Bali Budget Room

Balinese Culture use specially processed palm leaves known as lontar to record details for future preservation. Lontar (Palm leaf manuscripts) functioned like a book used by Balinese community to record every event and immortalize literary works.

On the palm leaf is inscribed any proceedings so that they can be learned by the following generations. Lontar is deeply venerated by Balinese, anyone who wishes to read lontar regularly needs to undergo a consecration ritual (mawinten)

 

which must be performed by a brahman priest. Lontar cannot be sold or thrown away when damaged but it can be burned with proper ceremony and offerings.

Lontar is still being used in Bali for rendering texts, especially those which are considered sacred such as history of a clan, religious practices, magic related-incantations, parts of Ramayana or Mahabharata epic, information on horoscopes, soothsaying and calendars, technical literature, science, instruction, medicine, cock fighting, etc.

Nowdays, the popularity of lontar increases due to the growing tendency of older Balinese to transcribe and transliterate the text in relation with religious practices, atman and moksha (soul and liberation), medicine, clan history and classical literature in Old Javanese from paper to lontar. This activity is considered a religious penance in order to gain more insight to the religion and hopefully lead to proper religious conduct that will clear the path of the soul to Sunyaloka (realm of nothingness).