View Single Post
Old 27th November 2019, 11:06 AM   #13
A. G. Maisey
Member
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,675
Default

Thank you Jean.

I actually had Mr Jensen in mind, as well as some other keris writers when I wrote para 2 of post 9 to this thread. When we get into this and related areas people tend to throw names around like jelly beans. Never did like jelly beans much.

Mickey asked a question that aroused my interest and I am now trying to formulate the questions that I need to ask in order to get sufficient information to be able to respond with some degree of understanding to Mickey's question. This is very early days.

I do have a few things running in my mind but I cannot yet formulate the questions I will need to ask.

Firstly, we are talking about pre-Islamic Jawa and Bali through to --- well, I don't yet know when.

Most Balinese mudras that are practiced by both Buddhist and Siva pedandas in Bali are not static hand postures such as we see in figural carvings, both keris hilts and otherwise, they are flowing movements that involve a number of hand, and sometimes body positions.

But then, there are various groups of people who use mudras in Bali, we have the priests, we have dancers, mudras are also associated with yoga practitioners --- and when I use the word "yoga", I am not thinking in terms of bored housewives trying to fill in their days in order to have their nights filled in for them. Yoga is actually a school of philosophy that was founded by Patanjali that has as one of its objectives the merging of self with Siva --- or perhaps with the Universal Singularity.

Others also use mudras, and not all mudras are equal or the same. To an observer the mudra appears as one thing and is understood as that, but to the practitioner there is the physical performance and the link to mind, so there are three aspects at least to the observed mudra, and since a figural representation is intended to be observed, then this relationship between practitioner and observer must be considered.

But in which sphere of practice should the figural mudra be understood? I am assuming that in-so-far as Bali is concerned it is very probably the religious sphere, this because of the base function of the figural hilt and because a major part of the reason for being of all levels of priests in Bali is to control the nature spirits, as well as the evil entities that populate the unseen world.

The mudra is only one part of a ritual, each morning a Balinese priest engages in the maveda, which is the saying of prayers and mantras that are accompanied by mudras, the mudra is the observable visualisation of the prayer or mantra, so mudras are accompanied by mantras, and those mantras express various things. The mudra is not just a stand-alone hand posture with an unpronounceable name, it means something, and that is what should be uppermost in the observer's mind, thus uniting the practitioner and the observer, and I strongly suspect, the Universal Spirit --- or maybe just Siva.

So, to the present time I am only looking at the mudra in its religious context.

But then I need to look at the actual figures used in hilts. Is there some sort of hierarchical structure attached to these figures? Perhaps some figures are only suited to K'satriya, others to Wesia, perhaps there are limitations on which totogan a Sudra may use? Or maybe any sort of structure is not related to the castes at all, perhaps if there is a hierarchical structure it is related the clans --- the Pasek , Pande, Bandesa and so on.

What about the relationship between a specific mudra --- assuming one can be identified --- and the figure performing that mudra. What are the guidelines?

All that is just gliding across the top of the problem and looking at what everybody already knows, without digging too deeply, and this digging is very much complicated by the inescapable fact that Pedandas don't talk to outsiders, this means Balinese outsiders as well as Bules.

I haven't even started to think about the aksanas yet.

It took me over 30 years from the time I had some small understanding of the true nature of the keris until I felt reasonably confident to publish on this.

Figural hilts and mudras/aksanas I would hope might take a little less time.

Last edited by A. G. Maisey; 27th November 2019 at 11:20 AM.
A. G. Maisey is offline   Reply With Quote