Mantras to Make Demons into Gods: Old Javanese Texts and the Balinese Bhūtayajñas

Résumé En

In this article we argue, contrarily to the dominant scholarly opinion, that Balinese ritual practice is informed by Old Javanese texts, and ultimately rests on the metaphysical and ontological categories of Tantric Śaiva traditions. As a focus for discussion, we have selected four mantras that are intended for use during the bhūtayajñas (“sacrifices to demonic forces”) in order to identify and discuss some of the important philosophical and cosmological concepts that underlie and shape these rituals. We begin by examining and describing the rituals performed for the bhūtakālas (“adverse entities”) as we can observe them today. We then turn to the Balinese textual sources and how they might be related to present ritual practice. Instead of interpreting the Balinese bhūtayajñas as naive attempts to deal with demonic forces, either by driving them away or by placating them with food offerings, we argue that when the rituals for the bhūtakālas are placed in the context of textual understandings, they reveal their dependence on the cosmology, philosophy, and theology of Tantric Śaivism as known from Sanskrit sources from India. Such key concepts as the five-fold Śaiva mandala, the cosmology of the emanation and reabsorption of the tattvas, and the need to explain how the whole of creation originates from and returns to a single point, shape and structure the bhūtayajñas. These rituals are intended to effect the cosmic return so that as the process of creation/emanation naturally degenerates into lower and more dangerous forms it can be reversed, and returned to its pure origins.