Jussi, a pakem is simply a guidebook.
You can have a pakem for anything --- cooking, gemstones, french poodles --- whatever.
With a keris pakem that guidebook can be expected to lay down the various ricikan for a keris, and possible some other relevant information , such as the first mpu who made the pattern under which ruler, and the tuah. This is all part of the keris belief system, so you treat it as you do any other belief system.
Blade makers working outside the influence of a kraton would make in accordance with their understanding of what a blade should be. Preferably they would have a blade to copy, but with an experienced maker he would have probably only a blak, or pattern, which would provide a broad guide to form.
Yes, I believe that as an art form, the keris is truly kraton art, but not all keris blades can be considered to be art.
Yes, a keris can be a genuine keris, not a keris like object, but it need not be a work of art.
This idea of "keris-like-object" is one that I encountered for the first time in postings to this Forum. It is not an idea that I have come across in Jawa. If something is a keris, it is a keris. Full stop. But there are grades of keris. Similarly there appears to be quite a lot of different definitions of exactly what a keris like object really is. My personal definition would something that has the form of a keris, but that has been (perhaps) cut from flat iron.Not infrequently people use this type of "keris" for formal dress occasions --- just a keris shaped piece of flat iron in a low quality ladrangan wrongko.
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