In the Hindu Balinese religious traditions, when a child has begun to reach the age of adolescence or is an adult, he/she must carry out the Tooth Cutting ceremony, or commonly known to the Balinese Hindu people as Mepandes or Metatah.
Mepandes is a Hindu-Balinese religious ceremony when a child has reached the adult stage, and also means a debt payment from parent to child because it can eliminate the six bad traits of human beings. This ceremony includes what is referred to as the ceremony of Manusa Yadnya. The ritual is performed when 6 upper teeth, in the form of fangs is eroded by Hindu’s high priests. The human body. Mepandes is carried out in conjunction with the implementation of ngaben, marriage and Ngeresi ceremonies, and is carried out on certain days in the person concerned.
This tooth cutting ceremony or commonly referred to as Mepandes or Metatah, is a meaningful ceremony to find the true nature of human beings, who are free from the shcakles of darkness from the influences of Sad Ripu in humans. Sad Ripu is a shackle that chains the human body with 6 negative characters of human that appears inside our body. be that from wrong-doings or inappropriate actions from the human itself. Sad Ripu consists of Kama (negative desire), Labha (greed), Krodha (cruel and angry), Mada (madness and intoxication), Maha (arrogant and confused), and Matsarya (envy or jealousy).
Traditional Balinese beliefs state that “protruding canines represent the animal-like nature of human beings”; the purpose of the ritual is to sever ties with these animal instincts, and show other thta the individual is old enough to marry. Considered a generational ritual, parents of adolescents performing it, considers it as their “final duty” in being a parent beforetheir child becomes an adult. Reasons adolescents takes part in the ceremony are mixed, as they must take into consideration the impacts of globalization with traditional Balinese ritual.
As a part of grand Manusa Yadnya ceremony, Mepandes is a coming of-age ritual with deep symbolical meaning. it is a tooth filing ceremonies, where six upper teeth of a teenager are smoothen using a special tool by a Pedanda (holy priest). This ceremony is done more for the symbolical meaning rather than physycal, so those who experience the ritual wouldn’t feel much pain. In fact, this joyous coming-of-age moment is often celebrated in high fashion, as the teenanger wear their best traditional outfits and the ritual is treated as a festival party.
Many Balinese have this ceremony done after few years, even after they got married and already have children. One of the many reasons why for the Balinese families to not do this ceremony as soon as their children reach into puberty stage is to cover financial expenses as when they perform the ceremony, they usually invite all relatives, friend and banjar (community member of the village where they live) aswell.
The ceremony can be carried out at home as a family feast, or at a place named griya (high priest house) which is the simplest one, private and invite nobody, or join ‘collective mepandes‘ in the village, coordinated by the banjar (community council). However, it isn’t necessary all about money if someone doesn’t do mepandes at home, but join collective mepandes or at a griya.
This ceremony is also one of the most important ceremony for the Hindu Balinese. Every Hindu Balinese undergo mepandes in their life. In case if somebody dies, and they haven’t carried out the mepandes ceremony in their life yet, the family will do this ceremony before buying their body, so their so their soul can meet their parents soul afterlife.
Beside to figure out the true nature of human and free them from the Sad Ripu shackles, the ceremony also has other purposes, including joining other family members who have already gine through the ceremony and are in states of grace. The Balinese also believes that, those who do not go through the ceremony, will be punished later in hell by Bhatara Yamadipati (God of Death).
The important thing that can be concluded and keep in mind is the purpose of this ceremony, which is to minimize the negative impacts of being a person, but it doesn’t mean that after this ceremony, the person will completely be void of evil. It all goes back to each person’s personality. Do they have a strong passion to change themselvs into a better person? or maybe not.