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HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
Gedong Kirtya
was established on June 2, 1928 by L.J.J.
Caron, then the "Resident" (the
Resident was a government official during
the Dutch colonial era) of Bali and Lombok
with aview to commemorating the efforts
of two Dutch scholars : namely F.A. Liefrienk
and Dr. N. Van der Tuuk for their extensive
research on Balinese language, custom
and culture. GedongKirtya was officially
opened to the public on September 14,
1928 by A.C.D. de Graff, then the Governor
General of the East indies. The opening
year of this library was symbolized on
a monogram, popularly known as "candra
sangkala" on the entrance gate, with
a picture of a man riding an elephant
and holding a bow as he kills his enemy
with arrows. This picture can be interpreted
as follows : the man means one; the elephant
symbolizes "asta diggaja" meaning
eight; the arrow is equivalent to "panca-bang"
which means five; the killed enemy is
equivalent to "sunya" meaning
nil or zero; combined this makes 1850
on the Balinese calender or 1928 on the
Western calender.
At
the outset Gedong Kirtya was a Foundation
named "Stichting van der Tuuk",
which later, under the advice of I Gusti
Putu Djelantik, then the King of Buleleng,
had the word "Kirtya" added.
Kirtya is derived trom the root "kr",;
it developed into "krtva" and
"krtya" a Sanskrit word which
means "to do" or "to endeavor".
The
foundation was avidly supported by many
scholars who were interested in learningmore
deeply about Hindu based culture in Indonesia.
Among them were Dr. R. Ng. Purbacaraka,
Dr. W. F. Stuterheim, Dr. R. Goris, Dr.
Th. Pigeand and Dr. C. Hooykass. Dr. R.
Goris, a Dutch-born Indonesian scholar,
is acknowledged for his unstinting research
for the Gedong Kirtya.
Candra
Sangkala, on the entrance split gate depecting
a man riding an elephant and a man dies
killed by an arrow. This relief originally
made of sand stone but it was eroded and
it has been restored using cement instead
of sand stone.
Source:
Gedong Kirtya, Issued by The Goverment
Tourism Office of Buleleng, 1997.
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