Sejarah Pura Besakih
Once upon the time there were trees inside the forest. before the name of selat bali found ,the name of the island was pulau panjang,jawa timur the place exactly in gunung rawung . there was men the name was sang yogi markendeya. He came from india, most of the society called him as Bhatara Giri Rawang, that was the reason why he could get the more knowledge in his soul, religious, also wise.
firstly, he worship in Gunung Demulung, after that moved to gunung hyang (central java). One day he got advice from hyang widhi to open the new forest in dewata island with his followers for about 8000 people. Because when sang yogi open the forest without permission then suddenly hyang widhi got mad and angry to him, the impact most of his followers got sick and some eaten by the wild animals.
One day, he wanted to continue his journey to open the forest, he asked 4000 more people to join with him and asked the pandita. Before started they do the ceremony to ask permission. After the ceremony finished sang yogi asked his followers to open the forest from south to north and without any obstacles.
On that place sang yogi buried the big vas that contained of water and there were five kind of metals namely gold, silver, copper, steel and bronze and also diamond for the symbol that they were success to open the forest. That place named as basuki by the time called as besakih.