THE ISLAND

The whole of the island was affected, and 65,000 homes, 2,500 temples and 1,372 lives were lost. The lava engulfed the village of Batur, but stopped at the very gate of the temple. The villagers took the miracle as a good omen and continued to live there. In August 1926, however, a new eruption buried the sacred temple under the molten lava, this time with the loss of one life, an old woman who died of fright.

The people of Batur, unable to break the spell that links their destinies to , rebuilt their village high up on the rim of the outer , rater, renamed it Kububatur, and will probably remain there until again driven away by the anger of the volcano.

According to legend, Bali was originally a flat, barren island. When Java fell to the Mohammedans, the disgusted Hindu gods decided to move to Bali, but it became necessary for them to build dwelling-places high enough for their exalted rank. So they created the mountains, one for each of the cardinal points. The highest, Gunung Agung, was erected at the east, the place of honour; the Batur at the north; the Batukau at the west; and since there had to be one for the south, the raised tableland (Tafelhoek) of Bukit Petjatu became the seat of the patron of the south.

The Batur is venerated in its neighbourhood, and the Batukau is holy to the villages on its slopes, but it is the Gunung Agung, Bali's highest mountain (10,560 feet) that is most sacred to the whole of the island. Half-way up the mountain is the mother temple for all Bali, the great Besakih with its impressive stone gate and its hundreds of towers thatched with sugar-palm fibre. The Gunung Agung is regarded as the Navel (puseh) of the World. It is to the Balinese what Kailasa and mahameru are to the Hindus of India. As Mahameru it is the Cosmic Mountain, the Father of All Humanity.

To the Balinese, Bali is the entire world. Knowledge of the other nations of which they are conscious - China, Java, and Europe - does not influence their belief in the least. They are simply other worlds that have no relation to their own conception of the earth. There is an old manuscript which gives a description of the structure of the world.