Ubud Royal Cremation Ceremony

I had the opportunity to go up to Ubud for a couple days to attend the Cremation Ceremony for a prominent member of the Ubud Royal Family. These ceremonies are very rare events and only happen when a very high ranking person passes away. There are only certain days in Bali's Hindu religious calendar that are appropriate for such important cremations. Normally, the ceremonies take weeks or months to prepare, but in this case, Tjokorda Istri Sri Tjandrawati died just a couple weeks ago in Singapore. The family decided to hold the ceremony November 1, the day before Kunigan and a most auspicious day for the ceremony. Otherwise, the ceremony would have to wait until February. It's quite amazing that they were able to complete the extensive arrangements in such a short time. An 80 foot tall Balé had to be constructed to transport the body the 1 Km from the Ubud Palace to the Puri Agung Ubud temple cremation grounds. A Lembu (bull statue) also needed to be built to hold the body during the actual cremation. Thousands of people from Ubud and the surrounding villages worked to bring this event about in such a short time. Here are some stills that I pulled from my RED footage.


This is the Badé that transports the body to the cremation grounds. It is 80 feet tall (25M) and so wide that it barely fits down the main road of Ubud. The ramp is used to take the casket up to its resting place for traveling to the temple.


This is the Lembu. It precedes the Balé and the casket is transferred into it at the temple for the actual cremation. This whole structure burns with the casket and body inside.


Moving this is all done by manpower. There are dozens of men to move the structures. They do have some rudimentary wheels in the center, but it's muscles that make it go. In the background, you can see the Badé following.


They move in short spurts. A section of street is cleared out, then a mad dash moves forward a bit and then a stop to rest.


The Badé just barely fits in some places. It took out more than a few rood tiles signs and wires on the way.


At the temple grounds, another ramp allows the casket to unloaded from the Badé and brought down to be transferred to the Lembu.


Of course there are many hours of offerings and ceremonies before the actual cremation.


This is NOT the big Lembu of the Royal Cremation. It is a smaller one for another cremation that was taking place earlier in the day. On a special holy day such as the day before Kuningan, many cremations take place at temples throughout Bali.