Bali Yatra

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

During the G20 Summit, Prime Minister mentioned Baliyatra, literally ‘voyage to Bali’, on the banks of the Mahanadi in Cuttack, which celebrates the ancient trade relations between India and Indonesia.

• This year’s Baliyatra, which concluded on Thursday, also found a place in the Guinness World Records for achieving an impressive feat of origami, the creation of beautiful paper sculptures.

Historical significance

• Baliyatra, literally ‘voyage to Bali’, is one of the country’s largest open-air fairs, which is organised every year to commemorate the 2,000-year-old maritime and cultural links between ancient Kalinga (today’s Odisha) and Bali and other South and Southeast Asian regions like Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
• The origins of the festival, which begins on Kartik Purnima (full moon night in the month of Kartik) can be traced back more than 1,000 years. 
• The Bay of Bengal region had several ports, and sadhavas (traders) traditionally began their voyage across the sea on this auspicious day, when the winds were favourable for the boats, known as boita, to sail.
• According to historians, popular items of trade between Kalinga and Southeast Asia included pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, silk, camphor, gold, and jewellery.
• Even today, thousands of people across Odisha sail decorative miniature boats made of banana stems, paper, or thermocol to celebrate boita bandana, or the worshipping of the boats.
• Bali formed a part of the four islands that were collectively called the Suvarnadvipa, today known as Indonesia as their major trade hub along with other islands in the region.
• The Kalingas constructed large boats called the ‘Boitas’and with the help of these, they traded with the Indonesian islands.
• These ships had copper hulls and could carry up to seven hundred men and animals aboard. Interestingly, the Bay of Bengal was once known as the Kalinga Sea as it was thronged by these ships.
• The dominance of the Kalingas over the sea routes can be understood from the fact that Kalidasa in his Raghuvamsa referred to the King of Kalinga as ‘The Lord of the Sea’.