The bataras remained
remote in the popular mind, regarded rather as deified foreign
lords like their princes, and as far as the Balinese are concerned,
their functions ended when they created the world with all that
it contains. The bataras appear in Balinese literature with such
human characteristics and are so susceptible to the passions of
ordinary mortals that they become merely mythological figures
losing their esoteric significance. Typical is the amusing episode
in the Tjatur Yoga in which Batara Guru', the Supreme Teacher,
quarrelled with Batara Brahma for the privilege of making men:
" After Siwa had created the insects, Wisnu the trees, Isora
the fruits, and Sambu the flowers, Batara Guru discussed with
Brahma the creation of human beings to populate the new world.
Brahma admitted he did not know how and asked Batara Guru' to
try first. The latter then made four figures, four men out of
red earth, and went into meditation so that they could talk, think,
walk, and work. Brahma remarked that if those were human beings,
then be could make men, and taking some clay, he proceeded to
make a figure that resembled a man. Batara Guru" was annoyed
and made the rain, which lasted for three days, destroying the
figure Brahma bad made. When the rain stopped, Brahma tried again,
this time baking the figure. On seeing the man of baked clay,
Batara guru` boasted be would eat excrement if Brahma could give
it life, but Brahma succeeded in making it alive by meditation
and demanded that Batara Guru' make good his boast. Enraged, Batara
Guru' took some clay and made images of dogs that became living
dogs, and wished that forever after they should walk, whine, bark,
and eat excrement."
An average Balinese knows, however vaguely, the
names of countless bataras. He is well aware, for instance, that
Batara" Brahma is the god of fire, that Surya is the Sun,
Indra the Lor of Heaven, and Yama that of Hell, Durga the goddess
of deathi, Semara the god of physical love, and so forth ; but
unless he has had. a certain amount of theological edu-,, cation,
to him the Batara Siwa is simply another of the remote high gods,
although the highest in rank; a sort of Radja among the bataras.
However, to the learned Brahmanic priests Siwa represents, the
abstract idea of divinity that permeates everything - the, total
of the forces we call God. Siwa is the source of all life,.. the
synthesis of the creative and generative powers in nature;, consequently
in him are the two sexes in one-. the Divine, Hermaphrodite (Windu"),
symbol of completion, the ultimate perfection. As male Siwa is
the mountain, the Gunung Agug) the Lingga, Pasupati, the father
of all humanity, all phallic symbols. He is also the Sun, the
Space, and as Batara Guru', the,' Supreme Teacher, be is the maker
of the world. As female is Uma,mother of all nature, Giri Putri,
goddess of the mountains, Dewi Gangga and Dewi Danul, deities
of rivers and lakes., These, his feminine manifestations (sakti),
are taken by the common people as his literal wives, but the learned
interpretthese wives, and his connubial relations with them, as
the two, eternal principles: male and female, spirit and matter,
unit d,~ for the constant production and reproduction of the universe,
the exaltation of the union of the sexes for procreation.
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