Jaratkaru with Basuki and Nagini are featured in a large cloth38 (Fig. 18). In other paintings, the story continues with the agreement that Nagini makes with Jaratkaru, that they will stay married as long as Jaratkaru is never angered by his wife. Unfortunately, one day Jaratkaru oversleeps. He is just about to miss out on his sunset worship when Nagini decides it is better to wake him, risking his anger in doing so. He immediately leaves her but tells her she will bear a child, Astika, who will save the serpents from being destroyed by King Janamejaya’s sacrifice.
The painting itself uses its narrative as the starting point for a much more extensive rendering of Balinese cosmology. The main part of the First Book narrative is found in the top right-hand corner of the painting, although in the top left section the artist has extended the First Book’s preoccupation with Garuda and the naga by showing both, and a variety and animals and anthropomorphic figures behind them, positioned either side of an eleven-layered tower, which is the Balinese way of showing the Siwa-lingga or phallus, the manifestation of Siwa’s divinity.
The main part of this painting is taken up with depicting the punishments of hell, which also feature in other paintings, particularly of the side story of how one of the Pandawa brothers, Bima, has to go to hell to rescue the souls of his stepparents (Bimaswarga). Strictly speaking, what is translated as ‘hell’ is closer to the Roman Catholic Purgatory, and the Balinese term swarga covers all aspects of the afterlife. Souls are understood to go through a passage that reflects the Hindu idea of karma, that is, bad actions are punished, as shown in this painting where a woman is driven across a bridge over a fire (punishment for having an abortion), other souls are chased by birds, positioned under a tree of daggers which a demon shakes down on them, devoured by wild animals (punishment for hunters), cooked over a fire like a roast suckling pig, boiled in a cauldron, have their sexual organs violated with weapons (punishment for promiscuity), and a female soul is forced to suckle a caterpillar (for not having children). The equivalent of the Western ‘heaven’ is shown at the top of the painting, where people sit in pagoda-like pavilions and have offerings made to them. Thus, heaven resembles the inside courtyard of a Balinese temple. At the bottom of the painting are shown, from right to left, a witch, people in boats at sea experiencing problems with sea animals, and a man fishing. Such scenes of ordinary life are juxtaposed with mythological scenes to demonstrate the relationship between actions in the spiritual world and those in the mundane world.
The First Book reflects a universe where the various cosmic forces are constantly interacting. As such, it presents a view of the universal forces that were at the time after creation forming themselves into different possibilities of world order.
Fig. 18 Kamasan, Jaratkaru in Swarga, 1831, natural paint on cotton, 150 x 160 cm, tabing, from a temple in Karangasem, Forge Collection, Australian Museum, E74161 (photo Emma Furno).
A number of other mythological stories are depicted by Balinese painters in order to show the workings of divine power and influence in the world. Of significance in Balinese religion is the story of the Burning of the God of Love (Smaradahana), which explains the existence of desire in the world. In this story, the god Siwa is meditating and thus denying his influence to the world. The other gods are worried about this disturbance to the natural order, and ask Smara to end the meditation by shooting Siwa with his love arrow. This will arouse passion in Siwa. In the painting illustrated here, the top scene shows the meditating Siwa in the top right corner, with his two guardians, Nandiswara and Mahakala, seated beside him (Fig. 19). Siwa is struck by the arrows fired by Smara, who stands towards the middle of the top scene, with the other gods behind him (right to left, Indra, Wrespati, Wisnu, Brahma and Yama), and their followers or dewata below them. Twalen and Merdah, the ubiquitous servants of the burning love god, are on the left. In the larger bottom scene, Siwa turns into his angry or pamurtian form, with many heads and arms, and burns Smara to ash. Such angry forms of deities or semi-divine heroes are only shown in great events, since they represent manifestations of great power.39 According to Balinese legends, Smara’s ashes blow around the world, inspiring sexual desire in humanity.
Although rarely depicted, a remarkable painting shows the death of Smara’s wife, Ratih (Fig. 20). In the large top scene, Werespati, the divine sage, tells her of the death of Smara, and she is then shown with her servants, Nanda and Sunanda, in mourning (top right), and raking through her husband’s ashes (bottom right). In the main scene, she commits suicide by cremation, along with her servants, watched by Siwa.40
Other stories tell of the lead-up to the great battle between the five Pandawa brothers and their hundred cousins, the Korawa. These stories usually depict episodes from other ‘Books’. They tell of the births of the Pandawa brothers, the sons of different gods that were summoned by their mother Kunti: Yudhistira (also known as Darwawangsa), son of the God of Virtue or Duty, Darma; Arjuna (Partha), son of Indra; Bima (Wrekodara), son of Bayu, the God of Wind; and their younger brothers, Nakula and Sadewa (or Sahadewa), sons of the divine twins, Aswinodewa. They have a stepbrother, Karna, the son of the Sun (Surya or Aditya), but he joins the Korawa. The Pandawa are sent into exile by the Korawa after Yudhistira loses their kingdom gambling on dice.
Fig. 19 Kamasan, Smaradahana: The Burning of Smara, late 19th C or early 20th C, natural paint on cotton, 132 x 166 cm, tabing, Forge Collection, Australian Museum, E76373 (photo Emma Furno).
Fig. 20 Tabanan, Smaradahana: The Suicide of Goddess Ratih, before 1900, traditional paint on wood, 146.1 x 148.2 cm, parba, National Ethnographic Museum, Leiden, 1586-34.
Fig. 21 Kamasan, Arjunawiwaha: The Temptation of Arjuna, before 1938, paint on cloth, 167 x 129 cm, tabing, collected by Charles Sayers, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, coll. nr. 809-148.
During their exile they gain many allies, notably King Wirata and his sons, and great sources of power. The story of Arjuna’s asceticism and marriage, Arjunawiwaha, tells how Arjuna gains a magic arrow of power from Siwa. Arjuna performs meditation in the wilderness, and the gods, under threat from a great demon, Niwatakawaca, send seven heavenly nymphs, dedari, to tempt Arjuna, so he can defeat the demon. The temptation or meditation (matapa) has long been a very popular scene for artists, especially since it allows them to depict the full range of female beauty, including humorous scenes where Arjuna’s servants succumb to the temptations of the servants of the nymphs while their master remains immune to such seductions (Fig. 21).
A number of paintings also deal with the sequel to this story (Fig. 23). Arjuna, shown in these scenes wearing the turban of a holy man, hunts a boar after he is visited by a priest, who is actually Indra in disquise. Arjuna looses his arrow at the boar at the same time as another hunter, and they then engage in a fight over whose kill it is. Arjuna fights his opponent to a standstill, and the hunter reveals that he is actually Siwa. Siwa then gives Arjuna an arrow of great power, the pasupati weapon.
Many painters focus on the climactic battle of the descendants of Bharata, the Bharatayuddha, the climax of the Mahabharata. The main scenes from the battle involve the deaths of the various leaders and heroes in battle.
Bhisma is the teacher of the Pandawa brothers but commander-in-chief of their enemies, the Korawa. The Pandawa forces are unable to defeat Bhisma, for he can only die at the moment of his own choosing. No man can defeat him, but the great warrior is brought down by the arrows of Sikandi, who in the original Indian text is a hermaphrodite, in Indonesian versions a female warrior. Punctured by Sikandi’s arrows, Bhisma is laid down on a bed of arrows by Arjuna. The Pandawa and the Korawa come to him to pay their respects. Bhisma then instructs Yudhistira in the duties of a king before he dies at the time
