Sacred Trees

Across Bali, the biggest trees are rarely just trees. Giant banyans, called beringin, shade temple courtyards and village squares, their trunks wrapped in black-and-white checkered cloth and their roots crowded with small shrines and offerings. Pule and kepuh trees grow in the same sacred spaces, often in village cemeteries beside the Pura Dalem, the temple of death. For Balinese Hindus these trees are living places of worship, honored with daily care much like a shrine.

The checkered poleng cloth marks a tree as inhabited by an unseen presence. Its black and white squares express Rwa Bhineda, the Balinese principle that existence unfolds through paired opposites, such as good and evil, kept in balance. Because every living thing is believed to have a soul, even taking wood demands ritual. Sacred Barong and Rangda masks are carved from pule wood (Alstonia scholaris), and a priest chooses the tree, often one growing in a cemetery, before offerings are made to its spirit.

Sacred trees are easy to find once you start looking: at nearly every temple, at crossroads, and in the cemeteries at the edge of each village. The most famous is Bunut Bolong in Jembrana, West Bali, a huge banyan near Manggisari village on the mountain road north from Medewi. The road runs straight through an opening almost four meters wide in its base, cut through the roots during the Second World War. Beside it stands the temple Pura Bhujangga Sakti.