[A. G. Maisey]

To my eyes, this keris that Ganapati has shown us looks very much like Tuban, a shot of the top of the gonjo might be able to confirm this --- or alternatively, blow it away. Its not a bad keris, nothing special, but very fitting for a new comer to keris study.

The idea of Tangguh classifications appears to be something that originated in Central Jawa, most likely in Solo, as a part of the effect of Islamic societal standards on the elite segments of Javanese society. This probably began sometime in the 18th century, and intensified as Dutch control of the Javanese aristocracy became more stringent. Javanism with an Islamic tint was a reaction to the increasing restrictions felt by society at large and by the aristocrats in particular.

Aristocratic men held themselves above the mundane, contaminated things of this world and became limited in the ways in which they could store wealth. Commerce and the associated market place dealing involving money became more closely regarded as something for women to be involved in. Money itself was not something that an aristocrat should allow himself to be seen to be too concerned about:- money was base and as such was dirty, women were inherently dirty, thus money could not contaminate them further. The market place was the domain of women, men were above such things.

An aristocratic man could really only store wealth in aristocratic things:- gold, jewels, land, and amongst a few other things, tosan aji. The word "tosan" means "iron". The word "aji" can be understood in several ways:- the simple understanding is "value/worth", but that idea of value & worth is linked to ideas of respect, honour, esteem, king, magic, talisman, & indirectly to the Quran.

The common understanding of "tosan aji" is "honoured iron" and refers to keris & tombak in particular and to iron weapons in general.

So keris & tombak were one of the ways in which a Javanese aristocrat could store wealth.

But how does one establish the value of a keris or a tombak?

The value of gold, jewels, land & etc can estimated by application of long established principles, but how to establish the value of a keris?

Some things regarding keris value are obvious:- state of preservation, artistic interpretation, inherent value of materials, but other things are not so obvious, and this is where the idea of classification in accordance with the parameters of tangguh comes into play.

Not all eras of Javanese history are regarded as being equally honourable, for example, Kartosuro is regarded as being almost devoid of honour, whereas Majapahit, the Golden Age, is about as honourable as you can get. So a piece of tosan aji with a perceived association with Kartosuro has a lower value than a piece of tosan aji with a perceived association with Majapahit. This perception is rooted in a system of belief, and that system of belief is the Tangguh System.

All other factors being equal, a piece of tosan aji that is able to be classified as Majapahit will have a much higher value than a piece of tosan aji that is classifiable as Kartosuro.

This is the traditional understanding, but today's understandings are corrupted by the understandings of dealers and collectors who have little understanding of traditional Javanese values.

Insofar as keris and other tosan aji is concerned, perhaps the major misunderstanding is that the Tangguh System was only ever meant to be applied to items of tosan aji that could be regarded as vehicles meant to store wealth, that is to say, items of a very high level of excellence. Today, everybody wants to place a tangguh classification on everything, this is today's standard, it is not the traditional standard.

It is probably a total impossibility for anybody to understand the parameters and application of those parameters to a keris or tombak in the absence of dedicated personal tuition from an acknowledged Javanese master, and at the present time, finding such a master might be just a little bit difficult. So it is that tangguh as it is understood now is just a game that has traveled a long way from its roots.