Ubud is a town on the Indonesian island of Bali in Ubud
District, located amongst rice paddies and
steep ravines in the central foothills of the Gianyar regency. One of
Bali's major arts and culture centres, it has developed a large tourism
industry.
Ubud has a known history
back to the eighth century, when the Javanese Buddhist priest Rsi Marhandya
came to Bali from Java, and meditated at the confluence of the two Wos rivers
at Campuhan, just west of the modern day town centre. A shrine was established
and later expanded by Nirartha, the Javanese priest who is regarded as the
founder of Bali’s religious practices and rituals as we know them today. At
this time the area was a centre of natural medicine and healing, and that is
how the name Ubud originated: Ubad is ancient Balinese for medicine.
With the spread of
Hindu-Buddhist culture in Bali in the 10th to 12th Centuries, Shivaite holymen
established hermitages and teaching monasteries near Ubud, at the bequest of
local rulers. The temple-memorial complex at Gunung Kawi and the cave temples at
Goa Gajah (east and northeast of Ubud) are undoubtedly the most impressive
architectural remains from this period. By this time, the people of the Ubud
area already practiced sophisticated wet rice farming, kept a variety of
livestock and employed techniques of stone and woodcarving, metalworking and
thatching that are still very much alive. Many of the dances, drama, puppet
plays and elaborate rituals and superstitions that animate Ubud culture today
originated in these early kingdoms nearby.
The Balinese legend of
Rangda the witch originated in the Ubud area at this time, when the half-Balinese
King Airlangga ruled Java and Bali , with its capital located then in Batuan,
southeast of Ubud. The Barong and Calinarong dances which visitors still enjoy
derived from the story of Airlangga's struggle against the plagues and evil
spells cast by Rangda, who is purportedly buried in a tomb near Kutri,
southeast of Ubud.
Airlangga's sons divided his
empire, and Bali was ruled by Anak Wungsu, who established a flourishing
kingdom between the Petanu and Pakerisan Rivers , east of Ubud.
The Javanese Majapahit
dynasty "conquered' Bali in 1343, when its military forces by the great
hero, Gajah Mada subjugated the Pejeng Dynasty, based in Bedulu, just east of
Ubud.
According to Majapahit reports, the "vile, long-haired Balinese
princes were wiped out,” and more refined models of Javanese culture were
adopted. Indeed, a great flowering of Balinese culture took place under the
Majapahit rulers, who were chosen from the military leaders of the Javanese
incursion. Balinese genealogies, the babad, written at this time, document the
Majapahit ancestry of Bali 's aristocratic families, who still inhabit the
palaces of Ubud.
Facing the
"Islamisation" of Java and the subsequent decline of the
Majapahit Empire in the 16th Century, many scholars, dancers, craftsmen,
intellectuals and priest migrated to Bali , bringing along their skills and
sacred texts. Many settled in the small kingdoms in and around ubud, among them
Nirartha, the "super-priest" who is regarded as the progenitor of all
of Bali 's pedanda Siwa high priests and their prominent Brahmana families. The
seat of the Majapahit overlord of Bali was moved from Samprangan near Gianyar,
to Gelgel, and Bali entered cultural “Golden Age" under the Gelgel kings.
When Gelgel fell, and its
remnants regrouped in Klungkung, secondary kingdoms arose throughout the island
and engaged in ongoing power struggles. In the early 18th Century, a palace was
established in Timbul, south of Ubud, by a descendant of the Gelgel line. His
ambition to create a dream kingdom, based on the ideal of Majapahit Java was
more of less fulfilled, as he drew to his court the finest musicians, dancers,
carvers and artisans, and built a splendid palace filled with lavish garden. As
the story goes, his cultural accomplishments were so great that upon witnessing
them, people could not help but exclaim, "My heart's delight!" In
Balinese, "sukahatine." The word evolved into "Sukawati,"
which is now the name of this visionary king's line of descendants, and the
town where he built his palace.
Throughout the 18th Century,
control of the areas around Ubud and Gianyar passed back and forth between the
Sukawati Dynasty whose princes are called "Tjokordas" and the Gianyar
Dynasty, with its "Anak Agungs" and "Dewas". Ultimately,
the region became a patchwork of small dominions ruled by Princes from one
faction or the other, or the scion of intermarriage between them. This is still
the case, and while Ubud's palaces house a core line of the Sukawati family,
other palaces in the region belong to Gelgel Gianyar stock or a separate royal
line from Blahbatuh.
During the 19th Century,
Ubud became an important court under its Sukawati feudal lord, owing allegiance
to Gianyar. In 1884 Gianyar was overthrown by Sukawati princes from the nearby
town of Negara , and after ten years of conflict, a Sukawati from the palace in
Ubud sided with Gianyar and cooled the conflict. Perhaps the experience of
centuries of adept politicking between these two dynasties gave them both the
ability to understand the value of diplomacy and compromise when the Dutch
asserted their power in Bali .