done RARE FRAMED BALI ANTIQUE CEREMONIAL IDER-IDER TEMPLE EMBROIDERY PANDAVA RUPADI

FRAMED AND MATTED ANTIQUE CEREMONIAL IDER-IDER EMBROIDERY

FROM THE EARLY 1900’S

THIS IS A VERY OLD PIECE THAT WAS ONCE HANGING AS A TEMPLE CEREMONIAL EAVE'S  ADORNMENT DURING A FESTIVAL

UNIQUE WITH FABRIC AND BEAD TASSELS AND COTTON THREAD EMBROIDERIES

ITEM DFBE11

The meaning of the given name Rupadi represents compassion, creativity, reliability, generosity, loyalty and a love for domestic life.

CLOTH HAS BEEN WASHED BUT STAINS REMAIN FROM HAVING FLAPPED IN THE WEATHER DURING TEMPLE CEREMONIES AND THERE ARE A FEW PIN HOLES

THIS IS A VERY OLD VALENCE THAT WAS ONCE HANGING FROM A BALINESE HINDU TEMPLE'S EAVES AS A CEREMONIAL DECORATION. 

The colorful motifs keep their boldness and power.

LOOK CAREFULLY AT THE PHOTOS TO BE SATISFIED AT THE CONDITION OF THE CLOTH

PHOTOS SPEAK VOLUMES!

CUSTOM-FRAMED IN HAND-PAINTED FRAME AND ACID FREE MAT

SIZE IS 18 1/2” X 18 1/4”

ITEM IS ONE OF A KIND

ITEM DFBE11

SUCH PIECES ARE VERY HARD TO COME BY.

This textile is an antique ritual object, an intermediary bridge or path between heaven and earth, a spirit lure of sorts.

Balinese informants explain that this cloth mainly acts as a base for offerings and as decoration of shrines and altars. It dresses up the sacred places for offerings, it acts as an invitation, a sign of welcome for deities, ancestors, spirits and other invisible (niskala) beings. Moreover, it  shows the invisible beings the way to the shrines where the offerings are. And this is important, because should these places not be clearly visible for the gods, the ritual will not be successful since the purpose of this cloth in a ritual is to attract the invisible beings to the offerings in the shrine.

One of the rituals during which these embroideries are very prominent is the festival of Galungan, a recurring ritual of purification and thanksgiving for which the ancestors are invited to come down from heaven to visit their families, this is celebrated all over Bali. In front of the entrance to every house the Balinese erect a penjor, a decorated bamboo pole with a small shrine attached to it, from which such textile collectible used to hang. Another ritual is the celebration of the anniversary of a temple, for which the deities of that specific temple are invited to descend from heaven. All shrines in the temple were then decorated with these embroidered textiles which have become rare today and very hard to locate.

The religion of the Hindu Balinese, Agama Hindu Dharma, is a unique form of Hinduism that is the result of creative contact between indigenous Balinese thought and practices and Indian thought and practices that came to Bali over a period of more than a thousand years, in former times mostly via Java but more recently directly from India itself.

This type of embroidery was made by women in the area of Jembrana, East Bali, where the Hindu stories from the Mahabharata and Ramayana were very popular beside other local story traditions. The craft of embroidery in Bali developed in the early to mid 1900’s to follow, in Kamasan style, the traditional painting of the time.

(Reference: Joseph Fischer , Story Cloths of Bali, Berkeley 2004)

Belonged to Bali Temple.

 Colorful threads embroidery done by hand. In great shape for its age, we were told it was close to 100 yrs old by the owner.  

In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, Sahadeva (Sanskrit: सहदेव) was the youngest of the five Pandava brothers. Nakula and Sahadeva were twins born to Madri, who had invoked the Ashwini Kumaras using Kunti's boon.

Sahadeva was a great astrologer and was supposed to have known the events of the Mahabharata War beforehand but was cursed that if he disclosed the knowledge, his head would split in pieces. Hence, his relatively silent role in the epic compared to the other brothers. The Bhagavata Purana has a passage in which Sahadeva predicts events of future when asked by his elder brother Yudhisthira, the king. 
Of the five Pandavas, Sahadeva was the youngest. He is nevertheless referred to as the wisest of all of them. Yudhishtra even speaks of him as wiser than Brihaspati, the divine teacher of the Devas. It is also believed that Sahadeva was an incarnation of the great planet, Sukracharaya, the Asura Guru. It is therefore not surprising to note that he was one of the few contemporaneous persons living with Lord Krishna, like Bhishma and Vidura, to realise that Lord Krishna was the almighty Para Brahman Himself. Lord Sukra is considered smarter than Brishapathi, as he would always discover and identify Lord Sriman Narayana, even when the Lord was in disguise, as it is his duty to protect Asuras. The true greatness of Sahadeva lies in the fact that it was he who performed Agrapuja to Lord Krishna, declaring openly amongst Kings, in the face of opposition, that Lord Krishna, being Parabrahma Swarupi, deserves the first respect. 
As per the Bhagavata Purana, he is one of the greatest devotees of Lord Krishna. Lord Krishna once asked Sahadeva, what should be done to stop the war. Sahadeva told him that Krishna must be tied down and imprisoned and all the Pandavas along with Duryodhana must be sent to forest and Karna must be made the king. When Krishna challenged him to tie him down, Sahadeva started meditating and envisioned Krishna as a small baby and tied him down. Since Krishna could not move out of his bondage created by Sahadeva in his meditative trance, he blessed him with divine vision and Sahadeva released Krishna from the bondage. 
At the time of Mahabharata War, both the sides were trying to give sacrifice to Goddess Durga seeking success. Duryodhana sought the most auspicious time from Sahadeva for performing the sacrifice. It is believed, in Hindu school of thought, that the time of sacrifice, denotes the commencement of war and thus decides the very outcome of the great war. Sahadeva advised him to perform the sacrifice on the new moon day to ensure success in war. When questioned by his brothers and Lord Krishna, Sahadeva gave the polite reply that he is ready to die doing his swadharama of being an astrologer. Probably, he was following the teaching of Lord Krishna even before the Bhagavad Gita was given out. Lord Krishna was supposed to have played a trick on the Sun and Moon gods to create the Bodhayana Amavasya which occurs one day earlier than the regulation Amavasya. The Pandavas performed the sacrifice on Bodhayana Amavasya day and obtained the boon of success from Goddess Durga.