The week before Galungan is a very busy time for Balinese women. The day starts at 5 am usually to arrive at the market in good time to buy the best flowers, spices and cakes in preparation for this important day. In fact for many, 5 am is already running a little late as by the time one arrives at the market, there isn’t anywhere to park usually and it is packed.

At Ubud market, vendors sell flowers of all colours for making offerings. Then you have the fruit vendors selling bananas and banana stems to make banten tegeh which are the tall offerings with fruit and jaja (colourful cakes made out of rice) arranged around them. These are the tall offerings that you would see Balinese women balancing on top of their heads on the way to the temple.  But why all this emphasis and trouble to make all these complex offerings?

In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna what God expects of an offering:

“Whosoever offers to me with devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or water, that offering of love, of the pure heart I accept.”

It is this passage that lies at the heart of the tradition of preparing offerings in Bali. Hence you will notice that all offerings in Bali, however small or large, will contain a leaf, a flower, some fruit and holy water.

Special Days

2 days before Galungan is the day known as Penyajaan.  It comes from the word ‘Jaja’ meaning ‘cake’.  Hence Penyajaan is the day set aside for preparing the cake offerings.

The day before Galungan is known as Penampahan. It comes from the word ‘Tampah‘. It means sacrificing of pigs or chickens as offerings and for consumption as well.  All food to be eaten on Galungan Day is cooked the day before since there will be no time for cooking on Galungan Day itself.

On Galungan day, all penjors are up at the entrances of homes, offerings are all ready and locals will pray at their home temple and visit the village temple as well for prayers and meditation.

The day after Galungan is Umanis Galungan. This day is set aside for visiting relatives.

Food Offerings
Satay, cakes (jaja) and rice are used in food offerings.  Tape is fermented sticky rice made from black glutinous rice (injin) and white glutinous rice (ketan).  It is left for 2 to 3 days after which sweet rice wine (brem) drains out.  The rice from this process is called tape and is wrapped in banana leaves to be used as offerings.  Depending on how large the household is, as many as 200 of these are made for Galungan.

More photos here => Galungan Day Preparations

Tweet This Post