ART AND THE ARTIST

OLD HINDU BALINESE ART

Goa Gadja: Together with Gunung Kawi, the best known relic of the ancient art is the famous " Elephant Cave " near Bedulu. Goa Gadja is a great hollowed rock, perhaps the former residence of a hermit, elaborately carved on the outside, covered with representations of stylized rocks, forests, waves, animals, and people running in panic because directly over the entrance is the head of a great monster with bulging eyes who splits the rock with his enormous fat hands.

Nieuwenkamp says that it may represent Pasupati, who divided the mountain Mahameru into two parts and, taking them in his hands, placed each half in Bali as the Gunung Agung and the Batur. There are a number of ancient stone water-spouts outside the cave, and on the inside is a statue of Ganesa in a central niche, with a linga on either side. The Goa Gadja dates also from the eleventh century and perhaps receives the popular name of " Elephant Cave " because of the statue, inside, of the god Ganesa, shaped like an elephant. But Goris attributes the name to the fact that the river Petanu, which runs near the cave, was called in old times Lwa Gadja, the " elephant river."

Elephants have never existed in Bali and the elephant motifs that appear so frequently in Balinese art were importations from India or Java. As of Gmun; Kawi, Kbo Iwa is also, according to popular belief, the author of the cave. Other hermitages with rock reliefs are the one near ln called Toya Pulu; the Goa Racksasa near Ubud; Djakut Pakii, both on the river Oos ( Uwos ) ; and the caves near Kapal in Badung.

Pedjeng: In the ricefields approaching Pedjeng there is a beautiful stone water-spout in the shape of a youthful hermit i1olding in his hand a small human figure out of whose body once issued a stream of water. Farther on, in what appears to be the fonner site of a temple, are scattered fragments of classic statues; an altar of human skulls; the vague silhouette of a slim woman, covered with damp moss, fallen and half buried. The most complete statue is that of a wild raksasa crowned with skulls and about to drink from a larger, stylized human skull. In Pura Panataran Sasih, the temple where the bronze drum is kept, there are a number of ancient statues, the majority being commemorative statues of former kings.

Panulisan: In the ruins of pura Panulisan on the mountain of the same name, are some fine statues of kings from the eleventh century. The temple was destroyed by an earthquake and despite the fact that it is regarded as of great holiness, an extravagant stairway of cement has been built to reach it, but the temple has not been repaired. Today one may visit the ruins only with a written permit from the local pungawa.

Other statues worthy of mention are the figures of Durga in the temple Pondjok Batu on the road to Tedjakula in North Bali and the great statue of Dewa Ratti Pantjering Djagat, over twelve feet high, the largest statue in Bali, kept jealously out of sight in the tower (meru) of the temple Trunyan, a Bali Aga village on the eastern shore of Lake Batur.

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