Ngaben Ceremony

Bali Island (Bali Travel Info)

“A good place for traveling” The dream destination of Bali is where volcanic landscape meets lush rice terraces and pristine beaches.

A Pitra Yadnya ceremony, ngaben cremation has been a famous tourist attraction for a long time. This ceremony is held by the family members when they lost one of their relative, aiming at cleansing one’s soul so that it will be unified with the God. Ngaben is a very significant, month-long prepared ceremony. In Bali, each cremation take all the village members to work together to help the family administering the whole processes of the ceremony, and therefore such a ceremony often turns into a very big happening. Tourists often are attracted when the body is put in big chest and carried by 15-50 healthy men from the house through to the grave yard. The chests take several shapes such as Lembu (Balinese ox), Gajah Mina (a big fish with elephant head), or Singa Mangaraja (a lion with two wings). Those imitated animals are believed as God’s holy animals. At the grave yard, the dead body and the chest is set on fire. This process symbolizes the return of the souls to the holy state to the God. Ngaben procession ended with the ash of dead body thrown to the nearby seawaters.