Jagaraga Dalem Temple

Jagaraga Dalem Temple Buleleng

Jagaraga Dalem temple environment has unique ways of reliefs of ancient cars driven by an armed man, the aircraft crashed relief, and relief of Dutch people drinking beer and others. Also sculpture “Men Brayut” Balinese story about a mother with many young kids hang on and have carried all.

Location:

Dalem Jagaraga Temple is located in Jagaraga Village, sub-district of Sawan, Buleleng, 11 km east of Singaraja.

Pura Dalem Jagaraga: A story told by Ketut Suradnya

Pura Dalem Jagaraga. A story told by Ketut Suradnya, guardian of the temple ‘of the dead’ Ketut Suradnya is the devoted guardian of the Jagaraga temple in the village of Jagaraga in the subdistrict of Sawan, twenty kilometers east of the city of Singaraja.

Ketut Suradnya:” This temple has high historical value. It attracts many local and foreign visitors every year who recognize the historical value of the temple and who come to commemorate the, at times, disturbingly bloody history of the area.

It is estimated that the temple was first established in the year 1181. The temple is a silent witness of the historical journey of the Buleleng kingdom that has Singaraja as its capital city.

Many historical events are depicted on the temple walls (penyengker pura), like the events that happened during the heroic fights the people of north Bali put up against Dutch troops. The big battles against the Dutch troops broke out on the 16th of April 1848 and were led by Gusti Ketut Jelantik, I Gusti Lanang Sura, I Gusti Ketut Intaran, Jero Jempiring and Jero Tilem.

After losing the battle against the Dutch troops over the city of Singaraja, the remaining troops fled to Sukapura which today is called Jagaraga village. The place became a bastion of the kingdom of Buleleng. It was many times attacked by Dutch troops but they managed to keep it from invasion for a long time.

This is now signified in the current name the village — Jagaraga. Jaga means to maintain, and raga means meaningfull self. Jagaraga stand for ‘keeping watch on yourself’. It eventually came to a ‘puputan’ (fight to the death) that is known as the ‘puputan Jagaraga’ and the Jagaraga temple is dedicated to this puputan.

The temple used to have a pond around it called madu segara but it was damaged during the war. Deep trenches were dug with deadly traps in it to defend the village and the people. They also built a fortress which was called Kapit Surang and which extended from one side to the other side of the graveyard of the village.

Today the pond is gone and the temple is surrounded by rice fields. The Jagaraga Temple of the Dead is built from sandstone and the ornamentation depicts an interesting storyline. Since people were determined to describe the happenings around the attacks on the kingdom as precise as possible there are sections of the temple walls that show rather modern means of transportations (for a twelfth century temple) such as fighter planes, motor cycles and cars.

According to the temple’s guardian it could be that people in the area around the temple had never seen such means of transportation until the attacks started. After the war, in 1849 the citizens of Jagaraga had to rebuild their village as well as the temple.

To commemorate the casualties on both sides it was decided to rebuild part of the village’s Pura Dalem in a different architectural style but keeping the shape and form of the original building. Sculptured panels show the everyday life of people before, during and after the war.

Inside the temple is a Prajapati or spirit house that traditionally should haven been built on the graveyard but was probably built inside the temple walls because of the war that brought an emergency situation.

This renovation was not completed until 1865 but unfortunately the earthquake that hit the area in 1976 also hit the Pura Dalem of Jagaraga. The upper part of the temple building collapsed and the temple needed restoration again. It has been believed for a very long time that the Jagaraga temple holds a strong positive aura.

This is shown by the number of villagers and foreigners who flock to the temple for meditation and contemplation. The Pura Dalem of Jagaraga is definitely worth a visit.

Ketut Suradnya along with two of his friends will always be around to give you a tour and talk with great enthusiasm and dedication about this unique building. If not around the temple grounds, Ketut can be found in the local elementary school, number 1.