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      Fig. 33 Kamasan, Sita’s Ordeal by Fire, mid-19th C, collected 1915, paint on cloth, 177 x 136 cm, tabing, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, coll. nr. 118-13.

      Rama stands closest to the fire, on the right, making a gesture with his hand that indicates shocked conversation. Behind him is his brother Laksmana and Rawana’s brother Wibhisana. Above them the gods Wisnu and Siwa look on, carried by a divine vehicle. Rama’s monkey allies are all around. On the ramp from which Sita has thrown herself into the fire is her companion Trijata, Rawana’s daughter, and the divine priests.

      The frequency of depictions of this painting is testimony to its importance in Bali. The scene has both emotional and religious depth, since it speaks both of the loyal purity of Sita and the sanctifying presence of Agni, the God of Fire. Sita’s loyalty is emphasized by her centrality: she and Agni are the focal points around which all the other characters are placed. Rama has to stand to one side.

      Like his morally ambiguous intervention in the fighting of Bali and Sugriwa, Rama’s doubting Sita demonstrates his fallibility, which must be challenged by divine intervention. Fire and water are the key elements of Hindu ritual. Although Balinese priestly practice tends to emphasize water, these paintings, like some of the Mahabharata scenes and the story of the burning of Smara, focus on the divine nature of fire in sacrifice, as destruction and renewal.

      Post-Mythological Stories

      The epics have layers of significance that make them appropriate to temples. Other kinds of narrative may be less sacred, but still involve forms of communication of the world beyond the senses, conveying ideas of order, action in the world and ethics. The term ‘post-mythological’, coined by Forge to describe this different level of storytelling, gives a sense of the difference in time that some Balinese ascribe to these narratives: the mythological stories belong to an ancient but eternal past, the post-mythological narratives to more recent, but still venerable, histories of Java and Bali. Traditional paintings have been described by Western writers as not illustrating daily life, but such observations were made without paying attention to what artists were interested around them.

      Calon Arang and Other Historical Stories

      One of the most potent traditional narratives is the story of Calon Arang, the widow Rangda who calls on the power of the goddess Durga. Rangda is angry that her daughter has been rejected by the great king Erlangga, and determines to take revenge. As with the Sutasoma story, this narrative reveals the presence of destructive aspects of divinity on the world, since Durga is the demonic form of Uma (Parwati), the wife of Siwa. Rangda and her witch followers bring disease and destruction to the kingdom (Fig. 34).

      Fig. 34 Sabug?, Kamasan, Calon Arang, late 19th C, paint on cloth, 37 x 714 cm, ider-ider, from Pura Dalem Bugbugan, Gelgel, Forge Collection, Australian Museum, E74124 (photo Emma Furno).

      Fig. 35 I Ketut Gede, Singaraja, Kelika (left) Honours Durga (right), before 1890, paint and ink on Dutch paper, watermark concordia ‘VdL’, 34 x 41.8 cm, Leiden University Library, UB Or3390-209.

      Assassins sent to kill Rangda in her sleep fail, and are destroyed by her. Her reign of terror goes unchecked until a powerful priest, Mpu Barada, intervenes. Barada, a Buddhist priest, has power to match Rangda’s, and forces the witch into submission.

      The Calon Arang story is best known for its performance in the dance-drama commonly referred to as Barong, in which Mpu Barada takes the form of the lion-dragon in order to subdue Rangda. The story is also performed as a particularly dangerous shadow puppet theatre, in which the puppeteer challenges the power or sakti of witches and warlocks in the community, risking his health and life. Artists who depict the power of witchcraft take similar risks, but by calling on other powers may be able to strengthen themselves (Fig. 35).

      Tantri

      Regarded, like the Calon Arang story, as about historical kings and figures, the Tantri stories are animal fables concerned with the correct conduct of people at various levels of society, particularly kings and priests. The frame story of this ‘Thousand and One Nights’ collection is the tale of an aristocratic girl, Tantri, who has been given by her father to a king whose practice it is to sleep with a virgin every night and then discard her (Fig. 36). Tantri, assisted by her old servant, defers her fate by telling the king a different tale each night. The stories are about kings and priests who do wrong, and others who act virtuously, and the frame story within a frame story is of a bull (symbolic of priesthood) and a lion (symbolic of kingship), who meet in the jungle kingdom but are incited to fight by their jackal subjects, who tell stories to each of them, creating mutual distrust. The bull and the lion ultimately fight to the death, and the king is eventually persuaded to take Tantri as his wife.⁴⁴

      In addition to depictions of Tantri and the king, and the lion and bull, the stories commonly shown from the Tantri cycle include the pretentious tortoises, who, wishing to fly, end up crashing to the earth; the hunter and the monkey stuck up a tree while fleeing from a tiger; the virtuous priest who is rewarded for helping others by being saved by those he has helped; and the stork who pretended he was a priest in order to trick fish and crabs into being eaten.

      Fig. 36 Tantri: The Bull Nandaka Meets the Jackal Subjects of the Forest Kingdom. Nandaka is a gift from Siwa to the priest who abuses the bull and, thinking it has died, has his servants cremate the bull. Nandaka revives and fights the jackals, servants of the lion king of the jungle, c. 1910, traditional paint on Balinese cloth, 26 x 577 cm, ider-ider, from a temple in Takmung, Forge Collection, Australian Museum, E74211 (photo Emma Furno).

      Fig. 37 Kamasan, The Landing of the King of Malayu at Tuban, 19th C, traditional paint on Balinese cloth, 155/164 x 144 cm, tabing, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, coll. nr. 1763-1.

      Malat

      The iconography used to depict kings and courtiers in the Calon Arang and Tantri stories is found in a variety of other narratives, most commonly the story of a prince called Panji, known as the Malat. Up until the 1930s, the Malat’s scenes of courtly life and royal behaviour, a preoccupation with warfare and marriage, were extremely popular with artists and their royal patrons, but nowadays few on Bali know the story at all.

      The main part of the Malat story is concerned with a wandering prince from Koripan, Panji, looking for his lost betrothed and cousin Rangkesari, who is princess of Daha. Panji wanders through different parts of the world, establishing alliances with some kings and princes, and waging war with others. Eventually, Rangkesari turns up, like Panji in disguise, in the court of the king of Gegelang, where Rangkesari’s brother, disguised as

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