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Report n°5 : "Water : symbolism and culture"

The permanence of water symbolism in Cambodia and Bali

In an article retracing the life and death of the hydrological city of Angkor, Jacques Nepote(122) highlights the "great religious significance of this city", "a veritable rice factory", and its relationship to pre-Indian cosmology, explaining that "water flows down from the mountain of the gods to the world of men, enabling them to enjoy the fruits of the earth, before it rejoins the cosmic ocean. " For this reason, the centre of the city is taken up by the "temple-mountain". The royal religion, in parallel with hydraulic efficiency, aimed at amicrocosm of monumental architecture to ensure abundant harvests, but deforestation, technical problems, demography, etc. led to the ruin and abandonment of the city and prompted the author's conclusion of a "wearing down of the symbolic/religious structure and hence of the political structure" of Angkor.

This is perhaps true of this city based on and around water.

Yet the religious and political symbolism of water is still very much alive in Cambodia.

The Financial Times of 31 October 2004 featured a large photograph of former King Norodom Sihanouk, in traditional costume, pouring holy water over the head of his son Norodom Sihamoni, a former dancing instructor in Paris, on the occasion of his coronation.

To the east of Cambodia, in Bali, the most significant religious monuments are to be found in the region of irrigated rice-paddies.The subak is a thousand year-old institution which acts as "village council", "water council" and "irrigation society" all in one.In fact, it is a kind of village on the water, a "wet village" as opposed to the "dry village" where the rice farmers live.The subak, or wet village, is divided into neighbourhoods, the tempeks, which are made up of tenahs, elementary units each containing the same volume of water. In the subak, there is only one major canal.

At the same time, however, the subak is also a religious unit and every agricultural task (sowing, planting out, harvesting, etc.) is performed with the assistance of the priest (pemangku) and as part of a specific celebration. Balinese irrigation relies on a complex system consisting of temples at each fork in the water distribution network. Thus there are little pillars for offerings at every sluice-gate (chatu), temples at the source of one or more subaks (pura ulun sharik) and sanctuaries where several subaks may pray (pura penyungsungan subak). Each phase in the growing cycle of the rice is accompanied by the appropriate rituals. The calendar of such rituals within a catchment area makes it possible to stagger the supply of water throughout the growing period.

The subak is, in essence, a religious, social and agrarian organisation.

The main ecological effect of the subak consists in stabilising demand for water over the farming year instead of allowing demand to fluctuate dangerously. The result is that when the crops are being harvested higher up the mountain, lower down the farmers are celebrating the yellowing of the plants.

Finally, it is important to note that the subak has nothing in common with the collective farm in which peasant farmers are regimented, Chinese-style.All farmers participate in the decisions made and each landowner has a voice, regardless of the size of his farm(123-124).

122 "La conquête de l'eau" (under the direction of Jean-Paul Gandin), Dossier for debate no. 44, Fondation pour le progrès de l'homme, Paris, 1995.

123 Jean Chesnaux, "Où en est la discussion sur le mode de production asiatique?", La Pensée, no.129, October 1966, p.33-46.

124 Clifford G. Geertz, "Bali:le subak, une organisation sociale et religieuse vouée à la culture irriguée" in "La conquête de l'eau", Dossier for debate no.44, Fondation Charles-Léopold Mayer, Paris, 1995.