The Moon of Pejeng: Pejeng, Bali

Not far from Pura Kebo Edan is Pura Penataran Sasih otherwise known as the ‘Moon Temple’. Its contribution to the Holy Land is a large Bronze Gong. A beautiful temple with many Bale’s housing ancient stone statues of Gadjah, Siwa and other deities, its centrepiece is the Moon of Pejeng.

This bronze gong shaped like an hourglass dates back to the Balinese Bronze Age around the 3rd century BC. The gong in mention is the largest single-cast kettledrum in the world. The green Patina is etched with abstract and geometrical designs, and, around the central rim a chain of heart-shaped faces, punctuated by huge round eyes and distended earlobes.

The strange legend attached to the bronze drum tells how a wheel fell of a chariot that supported the moon itself, then fell to earth and its fall broken by a tree in Pejeng. A local thief became so incensed with the bright light of the wheel that he urinated on it hoping to extinguish the brightness. However, the wheel exploded with a thunderous echo and killed the thief, then it dropped to the ground in its present form.