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Chapter 3 GEBOG DOMAS The Congregation of Pura Penulisan Pura Pucak Penulisan is a popular place of worship among all Balinese Hindus. Pilgrims from the most distant corners of the island come here almost every day of the year, now that an age of motorized transport has made this temple easily accessible. But Pura Penulisan has a far deeper and more personal significance to the members of its principal congregation. Tens of thousands of people regard this sanctuary as the emblem of their sacred origin and the hub of their social and ritual world. This chapter will explore who these people are, what obligations they must meet, and why they regard themselves as related to one another in the context of a ritual domain. I will begin by examining the principal membership of Pura Penulisan ’s support network, known as the “gebog domas. ” The temple’s contemporary sphere of social relevance, however, represents no more than a momentary state within a dynamic historical and interpretive process. The current social and ritual arrangements in this domain, though they may be portrayed as the singular and true reflection of an immutable past, are a manifestation of a fluid system of shifting alliances. The Contemporary Network The banua of Pura Pucak Penulisan has at present a core membership of thirty “customary villages” (desa adat). The population size of these villages ranges from 36 to 740 heads of households (kepala keluarga). According to the temple budget reckoning, their populations together add up to a total of 4,901 contributing households. This is the official number of households who were required to pay the annual, pro rata contribution (peturunan) to the ritual and maintenance of Pura 84 Chapter 3 Penulisan in 1992, but the actual number of households was much greater even then.1 Since population size has increased, the amount payable by each village is simply divided by the current number of households to calculate individual amounts payable. The official figures are due for updating to match them with current population sizes. The number of principal contributors will then total 7,354 households , or about 33,000 people.2 All married couples who reside in a member village other than short-term visitors are expected to contribute in full, even if they are exempt from contributing to ritual events at the Pura Puseh or Bale Agung of that village for some reason. This rule presents an interesting parallel to the “membership” rules of Pura Dalem in the villages of this area, village temples to which all banjar (neighborhood) members must contribute financially and by participation in temple rituals.3 Apart from paying peturunan, they will also bring atos desa as a village and private offerings as individual households at the time of Penulisan ’s annual festival. The current core members of this domain refer to themselves as the gebog domas of Pura Penulisan. This organization is composed of four subdivisions, the gebog satak of Sukawana, Selulung, Bantang, and Kintamani. The term “gebog” refers to a set or bounded group, a totality made up of parts joined together (as in a length of cloth), but the significance of the numbers satak (two hundred) and domas (eight hundred, i.e., four times two hundred) is less transparent. The conglomeration of four times two hundred may reflect a “four or eight around a center” pattern common within the symbolism of Indonesian cultures (see Ossenbruggen 1977). A settlement of two hundred or more households also appears to have been recognized as a particular unit of administration by precolonial governments. Some claim that these units were perbekelan, territories under the authority of a perbekel, or village headman, during the reign of the Gelgel dynasty. This idea is supported by the fact that a gebog domas also forms the support network of the ancient Pura Kehen in the town of Bangli.4 The idea of keraman satak (two hundred households) appears in almost all of the origin myths of individual villages as an ideal population size, as in the origin narratives of Manikliyu (Pura Tebenan) and Batih that have already been presented. Such myths often focus on an early settlement and origin point that was abandoned or rebuilt after some disaster. The number of village council members (keraman ulu apad) in the original village is almost universally said to have been two hundred household heads, while the number of survivors tends to correspond to the fixed number of core elders in the [18.221.41.214] Project MUSE (2024-04...

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