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The
Sacred of Mount Agung
This sacred mountain is to the
Balinese what Olympus was to the
ancient Greeks-the Cosmic Mountain.
The Balinese, who consider this
volcano "the Navel of the
World," always sleep with
their heads toward Agung. The
mystical Balinese believe the
mountain was raised by the gods
as advantage point to view the
unceasing pageant of life below.
To them, it is a central, heavenly
point of reference, the geographical
and religious center of the world.
With an elevation of 3,014 meters,
the foot of the mountain stretches
northeast right to the sea. To
the southeast its slope is blocked
by a line of small extinct volcanoes;
to the northwest Agung is separated
from Gunung Batur by a narrow
valley.
The
gods rest above the mountain summit,
and when they come down to visit
the island they reside in Bali's
holiest temple complex, Besakih,
six km below the crater. When
the gods are displeased, Agung
showers the land with stone and
ruin. Its feathery heights are
the source of life-giving rivers
and volcanic ash, which irrigate
and enrich the island's rice fields.
The lower portions of the mountain
are heavily forested, and farmed
up to about 1,000 meters.
History
of Gunung Agung
A major eruption in 1350 so fertilized
the land around Besakih that year
after year it has yielded enough
rice to not only supply the needs
of the complex but also defray
the costs of the unending ceremonies
staged in the mountain's honor.
Agung's most recent eruption occurred
in the closing years of the turbulent
Sukarno regime, in 1963. The cataclysm
began during the greatest of Balinese
ceremonies, Eka Dasa Rudra, an
exorcism of evil staged only once
every 100 years. Except for minor
activity in 1808 and 1843, this
was the first time the sacred
volcano had blown since 1350.
Many
people looked upon the disaster
as a divine condemnation of the
ill-fated Sukarno regime, and
the subsequent failure of crops,
uprooting of villages, and forced
evacuation of 86,000 people contributed
substantially to the communal
clashes and massacres during the
so-called purge of Indonesian
"communists" in 1966.
Because empty land for the evacuees
was no longer available on Bali,
the consequences of overpopulation
became acute for the first time
in the island's history. No longer
could farmers move temporarily
to another part of the island,
later returning to a land covered
in fresh, fertile ash. Thousands
were instead resettled in transmigration
camps in central Sulawesi.
Few
scars remain today. Until well into
the 1970s the countryside northeast
of Klungkung was blackened by lava
streams, but the region is now replanted
with fields and gardens. Remnants
of the massive eruption are still
visible in the Tianyar and Kubu
areas on the northeast coast, the
least populated region of Karangasem.
Agung remains semi-active, and volcanologists
in Rendang and Batulompeh continue
to keep a wary eye on it.
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