting the sarcophagus down from the bade. After being worship to the God, a priest will lead the cremation process. And the time is coming, the bade and the body is fired to complete the ceremony ....
Well. From that we can learn that in our country we have many of great culture, so as an Indonesian we should take care our culture well to make it keep exist in this world. It can start with our culture, please tell to your friends, family, relation some stories about our culture.
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