Sunda Pangolin

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Bali was inhabited around 2000 BC by Austronesian peoples who migrated originally from the island of Taiwan to Southeast Asia and Oceania through Maritime Southeast Asia. Stone tools dating from this time have been found near the village of Cekik in the island's west. In ancient Bali, nine Hindu sects existed: the Pasupata, Bhairawa, Siwa Shidanta, Vaishnava, Bodha, Brahma, Resi, Sora, and Ganapatya. Inscriptions from 896 and 911 do not mention a king until 914, when Sri Kesarivarma, a contemporary of the Kesari dynasty in the Kalinga Kingdom of ancient India, is mentioned. They also reveal an independent Bali, with a distinct dialect, being influenced by the Sanskrit and Pali languages, where Buddhism and Shaivism were practiced simultaneously. Mpu Sindok's great-granddaughter, Mahendradatta (Gunapriyadharmapatni), married the Bali king Udayana Warmadewa (Dharmodayanavarmadeva) around 989, giving birth to Airlangga around 1001. This marriage also brought more Hinduism and Javanese culture to Bali. Balinese culture was strongly influenced by Indian, Chinese, and particularly Kalinga Hindu culture, beginning around the 1st century AD. The Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit Empire (1293–1520 AD) on eastern Java founded a Balinese colony in 1343. Mass Javanese immigration to Bali occurred in the next century when the Majapahit Empire fell in 1520. Bali's government then became an independent collection of Hindu kingdoms, which led to a Balinese national identity and major enhancements in culture, arts, and economy. The nation with various kingdoms became independent for up to 386 years until 1906, when the Dutch subjugated and repulsed the natives for economic control and took it over.

In Their Own Story

In 1597, the Dutch merchant-explorer Cornelis de Houtman arrived at Bali, and the Dutch East India Company was established in 1602. Dutch political and economic control over Bali began in the 1840s on the island's north coast when the Dutch pitted various competing Balinese realms against each other. In June 1860, the famous Welsh naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, travelled to Bali from Singapore, landing at Buleleng on the north coast of the island. Wallace's trip to Bali was instrumental in helping him devise his Wallace Line theory. In his travel memoir The Malay Archipelago, Wallace wrote: 'I was astonished and delighted; as my visit to Java was some years later, I had never beheld so beautiful and well-cultivated a district out of Europe. A slightly undulating plain extends from the seacoast about ten or twelve miles (16 or 19 kilometres) inland, where it is bounded by a fine range of wooded and cultivated hills. Houses and villages, marked out by dense clumps of coconut palms, tamarind and other fruit trees, are dotted about in every direction; while between them extend luxurious rice grounds, watered by an elaborate system of irrigation that would be the pride of the best-cultivated parts of Europe.' The Dutch mounted large naval and ground assaults at the Sanur region in 1906 and were met by the thousands of members of the royal family and their followers, who, rather than yield to the superior Dutch force, committed ritual suicide (puputan) to avoid the humiliation of surrender. Despite Dutch demands for surrender, an estimated 200 Balinese killed themselves rather than surrender. In the Dutch intervention in Bali, a similar mass suicide occurred in the face of a Dutch assault in Klungkung.

Reader's Guide

Bali is the only Hindu-majority province in Indonesia, with 86.40% of the population adhering to Balinese Hinduism. It is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music. The Indonesian International Film Festival is held every year in Bali. Other international events that have been held in Bali include Miss World 2013, the 2018 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, and the 2022 G20 summit. In March 2017, Tripadvisor named Bali as the world's top destination in its Traveler's Choice award, which it earned once again in January 2021 and 2026. Bali is part of the Coral Triangle, an area with high diversity of marine species, mainly fish and turtles. In this area alone, over 500 reef-building coral species can be found. For comparison, this is about seven times as many as in the entire Caribbean. Bali is the home of the Subak irrigation system, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is also home to a unified confederation of kingdoms composed of 10 traditional royal Balinese houses, each house ruling a specific geographic area. The confederation is the successor of the Bali Kingdom. The royal houses, which originated before Dutch colonisation, are not recognised by the government of Indonesia.

Did You Know?

• The name Bali is attested in ancient Balinese inscriptions as part of the compound Vāli-dvīpa, where Sanskrit dvīpa means 'island'.
• One of the earliest attestations of Vāli-dvīpa occurs in the Belanjong (Blanjong) pillar inscription, dated to Saka year 835 / Phalguna month, under King Sri Kesari Warmadewa (c. 914 CE).
• Bali is the only Hindu-majority province in Indonesia, with 86.40% of the population adhering to Balinese Hinduism.
• Over 500 reef-building coral species can be found in the Coral Triangle area around Bali—about seven times as many as in the entire Caribbean.
• The Subak irrigation system in Bali is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.