Rangda

From the 5^th century on, traders, priests and adventurers sailing from India and China brought to Bali and Java a variety of Hindu and Buddhist ideas and practices which is adapted and assimilated into the Balinese culture. For well over half a millennium, the Island of Bali has cultivated their own unique form of Hinduism, compromising a complex tapestry of belief systems and combining ancient traditions into the religion.

Rangda is the demon queen of the Leyaks, ghost like figures in Bali mythology that appear as humans during the day but at night their head and entrails break free from their bodies and fly around cemeteries and villages. She is a spirit of evil from the Indonesian pantheon. Terrifying to behold, the child-eating Rangda leads an army of evil witches against the leader of the forces of good — Barong.

The battle between Barong and Rangda is featured in a Barong dance which represents the eternal battle between good and evil. As a basic element of the Balinese Hindu cosmology, Rangda is linked in eternal battle with her counterpart, ough not obviously gendered, Barong is understood as male and depicted as a fun loving shaggy four-legged dragon-lion with an ornate feathery tail, and the embodiment of positive and constructive forces.

The two fight in this traditional dance in a struggle for spiritual equilibrium that is at core of all Balinese ceremonies. They two appear in many ceremonies and dances including The Barong Dance, Legong Smarandana, Calon Arang, Wayang Calon Arang, Barong Landung and many others.

Rangda is important in Balinese culture, and performances depicting her struggles with Barong or with Airlangga are popular tourist attractions as well as tradition. As much as the artwork in Bali, the Rangda mask is layered with symbolism. She is depicted as a mostly nude old woman, with long and unkempt hair, pendulous breasts, and claws. Her face is traditionally a horrifying fanged and goggle-eyed mask, with a long, protruding tongue. The large protruding eyes represent anger, cruelty and self centeredness. The long white boar-like fangs remind us she is merciless wild beast. And her meter-long blood-red tongue of fire represents her eternal insatiable hunger.

While Rangda is seen as fearsome and by many as the personification of evil, she is also nevertheless considered a protective force in certain parts of Bali, much like Kali is seen as a benevolent mother goddess of fertility and destruction in Northeastern India in Assam, Tripura. The colors associated with her — white, black and red — are identical with those associated with Kali. Her iconography is similar to that of both Kali and Chamunda, who are closely related.

Rangda, is the term from ancient high Balinese and the old Javanese language, Kawi, that means ‘widow’. Rangda is the female embodiment of divine negative energy. Rangda is a very important figure in Balinese mythology and healing traditions. She is the dramatic manifestation of the Goddess of the underworld, Durga, and is the demon queen of the Leyaks.

An important, but difficult, thing to remember about Balinese religion and mysticism is that no god or demon is all good or all bad. In fact, the words demon and witch are a poor translation in English. How is it possible that something has is partly good when their head and entrails fly around and haunt villagers? And she also eats children and also leads an army of evil witches that are forever in battle against the forces of ‘good’.

The eternal conflict between Rangda and Barong extends far beyond a simple battle of good and evil. Although they represent rival ideologies that can be viewed as positive and negative, they are portrayed by the Balinese as inseparable and symbiotic forces that could not exist in isolation from one another. Like Yin and Yang, each contains elements of the other : Rangda can heal as well as to destroy, and Barong’s protective power has the potential to be misused as well. There is never a winner in these battles as the state of equilibrium is an ongoing struggle.

Rangda & Calon Arang

Rangda, known as the Leyak queen, was linked to the legend of Calon Arang and also the legend of divorced and exiled Javanese queen Mahendradatta. Rangda is known as the incarnation of Calon Arang, the legendary witch that wreaked havoc in ancient Java during the reign of Airlangga in late 10^th century. It is said that Calon Arang was a widow, who had mastered the art of black magic, who often damaged farmers’ crops, and caused disease to come. She had a daughter, named Ratna Manggali, who, though beautiful, could not get a husband because people were afraid of her mother. Because of the difficulties faced by her daughter, Calon Arang was angry and she intended to take revenge by kidnapping a young girl. She brought the girl to a temple of Death to be sacrificed to the goddess Durga. The next day, a great flood engulfed the village and many people died and disease also appeared.

King Airlangga, who had heard of this matter, then asked for his advisor, Empu Bharada, to deal with this problem. Empu Bharada then sent his disciple, Empu Bahula, to be married to Ratna. Both were married with a huge feast that lasted seven days and seven nights, and the situation returned to normal. Calon Arang had a book that contained magic incantations. One day this book was found by Empu Bahula who turned it over to Empu Bharada. As soon as Calon Arang knew that the book had been stolen, she became angry and decided to fight Empu Bharada. Without the help of Durga, Calon Arang was defeated. Since she was defeated, the village was safe from the threat of Calon Arang’s black magic.

Other interpretations claim that Rangda was actually derived from the historical 11th-century queen Mahendradatta or Gunapriyadharmapatni, a Javanese princess sister of Dharmawangsa of East Javanese Isyana Dynasty of late Medang Kingdom period. She was the queen consort of Balinese king Udayana and Airlangga’s own mother. Mahendradatta is known for her devotion to the cult of Durga in Bali. The story goes that Mahendradatta, the mother of Airlangga, was condemned and exiled by the king, Udayana, for allegedly practicing witchcraft and black magic. After she became a widow, hurt and humiliated, she sought revenge upon her ex-husband’s court and the whole of his kingdom. She summoned all the evil spirits in the jungle, the Leyaks and the demons, that caused plague and death in the kingdom. She proceeded to take her revenge by killing off half the kingdom, which by then belonged to her and Dharmodayana’s son Airlangga, with plague before being overcome by a holy man. Though interpreted as good versus evil, the two sides are more equivocal and Barong’s victory over Rangda is never regarded as conclusive.

The Calon Arang story is often performed during odalan temple anniversaries. By midnight the community gathers in the outer courtyard of the temple. The ‘show’ starts in a nerve-jangling atmosphere as a scene depicts villagers falling victim one by one to the black magic spell cast by Calon Arang.

The performance often reaches its culmination in the famous self-stabbing dance where the villagers, incited to a blind rage attack Rangda, who casts a spell over them with her white magic scarf. Finally the villagers begin to stab themselves with their wavy bladed kris daggers, as Rangda has the power to make the people turns against themselves. It ends near daybreak when it depicts the Barong successfully defeating the evil widow.