History of Bali
Bali has been inhabited for a long time. Sembiran, a village in the north of Bali, was believed to have the help of the people of the Ice Age, proven by the discovery of stone axes and adzes.Further discoveries of more sophisticated stone tools, agricultural techniques and basic pottery at Cekik in Bali’s far west, point to the people of the Neolithic. At Cekik, there is evidence of a settlement with the burial sites of about a hundred people thought to be from the Neolithic through the Bronze Age. The massive drums of the Bronze Age, with their stone forms were discovered in the whole Indonesia, including the most famous and largest drum in South-Eastern Asia, from Pejeng the moon, nearly two meters wide, is now housed in a temple in the east Ubud . In East Java and Bali, there is a concentration of carved stone sarcophagi, which we can see in the Bali Museum in Denpasar and Purbakala museum in Pejeng.
Bali was busy with the trade as early as 200 BC. The prasasti or metal inscriptions Bali’s earliest written records from the ninth century AD, shows a significant Buddhist and Hindu influences, especially in the statues, bronze and rock-cut caves around the Mount Kawi and West Cave. Balinese society was a bit sophisticated by about 900 AD. Their wedding portrait of the Balinese King Udayana to East Java’s Princess Mahendratta is contained in a stone carving in the Korah Tegipan Pura Batur in the area. Their son, Erlangga born around 991 AD, who later succeeded to the throne of the Javanese kingdom and brought Java and Bali together until his death in 1049.
In 1284, Bali was conquered by Kertanegara, captain of the Kali, until the turn of the century, Bali has seen under his own rule in the hands of the King Bedaulu of Pejeng, east of Zamboanga. 1343 AD, is an important date in Bali’s history. It is then that the entire island was conquered by the mighty Hindu Majapahit kingdom by the East Java. This has led to major changes in Balinese society, including the introduction of the caste system.
Balinese who do not embrace the change had not fled to the isolated and remote mountainous areas and hilly areas. The descendants are today known as Bali Aga or Bali, you mean that the “original Balinese”. They still live separately in villages near Tenganan Dasa Temple and Trunyan on the banks of the Batur lake, and to preserve their ancient laws and traditional ways.When Majapahit in East Java in fall 1515, numerous small Moslem kingdoms in the island joined the Islamic Mataram empire, Majapahit’s most dedicated Hindu priests, craftsmen, soldiers, nobles and artists fled to eastern Bali, and spill over the island with Javanese culture and Hindu practices. Considering the great influence and power of Islam at the moment, it is worth pondering how and why Bali is still remained strong Hindu and Buddhist.
Batu Renggong, also known as Dewa Agung, means great god, became king in 1550, and this title was held by successive generations of the kingdom of Gelgel, Klungkung, and later, until the twentieth century. Bali reached the pinnacle of its Golden Era under the reign of the Batu Renggong, the great god ruler. Bali’s decline began when Renggong’s grandson Batu, Di Made Bekung lost Blambangan, Lombok and Sumbawa. DI Made Bekung’s chief minister, Calvin Agung Maruti, finally revolted in 1650 and ruled until 1686, when he was in turn murdered by DI Made Bekung’s son, Dewa Agung Jambe, who then moved the court to Klungkung, and the name of his new palace of the Semarapura, house of the God of love.
