Besakih

About

Pura Besakih is the largest, most important, and holiest temple complex of Balinese Hinduism. It rises along the south-western flank of Gunung Agung, the towering volcano that the Balinese revere as the spiritual centre of the island, in the village of Besakih in eastern Bali.

It is not a single shrine but an extensive sacred precinct: twenty-three separate but interconnected pura (temples), arrayed up the mountainside on six terraced levels at nearly 1,000 metres of elevation. The most important among them is Pura Penataran Agung, the great central temple, where the principal ceremonies of the complex unfold.

Approach to the temple is marked by a tall candi bentar — the split gateway that frames so much of Balinese sacred architecture. Beyond it, the Kori Agung gateway opens into the second courtyard, and a long axis of stairways and courts continues upward toward the highest sanctuaries on the volcano's shoulder.

Significance

Often called the 'Mother Temple of Bali', Besakih sits at the apex of the network of pura that defines Balinese Hindu life. Its position on Gunung Agung — the cosmic centre of the Balinese world — and its role in island-wide ceremonies make it the spiritual axis around which Bali's traditional calendar of worship turns.