Hundreds of Hindu people held a Melasti ritual at Parangkusumo beach in Bantul, Yogyakarta on Monday.

Their aim was to purify themselves before celebrating the annual Day of Silence — Nyepi — which falls Friday.

The ritual began with processions accompanied by Balinese music arriving at the beach from Yogyakarta and surrounding cities. Participants wearing Balinese and Javanese attire brought offerings with them.

Led by spiritual leader Bhagawan Putra Manuaba, the participants prayed together before fetching water from the sea in earthen vessels, also part of the prayer ritual.

Prayers completed, the ritual ended with participants throwing various offerings to the sea, symbolic of purification.

Participants then bathed in the sea to signify cleansing.

Head of the Melasti ceremony I Wayan Senen explained the ritual represented washing off dirt and impurity with the water of life — the reason the ritual is usually held near water, and especially the southern coast.

"All bad behavior is cast off through introspection," Wayan said.

The purification, he said, was also intended to prepare devotees for the celebration of Nyepi, "one of the highest forms of asceticism". Religious people pray to God to ask for strength in observing the Day of Silence, he said.

A separate ritual took place earlier near Ngobaran beach in Gunungkidul when committee members took water from various fountains.

Ari Diwpayana, a preacher at the ceremony, said "preserving nature" would be the theme for the celebration of Nyepi this year. The theme was chosen after a series of natural disasters hit the country recently.

"This nation has been facing one natural disaster after another — floods, hot mudflows, landslides, earthquakes."

In celebrating Nyepi, he said, Hindu devotees invite all people regardless of their background "to work hand-in-hand for the sake of true togetherness.

"Only through prayers, togetherness and mutual cooperation will (Indonesian) people find the moral strength to make it through all the disasters."