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Agama Hindu Dharma is the formal name of Hinduism in Indonesia. It is practised by 93% of the population of Bali, but also in Sumatra, Java (especially by the Tenggerese people on the east), and Kalimantan. Although, officially, only about 3% of Indonesian population is Hindu, those following Hindu traditional beliefs together with their nominal religion is more than 30%. This group lives mainly in Java, which forms the majorty of the Javanese Muslims, are known as Abangan or Santri which means " Easy_going muslims".
The advent of Soeharto's 'new order' resulted in an increasing Indonesianisation of both Hindu Dharma and Parisada Hindu Dharma, partly due to the fact that every Indonesian citizen was now required to be a registered member of one of the five acknowledged religious communities (Islam, Christianity [i.e. Protestantism], Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism). Inspired by the glorious Hindu Javanese past, a large number of Javanese converted to Hinduism in the 1960s and 1970s. When the adherents of the ethnic religions Aluk To Dolo (Sa'dan Toraja) and Kaharingan (Ngaju, Luangan) claimed official recognition of their traditions, the Ministry of Religion classified them as Hindu variants in 1968 and 1980. Due to Hindu missionary work by Balinese and Indians living in Medan, several members of the Karo in North Sumatra started to embrace Hinduism in 1977. Having become a truly national representative of Hinduism, the Parisada Hindu Dharma changed its name to Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia in 1984.
Practitioners of Agama Hindu Dharma share many common beliefs, which include:
- A belief in one supreme being called “Ida Sanghyang Widi Wasa,” “ Sang Hyang Tunggal,” or “Sang Hyang Cintya.”
- A belief that all of the gods are manifestations of this supreme being.
- A belief in the Tri Murti, consisting of:
- Brahma, the creator
- Wisnu or Vishnu, the preserver
- Ciwa or Shiva, the destroyer
- A belief in all of the other Hindu gods and goddesses (Dewa and Bharata)
The sacred texts found in Agama Hindu Dharma are the Vedas. Only two of the Vedas reached Bali in the past, and they are the basis of Balinese Hinduism. Other sources of religious information include the Puranas and the Itihasa (mainly Ramayana and the Mahabharata).
Conversion to Hinduism
It is interesting to study conversion to Hinduism in two close and culturally similar regions, the Yogyakarta region, where only sporadic conversions to Hinduism had taken place, and the Klaten region, which has witnessed the highest percentage of Hindu converts in Java. It has been argued that this dissimilarity was related to the difference in the perception of Islam among the Javanese population in each region. Since the mass killings of 1965-1966 in Klaten had been far more awful than those in Yogyakarta, in Klaten the political landscape had been far more politicized than in Yogyakarta. Because the killers in Klaten were to a large extent identified with Islam, the people in this region did not convert to Islam, but preferred Hinduism (and Christianity).
See Also
External links - Murni's in Bali: Balinese Religion (http://www.murnis.com/culture/articlebalinesereligion.htm)
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