Published by Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
Text copyright © 1997 Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
Photographs copyright © 1997 Luca Invernizzi Tettoni
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4629-1362-6 (ebook)
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The Tuttle Story: “Books to Span the East and West”
Many people are surprised to learn that the world’s largest publisher of books on Asia had its humble beginnings in the tiny American state of Vermont. The company’s founder, Charles E. Tuttle, belonged to a New England family steeped in publishing.
Immediately after WW II, Tuttle served in Tokyo under General Douglas MacArthur and was tasked with reviving the Japanese publishing industry. He later founded the Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Company, which thrives today as one of the world’s leading independent publishers.
Though a westerner, Tuttle was hugely instrumental in bringing a knowledge of Japan and Asia to a world hungry for information about the East. By the time of his death in 1993, Tuttle had published over 6,000 books on Asian culture, history and art—a legacy honored by the Japanese emperor with the “Order of the Sacred Treasure,” the highest tribute Japan can bestow upon a non-Japanese.
With a backlist of 1,500 titles, Tuttle Publishing is more active today than at any time in its past—inspired by Charles Tuttle’s core mission to publish fine books to span the East and West and provide a greater understanding of each.
Wayang kulit, the shadow puppet play. To pass beyond this simple cloth screen is to enter Bali's enchanting world of spirits and demons.
Sunrise at Sanur, with the sacred Mount Agung in the background. It was Pandit Nehru, India's first prime minister, who first called Bali the "Morning of the World".
Contents
Introduction
"The road ran on and on, a wide avenue between stone walls. Everywhere temples lifted their stone gates, carved as feathery as the banyan trees above them. The villages were miles of walls, thatched against the rain, with hundreds of prim pillared porticos, and groups of damsels sitting by them. Beyond those parapets were homes. What sort of people lived there? What manner of life did they lead behind their sheltering barriers?"
Hickman Powell,
The Last Paradise, 1930
For four years I have lived in Bali. I arrived on holiday with very little knowledge of the "Island of the Gods"—when I stepped off the Garuda jumbo jet in October 1992 I knew next to nothing of its religion, had only a vague conception of its immense beauty and no real understanding of the extraordinary manner in which its people organize their lives. Today I feel lucky to have experienced an island which remains remarkable in a thousand different ways.
I knew this much at that time: many before me had been charmed by Bali's powerful magic. Hickman Powell, a 1930s visitor, called it "a vast spreading wonderland" and "the embodied dreams of pastoral poets". To the writer and musicologist Colin McPhee, another early fan, it exhibited a "golden freshness", where everyone was either a dancer or an artist. Pandit Nehru— India's first prime minister—immortalized the island in the 1950s when he called it the "Morning of the World" a kind of tropical Garden of Eden where, according to another early description, "care-free islanders" lived as "happy as mortals can be". Could Bali really be this good, I wondered?
The lotus, the frangipani and an ornately carved temple gate in Ubud... a heady trinity which many believe still puts Bali above other Asian destinations.
Pura Ulun Danu Bratan, the temple of the Lake goddess near Bedugul in north Bali.
I began to find out on my first visit. Setting off from the artists' town of Ubud in the grassy central lowlands, a companion and I drove through the glaucous pre-dawn twilight to watch the sun rise over Mount Batur. As we emerged onto the lip of a long-defunct crater, within which stretched a vast volcanic valley, a single purple cloud hovered over a glassy lake like a fanciful addition to an already celestial scene. And then the sun exploded above us in a blush of soft carmine hues, and I was torn between a feeling of magical wonder, of being present on the day the world was born, and an idea of what it must be like to spend a lifetime blind, and then see colour and shape for the first time. "What is this place?", I remember thinking.
As if we needed more, the island handed us an even greater spectacle. Driving back to a recently rented thatched house in the rice fields, we were greeted by a pageant of colourfully costumed worshippers tripping their way through the dazzling green landscape to a twirly-edged temple in the distance. Dressed in white and yellow, hot orange and bright blue, a magnificent parade of Balinese women walked in front of an ornately carved golden sedan chair, its occupant a boy of no more than 10 years.
Behind this little king, with his adult gaze and regal persona, trouped brown-skinned and black-haired men, their features smooth and manner proud. And then more—a