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Taman Ayun “the great royal temple”

Submitted by kiwi freelancer on Thursday, 24 April 20083 Comments

Pura Taman Ayun is the great royal temple is located about 10 kilometres from Denpasar on the road to Singaraja via Bedugul. The name itself means beautiful garden.
the royal temple of Taman Ayun was a psychic map of the power points of the kingdom. Each power point was represented by a multiple roofed tower called a meru. The main one was for Mt Agung, the highest mountain in Bali.
Its eleven tiers represented the eight directions, up, down and centre the totality of outer and inner space. This meant that the Power of Mt Agung filled all space, for the mountain was linked to the original home of the gods in the Himalayan Mountains, India. It was not in the kingdom of Mengwi, but it was the binding force that held Bali together, and Mengwi was a part of that unity. Other merus represented the dominant natural features in the Mengwi kingdom, or regions of landscape that held special power.
They expressed the total environment of the place – the mountains and lakes which were the source of fertility and water for crops, the slopes and plains where people lived and the ocean and underground that gladly accepted the refuse of the more elevated areas. Smaller than the merus, but more substantial, stood the padme for the Sun, with merus and pavillions surrounding it.
The temple contained a structure for the royal family and one for the Batu clan. The story is that, when the founder of the Mengwi kingdom was carving out territory for his dynasty, he sometimes fought in single combat. One such fight was against Pasek Badak, a noted warrior who, on finding that he was beaten, agreed to yield to death if he was given a place in the royal temple. In return, he agreed to give his spirit to impregnate 40 followers of the king. This was agreed and 40 men were chosen to form the Bait clan.
It is built on a high table land which is surrounded by ponds. Built in the 17th century by Gusti Agung Anom, a founder of the Mengwi kingdom in 1934, and were skilfully and renovated in later years, giving its present appearance which tourists find so attractive and interesting , the temple served as the family temple of the Mengwi dynasty , whose kingdom survived until the late 1800s.

The temple is famous for its exquisite wooden There are multi-roofed structures, some of them having eleven roofs called ‘meru meru The temple has an ideal recreational garden, the air is cool and the still waters provide a safe environment for all sorts of aquatic creatures which live in the ponds.The central section is surrounded by a small pond, thus the whole complex is symbolic of the great Mandhara Mountain turning in a sea of milk.In the innermost court, there are twenty nine buildings which function as places for the gods and goddesses.There are other buildings which house religious regalia used in the ceremonies.
Like other temples Bali, Taman Ayun was not a structure but a walled area of ground. The buildings were not sacred the land itself was sacred. It is probable that even walls did not fit the original concept because, when primitive king barongs visited Mengwi, they refused to go through temple doorways and climbed walls to reach temple courtyards.
Every 210 days, the gods of the power points were invited to come to Taman Ayun to lodge for four days in their merus, to be fed, entertained and receive the adoration of family groups of villagers and to hear their requests.