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Old 26th July 2017, 01:07 PM   #14
A. G. Maisey
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Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,697
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Johan, it is not possible to understand anything if that anything is taken out of context.

If we take a sentence from, let us say Shakespeare, is it possible to understand the message that the selected sentence carries, lacking the context of the play?

I suggest to you that it is totally impossible.

So it is with the keris and everything that pertains to it.

In any case, I have been pushing my own little barrow for more years than I can count, trying to get some people to try to understand just a little bit about what it is that they collect.

Very few people are prepared to make the effort to learn their ABC before they try to read "War & Peace".

There are no short cuts. We must put in the hard work first.

Regrettably.

When it comes to the keris in Jawa we need to put in a lot of what might seem like irrelevant effort before we can even begin to understand, then it becomes a matter of "understand what?" even if we understand the words, does that mean that we understand the message, or further, that we understand that message in context?

Collectors prefer to collect. Its what they do. Their interest is in the physical.

I am now 76 years old. I have had an interest in the keris for more than 60 years. For the last almost 50 years I have actively studied the keris. I probably will not live very much longer, and I will die knowing very, very little about the keris.

Here is a beginning for you:-

http://www.kerisattosanaji.com/INTERPRETATIONPAGE4.html
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