ngaben
Procession of the Holy Cleansing of the Dead
Ngaben ceremony is the ritual burning of the bodies for the purification of the spirit is dead. The ceremony was performed by the people of Bali based on the script was written in Pitra Yadnya that the human body consists of coarse bodies, soft bodies, and karma. Human coarse bodies are composed of five elements (Phanca Maha Bhuta), namely, pertiwi (solid), apah (liquid), teja (hot substances), bayu (wind), and akasa (space vacuum). These elements form the human body and controlled by the spirit. When people are dying, just a dead body and the spirit that controls the body for it will remain alive until forever. That's why Ngaben ceremony be performed by people here, so that the spirits of dead people are in purify again and free from earthly bonds to be able to go to heaven or reincarnate back to earth through reincarnation.
Doing this Ngaben ceremony should be have a good prepare. The families must choose an auspicious day for the procession and ask for help to the pastor. Then prepare some offerings and goods as a condition of this ritual. One of the conditions of this ritual is to create a container to put the coffin resembling a cow or a temple and other shape which made of wood and paper. The shape, size, and color of the container is adjusted to the class or the status of social economy of the families concerned.
During waiting for the day of Ngaben ceremony, the remains will be buried in the ground or placed in the house. Usually, the selection of a good day not more than seven days from the day of the person died. After the appointed day arrives, they will be performed some rituals before the cremation ceremony. The first is to bathe the corpse by the Brahmin caste. Then the body will be laced in traditional clothes of Bali and continued with the ritual of releasing the spirit by making symbols using pictorial cloth purification elements spirits. After that, the body which had been put into the coffin and put into containers will be taken to the local cemetery by way of the stretcher and in a drive to the spirit of the man who died can find the way to heaven soon and does not interfere with his family who still alive. Container that resembles the cow or the temple is the symbol of God's house. Arriving at the cemetery, the body and the container was placed in pemalungan (incinerator made from banana tree trunks) and Direct combustion is the procession by priests by first reading the prayers.
The body which had become ashes then will be disposed into the sea. Sea is a symbol of the universe and the door to the house of God. The process of reincarnation of a dead man depending from the good and bad deeds that have been doing when living in the world (karma). For babies who died under the age of two months can not be done of Ngaben ceremony. His body should be in the first tomb and waiting until a family who died then doing Ngaben ceremony together.
Ngaben Ceremony also doing to the people who died but not in the discovered remains. Like a plane crash victim who lost, lost in carrying the current, etc. The ceremony was conducted in location where the person died with a symbol of taking a handful of soil, then pray and burned.
Because the ceremony is need a huge cost, not all of the Bali people can perform Ngaben ceremony. Only a few people who can only can directly execute it. For the poor, will first buried until to able to perform the ceremony or can do it together (mass) with others who are also less able to meet all the requirements of Ngaben ceremony.
Topic: ngaben
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