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In a typical Glossary for English/Indonesian at we find this definition:
Adat - (Javanese, Indonesian) Tradition, custom.
But that is not truly, not at the heart, what Adat is all about.
To the People of Bali, this word circumfences
just about everything that is important in life.
Balinese Culture, Balinese Traditions, Balinese History and -most important-
everyone's everyday performance:
That is Adat - but only if all is done the Right
Way!
Yet Adat does not mean the same for people from different communities.
Adat maybe completely different already from one village to the next.
To live and act righly, to fullfill one's duties, secular ones and religious ones, to live with grace and honor, to follow customs of the family, the village and the land, all that and much more is Adat.
The idea of balance is central to Balinese
philosophy and way of life. Nature and Man meet and complement each other.
Good (Right, and Evil) (Bad,Wrong) as ethic concepts or
moral standards have no counterpart in Hindu Dharma Bali (Bali Rules).
Balance is more important, because nothing is only of one property.
DHARMA and ADHARMA are the best euqivalents of right and wrong, lawfull and
unlawfull.
But this subject cannot be described at any length her.
The villages are a study in order. Hidden behind the same mud walls, there will
be the same red tiles of the same family pavilions with, again thirty meters
apart, the same thatched puppet houses: the family temples (sanggah/ merajan).
Then, there will be a big tree, mostly a Banyan tree (waringin), two slit logs
hanging from its branches, with a couple of shrines under its shade and a nearby
hall:
The banjar (neighbourhood) community hall.
An atmosphere of calm, order and collective belonging prevails.
The basic Balinese territorial unit is the Desa (village),
whose surface covers both the wet land of the ricefields, and the dry land of
the compounds and related gardens, temples and roads.
To the wet land, correspond the irrigation units or Subak, and to the dry and
inhabited land, the community wards or Banjar, each with their temples and organisations.
The Balinese desa (village) is typically host to a set
of three village temples, the kahyangan tiga, each related to a focal aspect
of the village's symbolic life:
The origin with Pura Puseh (navel temple) located mountainward, where the tutelary
gods of the village and its founders are worshipped;
The territory itself with the Pura Desa, located in the centre of the village,
where meetings of the village assembly and the rituals of fertility are held;
The temple of the DEEP (Pura Dalem), located down ward (away from Mount Agung)
closed to the burial place, where offerings are being made and ceremonies are
conducted to help the dead and honor the forces of death and the netherworld.
Besides these territorial temples, there is also a temple for each banjar (bedogol
or Pura Banjar), a temple for each subak, and the various temples of the local
sub - clans (Pura Dadia or Pura Panti), each of which with its own calendar
of festivals.
All temples of the kahyangan tiga are of paramount importance
in the local rituals.
Most ceremonies, at the level of the household or of other local temples, cannot
take place before a "notification offering" (pejati) of the kahyangan
tiga.
The most important though, is arguably the Pura Desa, or village territorial
temple, as evidenced by the honor shown to its god, the Batara Visnu, who is
usually given the forefront position during the village processions of gods.
The village community (desa pekraman) corresponds in practise to the congregation
of the Pura Desa, whatever the other affiliations. It is headed by the bendesa
adat.
Much of the ritual work at the village level is shared
among the various banjar, for example, one banjar may look after the Pura Desa
for the upcoming festival and another banjar for the next one.
Each banjar redistributes the work entrusted to it to its vision of the kelian
banjar or neighbourhood headman.
No ritual activity can normally take place without the latter's involvement
and participation.
The banjar is a grouping of anything between fifty and
two hundred individual compounds. The word banjar originally referred to a row
of houses, thus to the physical clustering of compounds into a neighborhood,
with a temple and a community.
Nowadays, most of these banjars have split, and the banjar community is no more
strictly territorial.
Two banjars can occupy the same territory, and banjar members sometimes live
kilometres away from the core of community.
The banjar makes up an association called the "banjar suka duka" or "the association for the sharing of joy and pain" This refers to the function played by the group in the performing of specific social services or work the ayahan within the larger structure of the village (desa). These bonds are arguably the most important of all found in the network of village associations.
The basic social unit of the banjar is the couple (pekurenan).
Only married couples are full banjar members and subjected to the banjar rights
and obligations. The decisions are taken by the assembly (sangkep) of the banjar's
male members, the krama banjar, which usually takes place every 35 days.
The decisions are taken on the basis of unanimity.
The banjar is now, since 1979, the lowest administrative structure of the national
indonesian administration, directly under the authority of the perbekel / lurah
(supra - village head) and beyond the traditional village headman (Bendesa Adat).
There are also two types of Kelian Banjar, the Kelian Dinas, who is in charge
of the administrative aspects of the banjar life,
and the Kelian Adat, who looks after the customary aspects in collaboration
with the bendesa adat.
They usually work hand in hand, unless the two roles are assumed by the same
person.
All of the above mentioned with all that complexity
and much more,
all of that together is part of the concept of Adat.
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