The Caste system in Bali and Complicated Balinese name

Do you know Balinese has no family names, but they have complicated system in naming because of the caste system.

Generally speaking there are four groups of people in Bali. The three upper groups are called “Triwangsa” i.e the Brahmin, the Ksatriya and the Wesya caste. In India these groups are called “triwarna”, the three colors.

Every group of the Triwangsa has its own title. A Brahmin male is called Ida Bagus and a Brahmin has Ida ayu in front of her name. If one seen the name Ida Bagus Kaler, one knows that this man is a male of the Brahmin caste, because Ida indicates that he is of the Brahmin caste, Bagus means that the person is a male and Kaler is his real name. If the name is Ida Ayu Jepun one immediately knows that the person is a female, indicated by the word Ayu.

“Dewa” indicates a Ksatriya male and “Dewa Ayu” means a female Ksatriya. A Wesya male has the words Gusti Bagus before his real name and Gusti Ayu is for female Wesya. Two other indicator are “I” for males and “Ni” for females.
Sometimes the word “I” is considered honoric. A man feels better if his name is written I Gusti Bagus Lonod than when his name just Gusti Bagus Lonod.

The fourth group is the Sudra group. Luckily unlike India, Bali has no fifth group, the Paria. The Sudra has no title, but the group has own peculiarity. The Sudra people put in front of their names the words gede, Wayan or Putu for the first born. Nengah or Made indicates the second born. Nyoman is for the third and and Ketut is for the fourth born. The “I” and “Ni” prefixes also apply to this group.

Bali has no family names. If the father is Gede Dauh, none of his children bears the name Dauh. They have names of their own, e.g. Gede Kaler or Nyoman Dangin.

The caste system in India was originally a division of labour. If one learned to read and write he become a teacher or priest; he belonged to the Brahmin caste. If one was strong and liked to fight he was assigned to protect and rule the country, then he belonged to the Ksatriya group. The merchantsm the economists and those who saw to the prosperity of the country by producing food were grouped into Wesya. The Sundras were the labourers who helped the Triwarna or triwangsa. The Varian (Parias) were so low in the social ladder that they were only good for the dirtiest work.

Bali, being Hindu, still has the caste system, but the line dividing the castes is not very clear any more. The castes are not strictly observed . Formerly internarriage between castes very seldom happened, because it was a crime when a man of lower caste married a girl of higher caste.

Since the independence of Indonesia the Central Government does not recognize this as a crime. Nowadays there is much more intermarriage between castes. The caste system was introduced to Bali with the arrival of Majapahit nobles after the conquest of Bali by Gajah Mada, the famous Prime Minister of Mojopahit, the last Hindu kingdom of east Java.

The nobles were sent to rule Bali in the name of the kings of Mojopahit. They were called Aryas and they took with them their courtiers and they continued to live in Bali as they were used to in the courts of Mojopahit. Their descendents still proudly proclaim themselves descendants of Arya Kenceng, Arya damar, Arya Belog and other Aryas who were sent to Bali to rule.

Anyone who wants to be counted as somebody in Bali proclaim himself to be a descendant of Mojopahit. The people do this to distinguish themselves from the Bali Aga, the Balinese who did not want to have very much to do with the new rulers and for these reasons they retreated into mountains.

The rulers of Mojopahit brought with them to Bali their court manners and language and greatly influenced the Balinese language. With the fall of Mojopahit in early 16th century the royal family, the nobilities and those who did want to be converted into Islam fled to Bali and brought with them their culture included their books, written on “lontar” leaves in old Javanese. In Bali it is called Kawi, a language still widely read but not spoken. This Mojopahit culture still lives in the Balinese culture of today.