The official Five Beliefs of Indonesian Hinduism named Panca Sradha: 1. Belief in (yakin akan) the existence of Hyang Widi Wasa (the high god), 2. Belief in the existence of the soul (atman), 3. Belief in the existence of the law of karma, 4. Belief in the existence of reincarnation, 5. Belief in the existence of liberation from reincarnation (moksa).

In 1945 the first president of Indonesia, Sukarno, taking more than a little inspiration from the Five Pillars of Islam, formulated his Five Principles of the Indonesian Nation: belief in one god, humanitarianism, nationalism, consensus democracy, and social justice. This secular state philosophy, or perhaps “civil religion,” then further inspired the formulation of the Five Hindu Beliefs, reportedly unique in world Hinduism (Bakker 1993). The line between the “secular” and the “religious” has rarely been closer.

The concept of belief (kepercayaan, keyakinan) was used quite commonly. When describing the attendance of gods at rituals people would sometimes add, “That is just our Hindu belief, it cannot be proven.” Because Balinese had frequent “proofs” of the reality of their views of the world: any ritual omission could cause a member of the congregation to become possessed by a deity or follower of a deity who would convey the nature of the problem, and trance mediums enabled people to have conversations with their ancestors. For most people these were facts, not beliefs.

Recently, Balinese have been taught that religion is a matter of faith and belief, in which there can be degrees of faith. This emphasis on belief can work against other aspects of reformist thought. Balinese do not understand all the detail, what is important is that one participate and have belief.” Here, belief substitutes for religious knowledge. This ties in to the new emphasis on “sincerity” in ritual activities: if one performs one’s rituals and worship out of sincere devotion (and not just because “it’s always been done,” or out of a desire to outdo someone else in ritual expense), then God will accept it. Issues related to competitive ritual practices will be dealt with in a later chapter, but here I would like to point out some of the contradictions between this new concept and older, and still widespread, conceptions of ritual practice.

An event that befell a woman running a nearby food stand illustrates further the difficulty of understanding many aspects of Balinese relations to deities in terms of sincerity. One could argue that this woman’s family should not have been conducting a mortuary ritual during the anniversary at such a major temple.