{"id":1034,"date":"2019-07-17T04:39:13","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T04:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/?p=1034"},"modified":"2025-07-15T01:24:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T01:24:30","slug":"galungan-one-balis-important-holidays-unique-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/galungan-one-balis-important-holidays-unique-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Galungan. One of Bali&#8217;s Most Important Holidays and Its Unique Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those who have been on the island of Gods for quite a while now must have already heard about \u201cGalungan\u201d at least once. Galungan is the name of a Balinese holiday which is celebrated every 210 days \u2013 one Balinese year. This is the day where Balinese people celebrate <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dharma<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> over <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Adharma <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Good over Evil).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Hinduism mythology, there was an evil god named <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mayadenawa<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> who wanted to be worshipped. Mayadenawa forbade people from praying to God. This situation made Bhatara Indra \u2013 the God of war in Hinduism mythology \u2013 descend to earth and defeat Mayadenawa. This victory was later celebrated as Galungan Day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although it is called Galungan Day, the celebration ceremony actually lasts for 10 days, with the preparation ceremony starting 25 days earlier, which means a total of 35 days of celebration. Normally, all schools in Bali are closed for two weeks around this time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are a couple things that you will notice around this period. The obvious one is the beautiful <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Penjor &#8211; <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0the bamboo poles with offerings attached on it. You will find Penjor lined up on all the roads all over Bali around the time of Galungan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another beautiful custom on Galungan is the practicing of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Barong Dance, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">also known as <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ngelawang<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. You\u2019ll see groups of kids going around the village parading Barong featuring <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Panthera\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">panther<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">-like mask and costume worn by two people dancing from door to door. This is a delightful expression of Balinese creativity. As they dance from one spot to another, people usually give the children a small donation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This year, Galungan Day is on the 24<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of July. So starting from the middle of July, you\u2019ll see some street ornaments indicating that Galungan Day is just around the corner.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those who have been on the island of Gods for quite a while now must&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/galungan-one-balis-important-holidays-unique-traditions\/\">Read the post<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Galungan. One of Bali&#8217;s Most Important Holidays and Its Unique Traditions<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,3,27,47,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1040,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions\/1040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalbali.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}