Meru as a Hindu Sacred Building Architecture with a High Roof and Resistant to Earthquakes in Bali, Indonesia

Abstract

Meru has meaning as a symbol of Mount Mahameru, symbol of God and the universe that serves as a place of worship of the gods and ancestors. Meru is found in large temples in Bali, Indonesia with its trademark characteristic that the roof has a high overlapping reaching 10 meters or more with the number of roofs always odd so that Meru becomes a landmark in every temple in Bali. Meru is a very beautiful sacred building that was built based on the accuracy of proportions, the logic of construction techniques and the beauty of decoration, which holds fast to local wisdom based on Traditional Balinese Architecture. This study aims to explore the meaning and philosophy of Meru and why the construction of Meru as an earthquake resistant building. With a qualitative explorative study of primary data collection such as: surveys, observations and interviews and combined with secondary data in the form of old legacy writing, study shows that Meru not only has beauty as a sacred building but also is an earthquake-resistant building construction that has proven its reliability compared to other Hindu sacred buildings.

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