Ancient Temples of Goah Gajah, Gunung Kawi, Tirta Empul

Entrance to Goah Gajah

 It is difficult to know how old the temples of Bali are, even knowing that they date to the founding of the village. Time is counted with the cycles of harvest, life and ceremonies, while linear time seems of no interest to the unchanging culture. However certain temples date back a thousand years or more, despite the tendency to constantly renovate.

Linga at Goah Gajah

Our first day on the road, after an excellent lunch overlooking the rice fields of the Ubud area, stretches of brightest emerald cultivated by people in painted straw hats (the restaurant was called I Made Joni and staffed apparently by children in beautiful Balinese dress) we proceeded to Goa Gajah, the Elephant Cave, a small ancient dark temple filled with smokey incense. It dates back to at least to the 11th c, before the takeover of the Majahapit Empire, and was said to have been

Ganesh at Goah Gajah

created by the fingernail of a legendary giant Kebo Iwa. At that time, a period of trade with India brought a Budhhist/Hindu syncretism, whose traces at the Elephant Cave are lingams, a Ganesa, and yonis, ancient fertility symbols from India.

Buddha complex at Goah Gajah

From there a lovely descent into waterfalls and pools, without much explanation, is also considered a temple, named the Buddha complex. It resembles Buddhist grottos in China. It was earlier in that period, in the 9th c. that the earliest writing in Bali dates. Buddhist magic written in Sanskrit was inscribed on tiny clay tablets in a stupika, small Buddhist stupas, many of which have been found. We sat with coconut milk, hacked out by the vendor over the Buddha complex. In Bali there are formidable knives and machetes everywhere. Even in the market little women blithely chop tiny herbs with enormous machetes. Young Balinese practiced their English with us, recording little interviews.

Rice fields of Gunung Kawi

Candi of Gunung Kawi

Another ancient temple in the vicinity of Ubud is Gunug Kawi, the Rock Temple. In the village above we bought sarongs, requisite temple garb, while dozens of tiny Balinese women clung to us relentlessly. Then you must descend among irridescent rice fields to abandoned platforms and a cave entrance thought to have been the Royal temple in the 10th c. There, candi, or large reliefs of stupas, rise against the rocky hillside, thought to each have been a monument to a member of 11th c. royalty. Another version has Kebo Iwa carving the whole thing in a single night with his fingernails. Below, refreshing waters flow from holes in the temple into cascades below. I had been suffering from a burning chest pain (it would be a tough climb back up the rice field precipice) so I doused my head in the healing cascades.

Tirta Empul where I am submerged

But the next temple cured me! Temple of the Holy Spring, Tirta Empul, discovered in 962 and reputed for magical powers, has cement pools spouting water from 12 successive fountains. People lined up before each successive fountain for the blessing water. I leaped in, fully clothed and additionally wrapped in a sarong, and was instructed to proceed methodically, to each fountain, throwing water 3 times on my head, 3 times on my face, 3 times on my ears, drinking it 3 times. I truly felt infinitely better as we roamed the temple grounds afterward, covering my chest now because of the wet t-shirt effect. After extensive bargaining for trinkets, we climbed in the car to the mountain air overlooking the three volcanoes, Gunung Agung, Gunung Batur and Gunung Abang. Lush green

forest and landscape carpeted the fields beneath the black lava, each volcano wreathed in dense white cloud around the lake that provided our fish smothered in hot Balinese spices.