Thank you for your response, Wolviex.
Regretably I do not understand the language in which the references are written. Perhaps somebody with knowledge of this language could track down the references and verify if use of the Durga attribution has any basis in fact.
I feel sure that at the time these handles were made and used, there was some symbolic intent:- Durga? or some other female figure? I don`t know, but what I do know is that some people associated with the world of the keris in Java at the present time refer to this handle as "wadon"---just "female".What it may have been known as originally I do not know, and without good, solid proofs I am not prepared to put forward an opinion.
The provision of evidence to allow this handle form to be named as a representation of any particular deity could well use a lifetime of research.
To call it "Durga" in the first place may well have been a bit of European invention. Look at the "keris Mojopahit". Javanese people never knew that the keris sajen was called a keris Mojopahit until a European told them. Who was right? The European, or the Javanese people?
I think that as far as this handle goes, for the time being we might have to acknowledge that we just do not know who, or what, it is supposed to represent.
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