Discovery of the biggest Hindu temple of Bali in October 2012

We are pleased to present forty photographs of the remains of the Great Temple of Bali, taken in October 26, 2012 in the property of the Vishnu high priest Ida Resi Bujangga Wisnawa Ganda Kusuma residing in Penatih in the east of Denpasar.

Workers were digging a sceptic tank when their picks hit a stone base to one meter deep. In reality this discovery happened on September 29 and not on October 23 as we can read in newspaper, narrating without investigative efforts, this very important discovery. Ida Resi Bujangga Wisnawe and his family continued to dig at various places of the family compound and discovered by themselves an important part of the ruins before alerting the Bali Archaeological Centre on October 14. Then the excavations were conducted in a more methodical manner and on October 23, the first conclusions were revealed to the local press, and then broadcast internationally on October 25.

The mysterious temple has a square base, as in East Java temples of the 14th and 15th century. It is built of stone bricks of forty centimeters wide and one meter to one meter twenty long, what is a record in Indonesia, all temples and all periods combined. The excavated wing of 22 meters indicates that the discovered temple would be from a height of about 40 meters, the approximate magnitude of the three main temples of Prambanan in Central Java!

Considering the small size of the island of Bali compared to Java, the magnitude of the discovered temple is absolutely incredible!

Reading this, obviously you will be disappointed by the pictures because unfortunately only the foundations of the Great Temple of Bali were discovered. It is important to note that no stones were found scattered around, thus ruling out the possibility of a rockslide following a natural disaster.

The director of the Bali Archaeology Centre, Made Geria, has informed us that the temple was probably dedicated to the cult of Vishnu, and it would have been built by followers of Vishnu, a Hindu movement that has almost completely disappeared in Bali and in the other Hindu communities of the archipelago (see our article written in 2004: The disturbing Bujangga Wesnave: those who follow Vishnu).

The “shocking” information reported by several people close to the “authorities” or part of it (they wish to remain anonymous…) is that a countless number of stones were stolen to serve as building material. Some places where the stones are now were already identified… as the Denpasar airport!

In reality Balinese archaeologists know for a long time that the village of Penatih protects in its lands valuable treasures from the past. Others sites near the one where the Great Temple was discovered are already known and are just waiting to be reborn from the tomb where men - and not Mother Nature - threw them into oblivion. The village of Penatih was probably in the 14th century a temple complex where the inhabitants used to come, in a town with at least one hundred thousand people.

The discovery of the Great Temple of Bali, dedicated to the cult of Vishnu, is almost for sure a false discovery. This temple of paramount importance to understand the history of Bali, very dark from 14th to 17th century, was most likely found several times during the 20th century.

According to our sources, none Indonesian or international media never talked about this crucial information. Only Discover Bali Indonesia and Bali Discover (article “Digging up Bali’s past”) reveal what we can call a nasty secret, this extraordinary eagerness to destroy the Great Temple of Bali to make it impossible to reconstruction.

Many questions arise…

• Do excavations have a real chance to be continued? … Why so little interest in this (re)discovery?
• Will the stones of the Great Temple be recovered whatever their actual locations?
• Of what puzzling parts of the History of Bali these stones are the witnesses?

Hope that the truth finally comes out of the darkness for the good of all Balinese, it is perhaps the key to find back spirits and to save the island from a fatal decadence: environment increasingly ransacked, materialism setting down slowly but surely… Bali became an island for sale, multi dimensionally speaking…

We dare to believe, with Balinese people and all lovers of this beautiful island, to a miracle that would save Bali from dangers of a time characterized by a self-destructive headlong rush.

Balinese gods are back to work since a few weeks, hope that is just the beginning!

Article written by Laurent Volk on October 30, 2012 and protected by copyright.

(Possibility to make a private or public use by mentioning clearly the source: Laurent Volk and the website of the local tour operator: www.baliauthentique.com)