A balinese ‘call to prayer’: Sounding religious nationalism and local identity in the Puja Tri Sandhya

Abstract

This article examines the Puja Tri Sandhya, a Balinese Hindu prayer that has been broadcast into the soundscape of Bali since 2001. By charting the development of the prayer, this paper summarizes the religious politics of post-independence Indonesia, which called for the Balinese to adopt the Puja Tri Sandhya as a condition for religious legitimacy in the new nation. The Puja Tri Sandhya is likened to a Balinese “call to prayer” and compared to Muslim and Christian soundings of religion in the archipelago to assert how these broadcasts sonically reify the national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (“Unity in Diversity”), and participate in a sounding of religious nationalism. Although these broadcasts are evidence of a state-sponsored form of religiosity, interviews concerning the degree to which individuals practice the Puja Tri Sandhya point to an element of secularism and position the prayer as an example that challenges the religion versus secularism dichotomy in studies of religious nationalism. This article also examines the sonic components of the Puja Tri Sandhya (when it is sounded, the vocal style, and the gendér wayang and genta bell accompaniment), to argue how these elements infuse this invented display of religiosity with authority and facilitate a mediation between technology, space, and local identity amidst national religious requirements. Exploration of the gendér wayang accompaniment in particular, further confirms the contrived nature of the Puja Tri Sandhya and demonstrates how technologies used to broadcast the prayer have had a significant impact on the gender wayang musical tradition itself.