Sang Telaga as Living Heritage: Community Engagement and the Management of a Sacred Water Temple in Bali

Ni Putu Eka Juliawati* and I Gusti Made Suarbhawa

Sang Telaga is a sacred patirthaan (water temple) in Desa Satra, Kintamani, Bali, containing archaeological remains such as lingga, ancestral embodiment statues, architectural elements, and eleven jaladwara (waterspouts), stylistically linked to twelfth–thirteenth century Balinese art. A copperplate inscription dated 1246 Saka (1324 CE) referring to karaman Jiken Satra confirms the site’s historical depth. However, Sang Telaga is not merely an archaeological relic, but a living heritage site embedded in an active sacred landscape. Approached through a people-centred heritage framework, this study understands preservation as inseparable from community practice and ritual authority. Water emerging from a cave flows beneath sacred structures before being distributed through eleven spouts into a central pool. Regarded as tirtha (holy water), it sustains ritual life while also supporting domestic needs and, through a formal agreement, providing drinking water to the neighbouring village of Sembiran. The site thus operates simultaneously as sacred space, ecological infrastructure, and socio-economic resource. The annual Makerama rite of passage for village youth regulates ritual participation and ensures intergenerational transmission of sacred knowledge, demonstrating how safeguarding occurs through customary governance rather than external intervention alone. Framed as a cultural landscape, Sang Telaga reveals the inseparability of artefacts, hydrology, ritual practice, and community management. This paper argues that sustainable preservation of archaeological religious sites requires recognising their livingness and supporting locally grounded systems of custodianship in shaping ethically engaged futures for sacred heritage.