Balinese Hindu Stories (part 1) – Capucine

When we were in Ubud my mummy let us choose some books. I chose Indonesian stories but also a book called My life in Bali. I really liked two Balinese Hindu stories from the book. One is called Island of the Gods and the other one is called As beautiful as the moon.

Island of the Gods

Balinese people believe that there are three parts in the world. The Agung volcano at the top, a big ball in the middle and the turtle and snakes at the bottom.

The Gods live in the volcano and the ancestors too and people live on a big earth ball resting on a huge turtle and two guardian snakes around it. The people live on the earth which actually belongs to the Gods who let humans live there.

But there is one rule: the people need to balance the earth.

They can’t tip the world over by being unkind to the world like being mean to animals, pollute it with cars and motorbikes, using lots of paper which causes lots of trees to be cut down and wasting lots of tissues, cut animals fur and make war when people don’t get along.

All of this is caused by the demons that are free to come in the middle part. When everything is not going well and the world is not balanced the turtle is wriggling and when it moves it makes a huge earthquake and it destroys the world so the people living on the earth have to make lots of noise with instruments to wake up the guardian snakes. When the snakes are awake they squeeze the turtle so she cannot move anymore.

I like this story because it tells you what Hindu people in Bali believe and what we should believe too. It’s good to respect the world and it might be a true story so we can learn from it and we don’t make mistakes.

Love, Capucine