- MELASTI procession is held to sources of water to purify impurities of human self, ritual paraphernalia and sanctified effigies
- Long marching people in white praying clothes look so beautiful and photographically attractive
If you happen to see a procession of Hindus at villages going to a water sources while carrying sacred objects, carrying umbrella and lelontek, it is called a melasti ceremony.
Melasti is a self-purification ceremony, paraphernalia and sacred objects (pralingga or pratima of deities) before the implementation of the piodalan ceremony at the temple or welcoming the Nyepi day.
The sacred objects are carried to melasti destinations in the form of water sources such as springs, lakes, rivers or beaches. The purpose of this ceremony is to purify all the impurities of human and the paraphernalia by using the water of life.
Meanwhile, all the participants or Hindu devotees who participate the procession put on white clothes or traditional worship clothes.
After carrying out the melasti ceremony which ends with a prayer together, the pratima and all the paraphernalia are carried back to the temple.
In the Sundarigama and Shanghyang Aji Swamandala palm-leaf manuscripts, it is stated that melasti is the process of increasing Sraddha (faith) and Bhakti (devotion) to the gods and manifestations of God to eliminate all suffering and mental defilements.
Optionally, the melasti procession is accompanied by baleganjur gamelan orchestra. With this accompaniment, the dynamic tone of the gamelan seems to encourage all the followers. So, the fatigue caused by walking in such a distance will not be felt.
In the manuscript written in Old Javanese is also stated that the melasti ceremony should be preceded by worshiping God with all its manifestations on the melasti journey in order to follow the guidance of the gods as a manifestation of God.
Melasti also contains life values believed to reduce the five bad human traits. Hindus believe that five bad qualities are the cause of drunkenness, namely Asmita (selfishness), Avidya (darkness), Raga (lust), Dwesa (irritable and vengeful nature), and Adhinivesa (fear without cause). Through the Melasti procession, people hope to melt away all bad qualities before carrying out the next ceremony.
Socially, the melasti ceremony is expected to be able to motivate people ritually and spiritually in order to eliminate social diseases, such as inequality between groups, enmity between groups as well as epidemics of disease that afflict en masse.
