UBUD, INDONESIA, July 15, 2008: It was the most spectacular royal funeral in Bali in at least three decades. In a roar of orange flames, the body of Agung Suyasa, head of the royal family of Ubud, was reduced to its earthly elements Tuesday in a mass cremation that included three royal figures and 68 commoners. In a Balinese tradition, the bodies of the commoners had waited to join Suyasa and two other members of his extended family in a royal cremation, although the pyres of the commoners were in a separate location. Some of them had waited months or even years, buried or mummified, for the spectacular rites that combine the energy, mysticism and creativity of this Hindu island.
The cremation and the disposal of the last bits of bone are part of a journey of purification and renewal in which, according to Balinese belief, the soul can return to inhabit a new being – generally a member of the same family – until, once again, it is freed through cremation. “None of us is brand new,” said Raka Kerthyasa, the younger half-brother of Suyasa who is now the guardian of the ancient but symbolic royal family and who oversaw the cremation. “We are part of the cycle of life.”
That ever-changing cycle may one day claim the cremation rites themselves, and some here say that in the face of a globalizing world, Bali may never again see a cremation ceremony to match this one. “Strange as it seems, it is in their cremation ceremonies that the Balinese have their greatest fun,” Miguel Covarrubias wrote in his classic work, “Island of Bali,” published in 1946. “A cremation is an occasion for gaiety and not for mourning, since it represents the accomplishment of their most sacred duty” to liberate the souls of the dead, he wrote.