MERLEAU-PONTY’S PHENOMENOLOGICAL INQUIRY INTO THE MEANING OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE IN THE BALINESE CREATIVE PRACTICE OF WAYANG TANTRI
Vidyottama Sanatana International Journal of Hindu Science and Religious Studies June 30, 2026 A. A. Putra Dwipayana, Mukhtasar Syamsuddin, Iva Ariani
Religious experience in the creative practice of Wayang Tantri is not an aesthetic product but an existential event that unfolds through the embodiment of the dalang's lived experience. The dalang's creativity emerges from engagement with social, cultural-religious, and everyday horizons of the world. Religiosity appears not as symbolic representation but as a shared mode of inhabiting the world within performance. Through Merleau-Ponty's concept of perceptual faith, religious experience is understood as the immanence of the body in its relation to the world, making Wayang Tantri a site where artistic expression, religious experience, and existence converge.