WUKU

     WUKU is a terms in balinese calendar that collect weeks into one periode or one cycle of days. Wuku contains thirty weeks, each of them has its own name, like Sinta for the first week/wuku, Landep for the second, Ukir for the third and so on until the 30 th named Watugunung. This system is usually use for the birthday or the anniversary, combined with Saptawara (week), and Pancawara (contains five days named Umanis, Pahing, Pon, Wage, Kliwon). For example, Galungan falls on Budha (wednesday) Kliwon, wuku Dungulan (11th wuku), Saraswati holiday falls on Saniscara (=saturday) Umanis, wuku Watugunung (30th wuku). So, the holiday or the birthday that uses Wuku as its base, will be always took place every same day, same pancawara and same wuku. It means, that holidays will cycle in every 210 days (Wuku contains of 30 week, a week contains of 7 days).

     The Birthday also uses this kind. For example, my son were born on Wednesday, 12th December 2007. In balinese calendar the day had a lot of components: wednesday(in english), budha (saptawara), Pon (pancawara), Tolu (the 5th wuku), and another 8 names of days from the Wewaran (group of days). But here I just tell about the most usual kind of balinese calendar been used (Saptawara=week, Pancawara;contains 5 days, Wuku; contains 30 wuku/weeks). About the system of Wewaran, I'll post it in the next time. Similar to the Odalan, or the anniversary of the temple. There are two different system to do with this. The wuku, and the lunar system. If the odalan uses the wuku system, it will always fall on the same wuku, and if it uses the lunar system, it will fall on the same month, usually on the fullmoon (Red dot symbol on the date) of each month.

The Holidays that use the wuku system are: Galungan , Kuningan, Saraswati, Pagerwesi, Tumpek, Banyupinaruh. Now we can imagine, how many traditional rituals will be seen in Bali, if we consider that there are a lot of Temple with a different days of their anniversary (odalan) will be took place. There are almost everyday live events, the rituals ! No event organizer required, they're all alive !