PRIESTS AND PROGRAMMERS This page intentionally left blank PRIESTS AND PROGRAMMERS TECHNOLOGIES OF POWER IN THE ENGINEERED LANDSCAPE OF BALI With a new foreword by William C. Clark and a new preface by the author /. Stephen Lansing PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD Copyright © 1991 by Princeton University Press Foreword © 2007 by Princeton University Press Preface to the 2007 Edition © 2007 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY All Rights Reserved First edition, 1991 Reprinted, with a new foreword and preface, 2007 ISBN-13: 978-0-691-13066-8 ISBN-10: 0-691-13066-3 The Library of Congress has cataloged the first edition of this book as follows Lansing, John Stephen. Priests and programmers : technologies of power in the engineered landscape of Bali / J. Stephen Lansing. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-691-09466-7 (cl.) — ISBN 0-691-02863-X (pbk.) 1. Rites and ceremonies—Indonesia—Bali (Province). 2. Irrigation—Indonesia—Bali (Province)—Management. 3. Irrigation—Indonesia—Bali (Province)—Religious aspects. 4. Temples—Indonesia—Bali (Province). 5. Bali (Indonesia : Province)—Politics and government. I. Title. GN635.I65L35 1991 306.3'49—dc20 91-9993 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Linotron Sabon Printed on acid-free paper. <=» press.princeton.edu Printed in the United States of America 13579 10 8642 For Therese de Vet This page intentionally left blank The test case for a theory of rationality with which the modern understanding of the world is to ascertain its own universality would certainly include throwing light on the opaque figures of mythical thought, clarifying the bizarre expressions of alien cultures, and indeed in such a way that we not only comprehend the learning processes which separate "us" from them, but also become aware of what we have unlearned in the course of this learning. (Jiirgen Habermas, The Tasks of a Critical Theory) om sarwa prani hitangkaram (may all that breathes be well) (Balinese farmer's prayer) This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Figures xi List of Tables xiii Foreword xv Preface to the 2007 Edition xix Acknowledgments xxxi Introduction The Gods of the Countryside 3 Chapter One "Income to Which No Tears Are Attached" 17 Chapter Two The Powers of Water 37 Chapter Three The Waters of Power 50 Chapter Four The Temple of the Crater Lake 73 Chapter Five Chance Observations and the Metaphysics of Taxation 95 Chapter Six Massive Guidance 111 Conclusion Sociogenesis 127 Afterword by Valerio Valeri 134 Appendix A. Plan of the Temple of the Crater Lake 145 Appendix B. Technical Report on the Ecological Simulation Model by James N. Kremer 153 Notes 159 Index 181 This page intentionally left blank Figures Figure P.I. Results of a simulation of temperature regulation on Daisyworld xxv Figure 2.1. Irrigation along the Upper East Fork of the Oos River 42 Figure 2.2. Sukawati Irrigation System 45 Figure 2.3. Kedewatan Irrigation System 47 Figure 3.1. Holy Water for Celeng Patas Comes from Two Weir Altars: Bayad and Manuaba 57 Figure 3.2. Additional Sources of Holy Water for the Ulun Swi Temple Celeng Patas 60 Figure 3.3. Kedewatan Irrigation System 66 Figure 3.4. The Tika Calendar 68 Figure 3.5. The Three-day Week Superimposed on the Tika 68 Figure 3.6. The First Day in the Tika Calendar 69 Figure 4.1. Map of the Quarreling Subaks 78 Figure 5.1. Plan of Pura Ulun Danu Batoer before the 1917 Earth- quake 100 Figure 5.2. Baris Gde Dancers in front of the Temple of the Crater Lake (Pura Ulun Danu Batur) before the 1917 Earth- quake 101 Figure 6.1. Map of the Oos and the Petanu Rivers in the Region ofGianyar 119 Figure 6.2. Simulated Annual Patterns for River Flow, Rice Yield, and Pest Damage 121 Figure 6.3. Effects of Different Levels of Social Coordination on Water Stress 122 Figure 6.4. Effects of Different Levels of Social Coordination on Pest Damage and Water Stress 123 xii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 6.5. Pest Damage at Different Levels of Social Coordina- tion 124 Figure 6.6. Results of Triple Cropping Green Revolution Rice at Different Levels of Social Coordination 125 Figure A.I. Plan of the Temple of the Crater Lake 147 Figure A.2. The Mandala of Waters 152 Tables Table 2.1. Taro Irrigation 43 Table 2.2. Bresela Irrigation 43 Table 2.3. Villages of Kliki and Klutug Irrigation 44 Table 2.4. Subaks Attached to Masceti Temple Er Jeruk 46 Table 2.5. Water Temples of Kedewatan 47 This page intentionally left blank Foreword STEVE LANSING began the work reported here, like many anthropologists before him, with the simple intention of exploring the intricate beauty of Balinese culture. Fortunately for those of us whose appreciation of cul- tural anthropology is more enthusiastic than professional, his curiosity led him to explore questions and deploy methods that reached beyond the boundaries of his native discipline. The result was an enormously rich study of how Bali's human institutions and environmental land- scapes coevolved over the centuries to produce a complex adaptive system. That system proved to be sustainable in the face of volcanic eruptions, dynastic warfare, and colonial invasion. It took the well- intentioned but ultimately arrogant expertise of early Green Revolution reformers to push the system beyond its limits and into a mutually rein- forcing downward spiral of ecological and social degradation. Priests and Programmers tells the story of how Lansing and his collaborators elucidated the interlinked geological, ecological, social, and religious processes that have shaped the Balinese landscape and, in so doing, be- came entrained in a process of social learning that helped the system to recover some of its previous resilience. A wide range of scholars, students, and development practitioners has come to know and benefit from Lansing's story, assisted not only by the lucid writing style on display in this most welcome new edition of Priests and Programmers, but also through an excellent film, an accessible sim- ulation model, and a series of follow-up studies, all available through his Web site (http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8394.html). I am one grateful beneficiary of the diverse perspectives Lansing has brought to bear on human-environment interactions in Bali, having used them for more than a decade in teaching a course on sustainable development at Har- vard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. My course uses four detailed case studies to explore how scholars, policy makers, and local practitioners have interacted in efforts to promote increases in human well-being without degrading the environmental life-support sys- tems on which further development depends. I have kept the Bali story in an otherwise-changing set of course cases over the years simply be- cause it is the one that elicits the most learning in my students, and the one they best recall when I talk with them as alumni. What makes Lan- sing's rendition of the Bali story such a pedagogical gold mine? First, the Bali story is a specific instance of the much more general case XVI FOREWORD of sustainable use of natural resources to support human well-being in the developing world. Half of the world's people still live in rural com- munities. A billion or so of those people are poor, with livelihoods more or less directly tied to the continuing productivity of natural resources. Often, as in the Bali case, sophisticated local knowledge of those re- source systems and their limits has enabled societies to do quite well in utilizing them sustainably over centuries or longer. Increasingly, how- ever, such traditional use systems have come under pressure from efforts to accommodate more people, increase yields, or respond to a globaliz- ing economy. Distressingly often, the result has been catastrophic for both people and the resource systems they inhabit. Lansing's work is especially valuable in illustrating the multiple forms that may be taken by the "local knowledge" that often turns out to be central to sustainable resource management. The individual villagers he interviewed in Bali clearly knew a great deal about planting rice, pro- tecting it from pests, and building the irrigation systems that provided it with water. Some of this knowledge they could explain to him very ar- ticulately. Some was less explicit, consisting rather of the sort of "tacit" knowledge (or knowledge of practice) with which we all are familiar in our daily lives. Lansing's analysis, however, takes the reader far deeper into an understanding of the "local knowledge" that enabled sustain- able human development of Bali's steep volcanic slopes. He shows that over the centuries, the value and thus the use of water had taken on not merely material but also spiritual significance for the Balinese. The reli- gious structures, practices, and calendar that revered water for its own sake had evolved in ways that also served effectively to regulate and co- ordinate the sharing of limited water resources among farmers across entire watersheds. The "local knowledge" guiding sustainability thus consisted of what individuals knew and knew how to do, plus the phys- ical system of irrigation canals and water shrines that such peoples' an- cestors had constructed over time, plus the enduring religious beliefs that strongly shaped both individual and social action. The elegant sys- tems models of water use and agriculture on Bali created by Lansing and his colleagues clearly show that each of these sorts of "local knowl- edge" is crucial for the sustainable use of the system.