Goa Lawah derives from the words Goa, cave and Lawah, Balinese word for Bat, so altogether becomes Bat Cave, is located by the beach side of Kusamba, on the way to Amlapura the capital of the regency of Karangasem. It is being called Bat Cave due to the fact that the entrance of the cave fulfilled with thousand of bats hanging on its ceiling. It is not clearly known exactly when the temple was built but it is believed that it must have been here , just like the other old temple in the area, since 11 century. The Kusamba beach itself is the place where Balinese traditional salt making is still done by a little number of salt famer of the village.
It is the Bat Cave temple the most striking spot in the area where Balinese people gather to do prayer with has something to do with the aftermath of their cremation ceremonies. When the cremation has completed, the Balinese thanks the gods for purifying the death by deliberating the soul from the worldly dirties.
When it was first build, as most of old Balinese temple, it was, of course, built with red bricks and sand stone, traditionally, but recent reconstruction has changed it to look so black by using the nowadays popular temple new material, the black stone from the lava of mountain eruption.
It is believe by most of the people living in the nearby area that the cave in this temple was the end of an underground lava path way from the mount of Agung when the mountain erupted long time ago.