[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Jean, maybe an experienced specialist hilt carver will have some knowledge.
Or an interested Brahman priest.
Or an academic specialising in this subject.

However, even if we get a supposedly accurate response from somebody --- anybody --- we must ask:-

"how do you know? who told you this"

To come to some sort of an understanding of the depiction of characters in Balinese keris hilts there are several things that need to be taken into consideration.

To begin with, there are the variations that occur between Balinese interpretations of Hindu deities, and the way in which these deities are represented on the sub-continent of India.

Prior to the early 20th century Bali had been very largely insulated from the influences of the outside world. Throughout society there was an acceptance of the traditional beliefs, including the ever present involvement of the Gods, the Ancestors, and the natural and super-natural forces in the doings of people who were still living on earth.

The people of Bali, most especially the ruling classes of Bali (the Tri Wangsa:- Brahmana, Satria, Wesia) were brutally introduced to the world outside Bali with the Dutch invasions that culminated in the puputans. The story is well known, so I won't repeat it here, however, there are several things that must be understood when we are talking about the puputans.

Firstly, there is the meaning of the word itself:- puputan means to bring to an end. It is a finishing. When the Balinese court in Badung walked into the Dutch guns and were slaughtered, or alternatively, committed suicide with their own weapons, they were bringing to an end a time in the world that had become untenable. The Badung Puputan occurred in 1906.

In Klungkung there was second puputan that occurred in 1908. The popular story is that Dewa Agung Jambe, the Raja of Klungkung, and the acknowledged senior ruler of Bali confronted the invading Dutch forces with his most powerful pusaka keris in his hand, and struck the earth with it. He believed that he held in his hand the combined power of all of his ancestors, and his expectation was that the earth would open and the Dutch forces would be swallowed. Well, it did not happen. There was a puputan in Klungkung too. Another finishing.

Badung and Klungkung were the two major events of the Dutch invasions, but Dutch forces penetrated and destroyed other areas as well, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly.

When the Dutch occupied Bali they introduced political reforms that effectively reduced the powers of the old Balinese courts. There was difficulty in finding exactly who should lead a court, since there had been such massive losses of the elite classes, most especially of the K'satriyas, the class that provided the actual ruler.

The common people (Sudras) had lost faith in the ability of the Triwangsa to guide and protect them, and their faith in the traditional ways of their ancestors had been shaken.

By the 1920's, Bali was on the "grand tour of the east" map for those who could afford it. European and American society ladies and gentlemen were touring through Jawa and Bali by automobile, horse and carriage, and on horseback.

Amongst these Europeans was a young German, Walter Spies. In 1923 he was in Central Jawa, and then in 1927 he moved to Bali and settled in the Ubud area. At the outbreak of WWII Spies was deported from the Dutch East Indies, because he was a German national. The boat he was on was bombed and he drowned at sea. However, Spies, and other German artists who followed him had a monumental influence on Balinese art, and the way in which Balinese artists saw and told of their world.

Spies was perhaps the most influential person from a western culture to awaken the world to Bali. Many people give credit for this awakening to Miguel Covarrubias , but Covarrubias got most of his information from Spies.

In short, without Walter Spies, Balinese art as we know it today would simply not exist. If we want to see indigenous Balinese art we need to look at works that pre-date the 1920's. Something like the paintings on the ceiling of the "Palace of Justice" in Klungkung. These paintings have been refreshed over the years, but they remain true to the indigenous Balinese style.

Walter Spies has to large extent given today's "Ten Day Package Tourists" the Bali that they know and love.

WWII brought the pre-war tourism to an end, and then the struggle of the Indonesian people against European domination made Bali not particularly desirable as a tourist destination until the late 1960's --- 1966 was perhaps the watershed year, after this the tourists began to come back to Bali.

Inevitably these tourists were ready buyers for "Balinese Art" :- an art that had been created to a large degree by the influence of German artists, amongst whom Walter Spies was pre-eminent.

Consider the Balinese experience during the 20th century:-

Dutch invasion, the extermination of the ruling elite, the loss of belief in traditional ways by the common people, the commencement of tourism and the beginning of a second invasion by European and other tourists, the Japanese occupation of WWII, the turmoil and mass executions of the "Struggle for Freedom", the next invasion of tourists which until the present grows ever stronger.

Is it surprising that some aspects of Balinese art and culture have altered to the point where a Balinese time traveller from, say, 1800, would not recognise what he was looking at?

Our primary interest here is the keris, in the current thread, specifically the characters represented in Balinese hilts.

When we attempt to understand the identity of a figure depicted in a Balinese hilt we need to ask ourselves how old the hilt is, who made the hilt, and for whom it was made.

If that hilt is post, say, 1930, there is a very strong possibility that it has been created as an art work, rather than as a work that incorporates belief in an ancestor, or a deity. If it has been created as an art work, the way in which that art has been executed will almost certainly be a way that is calculated to appeal to European tastes.

This, of course, does not mean that the depiction is no longer genuinely Balinese, what it does mean is that the way in which the depiction has been executed, and the artist who created it, have both diverged from traditional roots and are now moving along a path first opened after 1906, when Balinese society and culture was changed forever.

Just as the identification of symbols in European art has to a very great extent been lost, and is now only partially understood by a few specialist scholars, the symbolism in Balinese art is no longer widely understood, if it is understood at all.

Carvers and other artists may copy, or attempt to copy, old forms, but very often they err when depicting attributes of the various characters, especially when they are working from memory. Combine these errors with the well known variations that are inherent in Balinese depictions of Hindu deities, and what we have is often an unsolvable puzzle. We may be able to guess the intended identity of the character, but can we be certain? I rather think not.