Pura Ulun Danu Bratan
Interesting facts
- Lake Beratan fills part of the Bratan caldera, an ancient collapsed volcano that also holds the neighbouring lakes Buyan and Tamblingan.
- The lake is Bali's second largest, about 3.8 square kilometres in area, yet no more than about 22 metres deep.
- The 50,000-rupiah note issued in 2005 shows the lake temple on its reverse, complete with a man paddling a canoe.
- The eleven-tiered meru by the water is dedicated to Shiva and his consort Parvati.
- The complex has five shrines to different Hindu deities, arranged according to designs set out in ancient palm-leaf lontar manuscripts.
- Its courtyards are separated by low walls pierced by richly carved gateways that have no doors at all.
- The Buddhist stupa stands outside the main temple enclosure and faces south.
- The temple is a major Shaivite sanctuary, and the farming associations downstream, known as subak, depend on the lake it guards.
Why it is worth it
High in the Bedugul highlands of central Bali, at around 1,200 metres above the sea, Pura Ulun Danu Beratan stands at the edge of Lake Beratan in the village of Candikuning, and when the water is high its lakeside shrines seem to rise straight out of it. On still mornings, when mist rolls off the surrounding hills and the water turns to glass, the tiered roofs seem to hover above their own reflections, and this image of the temple has become one of the best known in Indonesia, printed on an earlier 50,000-rupiah banknote. The cool, damp air up here is a world away from the coast, and the lake-and-mountain setting is as much a part of the temple as its architecture.
The temple is dedicated to Dewi Danu, goddess of the waters, lakes and rivers, and its purpose is deeply practical as well as spiritual. The lake is the source of water for the farmland of the whole region below it, and downstream stand many smaller water temples, each belonging to a local irrigation association. Ritual use of the site is thought to reach back to prehistoric times, but the temple in its present form is linked to the royal house of Mengwi: chronicles credit I Gusti Agung Putu, founder of the Taman Ayun temple at Mengwi, and the rebuilding is dated to 1633.
The heart of the temple is the Lingga Petak shrine by the water, where two meru, pagoda-like towers of stacked roofs, rise side by side, one of eleven tiers and one of three; the number of roofs on a meru reflects the rank of the deity and is always odd. A sacred well here holds the holy water known as Tirta Ulun Danu. Alongside the shrines to Dewi Danu and to the Hindu trinity of Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma, the complex also shelters a Buddhist stupa and a statue of the Buddha, a quiet sign of the long coexistence of the two traditions in Bali. The Bali Botanic Garden lies close by in the same highlands.
Getting there
The temple lies near Bedugul in Tabanan Regency, about 56 km north of Denpasar on the Denpasar–Singaraja road and roughly 20 km from Singaraja on the north coast. The nearest airport is I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport at Denpasar (DPS), about 53 km in a straight line; the journey up into the highlands is by road.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Jatiluwih Rice Terraces 11.4 km · terraced-fields
- Gunung Kawi 23.3 km · rock-cut-architecture
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Pura Ulun Danu Beratan, or Pura Bratan, is a major Hindu Shaivite temple in Bali, Indonesia. The temple complex is on the shores of Lake Beratan in the mountains near Bedugul. The water from the lake serves the entire region in the outflow area; downstream there are many smaller water temples that are specific to each irrigation association (subak).
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