and their courtiers have various other coiffures. Men are shown with sarongs, but are barechested except for their ornaments, while women of high rank have cloths wrapped around their breasts and two layers of sarongs. Priests and other characters of spiritual power usually have turban-like headdresses and wear long coat-like garments over their sarongs. Commoners and servants usually have minimal or no ornamentation and wear only a loincloth.
Amongst the commoner figures, two sets of servants are particularly important. These are the clown figures who serve the main characters of the ‘right’ and ‘left’, respectively Twalen and Merdah and Delem and Sangut. In the wayang they play the role of interpreting lofty speech into everyday language and comedy, and in traditional painting their roles are a visual equivalent, since they mediate the views of ordinary people with their comic actions. These servants are ubiquitous in Kamasan paintings (Fig. 13).
Indigenous stories belong to the second category of iconography, what Forge labels as ‘post-mythological’, legends that belong to a more recent past, with protagonists closer to humanity than the deities and semi-divine figures of the epics.36 The main identifying features are a variety of coiffures denoting different ranks, for example, kings with upswept hairbuns and princes, such as the hero Panji, with downswept hairbuns called ‘crescent moons’ (tetanggalan). In post-mythological iconography, characters have less ornamentation than in the mythological, though female characters are similar in their presentation.
Fig. 13 Kamasan, Bima, with ‘crab claw’ hairdo, thick, hairy body and bulging eyes, possibly c. 1900, paint on cloth, 108 x 81 cm, flag (kober), Forge Collection, Australian Museum, E93475 (photo Finton Mahony).
Fig. 14 Kamasan, The Snake Sacrifice of King Janamejaya. Janamejaya is seated on a lion throne, to the right of centre. The priests, led by Bagawan Srutasrawa, are shown to the left of the central sacrificial fire in the main scene. At top right, Indra talks to Taksaka. At top left, Astika talks to the naga, 19th C, natural paint on bark cloth, 152 x 144 cm, ex-Nieuwenkamp Collection, Gunarsa Museum, USA (photo Gustra).
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is a long story that centres on the battle between the Pandawa brothers and their cousins, the Korawa. Balinese painters learn the epic through translations of sections into prose texts and poetry, both in the Old Javanese language, and focus on certain scenes. In Kamasan and other villages, even those painters not literate in Old Javanese would have learned stories from shadow puppeteers and passed those stories down to their students and families. Thus, the painters usually focus on certain main stories and do not seek to depict all the details of the epic.
The first part of the Mahabharata, the First Book (Adiparwa), provides Balinese painters with a range of stories about the origins of the world and the great kings of the mythological past. The First Book is concerned not only with the ancestors of the heroes of the Mahabharata, but how the world, and civilization, came into being. It contains a number of stories, depicted by Kamasan painters, of the founders of the highest-ranking castes, those of the ksatria or royalty and the brahmana or priests. The First Book depicts them in a constant struggle for power, as when the priest Ramaparasu attempts to kill all the ksatria in revenge for the death of his father. After many generations of conflict, the two parties are partially reconciled when King Janamejaya requests the leading brahmana, Bagawan Srutasrawa, to become Janamejaya’s court priest in order that the king can carry out a sacrifice meant to destroy the naga or serpents. The god Indra tries to help the snake king Taksaka but is defeated by the priest’s powers. Only Astika, a priest who is also the son of a serpent priestess, saves Taksaka by tricking King Janamejaya into granting one request. He then asks that the sacrifice be abandoned (Fig. 14).
The story of the priests continues in the tale of Bagawan Uttangka and his teacher Weda. Little known now, the story featured in many Kamasan paintings of the nineteenth century.37 It tells how Uttangka was tested by his teacher, in particular how he had to honour the request of his teacher’s wife by getting a ring from King Posya. In the langse version below, Uttangka, bottom centre and left, is shown being sent on his quest by the king and queen. He is then shown in the top left-hand scene of the painting, bathing before he puts on his red coat to visit King Posya’s wife. The king, however, offers the priest impure food, so Uttangka curses the king to be blind (central top scene). Before he can take the ring to his teacher’s wife, Uttangka has it stolen by the snake king, Taksaka, and so has to retrieve it from the underworld (top right) before he can return to his teacher and be honoured (bottom right). The version illustrated here, a fine work from the first part of the nineteenth century, presents the story as a balance of power between the royal (left side) and priestly (right side) figures, representing the two castes (Fig. 16).
Fig. 15 Pan Ngales, Kamasan, Churning of the Ocean of Milk, 1921, natural paint on cotton, 132 x 160 cm, tabing, Forge Collection, Australian Museum, E74163 (photo Emma Furno).
Very popular from the First Book is the the ‘Churning of the Milk Ocean’ (Samudramanthana / Pamuteran Mandara Giri). In the main scene of this episode, the gods stand on the left-hand side of the world mountain while their enemies, the demons (deitia), stand opposite. Both groups hold the world serpent, which is wrapped around the world mountain, to churn it in the ocean of milk. Indra, king of the gods, sits on top of the mountain to hold it stable and creates rain to cool those doing the churning. Underneath the mountain is the world turtle. The churning produces three goddesses, the central one of whom holds the elixir of life (amerta) in a winged jar. This particular scene is highly favoured for use in the pavilion where a padanda or Brahman high priest prepares holy water, called tirtha, for a ceremony, an equation of the elixir of life with holy water. In sequels to the ‘Churning’, battles between gods and demons occur (Fig. 15).
The gods are the superiors of the lesser heavenly beings, called the dewata, gandharwa and widyadara. At times, these lesser beings form an independent group, at others, such as in the story of Sunda and Upasunda, they are the direct servants of the gods. Sunda and Upasunda are two demons threatening the stability of the world and the power of the gods. The gods create the heavenly nymph Tilotama, who is so beautiful that the god Brahma grows four heads so that he can see her, regardless of the direction he is facing. When Sunda and Upasunda see the nymph, they start fighting over her, and both are killed in the ensuing battle (Fig. 17).
Fig. 16 Kamasan, Bagawan Uttangka’s Quest, before 1849, natural paint on cotton, langse, from a temple in Kusamba, State Museum of Berlin, 1c876f (photo Martin Franken).
Fig. 17 I Nyoman Mandra, Kamasan, Sunda and Upasunda, 1991, natural paint on cotton, 47.5 x 141.5 cm, artist’s collection (photo Gustra).
A significant story from the First Book that preoccupies painters is that of Garuda, the mythical eagle, and his mother Winata, who is cursed by her sister Kadru, the mother of the serpents—the thousand naga—the enemies of Garuda. He can only release her by obtaining the elixir of life. In order to do this, Garuda has to challenge the Gods of the Directions (see Figs. 2, 10 and 11). This particular scene provides Balinese painters with a way of depicting the cosmic order, much like meditation diagrams from India.
The First Book has many other scenes explaining the relationship between the naga and the brahmana caste. In particular, the priest Jaratkaru marries Nagini, the daughter of the snake king Basuki. Jaratkaru does so on the instruction of his ancestors, who are suspended from bamboo poles in hell because Jaratkaru has no children. Both
