Bli Komang took us along the main coastal road in eastern Bali where earlier that day he introduced us to what is now my favorite place on the island: Taman Ujung Sukasada. Passing by trucks loaded with high quality sand from the slopes of Mount Agung, we arrived in one of the most important puras for Balinese Hindus: Pura Goa Lawah. Under the midday sun people donning white ceremonial costumes and colorful sarungs gathered outside the temple, talking to each other at warungs, set against the coastline of the Lombok Strait.
With the help of Bli Komang we put our sarungs, lent by our trusted driver himself to avoid the occasionally persistent sarung vendors often found at temples all over the island. As we stepped inside the pura’s front yard, men carrying cymbals and gongs in different sizes were sighted while others assembled at a small wantilan, signs of an impending religious ceremony later on that day.
“People usually come to Goa Lawah before they hold a Ngaben ceremony for their deceased family members,” Bli Komang said to me explaining the temple’s significance in the Balinese cremation tradition. In fact, Pura Goa Lawah is one of the Sad Kahyangan, literally “six places of Gods”, a collective term to describe Bali’s holiest temples as the pillars of the island.
Due to its importance, the temple’s history is heavily enveloped with legend and symbolism. Nirartha, the Majapahit priest who fled Java to Bali in the 16th century and reformed Balinese Hinduism, was the one who discovered a cave at the eastern coast of Bali which would later become one of the most sacred places on the island. Upon his arrival loud sound emanated from the cave, breaking the silence in the otherwise secluded corner of Bali. Upon further inspection he found that it was the house for a huge number of bats, blanketing the cave’s ceiling in black, hence the name Goa Lawah – Bat Cave.
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