structural:expansion, information:classification
The Kingdomship of Bali was a series of Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms that once ruled some parts of the volcanic island of Bali, in Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesia. With a history of native Balinese kingship spanning from the early 10th to early 20th centuries, Balinese kingdoms demonstrated sophisticated Balinese court culture where native elements of spirit and ancestral reverence combined with Hindu influences—adopted from India through ancient Java intermediary—flourished, enriched and shaped Balinese culture. Because of its proximity and close cultural relations with the neighbouring island of Java during the Indonesian Hindu-Buddhist period, the history of the Bali Kingdom was often intertwined with and heavily influenced by its Javanese counterparts, from Mataram to the Majapahit empire in the 13th to 15th centuries. The culture, language, arts and architecture of the island was influenced by Java. Javanese influences and presences grew even stronger with the fall of the Majapahit empire in the late 15th century. After the empire fell to its Muslim vassal the Demak Sultanate, a number of Hindu Majapahit courtiers, nobles, priests, and artisans found refuge on the island of Bali. As a result, Bali became what historian Ramesh Chandra Majumdar describes as the last stronghold of Indo-Javanese culture and civilisation. The Bali Kingdom in the following centuries expanded its influence to neighboring islands and began to establish a Colony, Gelgel Kingdom Bali for example expanded their influence and established a colony in the Blambangan region at the eastern tip of Java to the western part of the Sumbawa island, while Karangasem Kingdom established their colonial settlements in western parts of Lombok, then the Klungkung kingdom conquered of Nusa Penida in the later period. Since the mid-19th century, the colonial state of the Dutch East Indies began its involvement in Bali, as it launched its campaign against the Balinese minor kingdoms one by one. By the early 20th century, the Dutch had completed their conquest of Bali as these minor kingdoms fell under their control, either by force resulting in Puputan fighting followed by mass ritual suicide, or surrendering gracefully to the Dutch. Either way, despite some of these Balinese royal houses still surviving, these events ended a millennium of the native Balinese independent kingdoms, as the local government changed to Dutch colonial administration, and later to the provincial government of Bali within the Republic of Indonesia.