[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Michael, of course you are correct:- Machlup and Arbesman are only the tip of the iceberg, but those two happen to be a very prominent and well-known tip. It has been obvious from probably the beginning of mankind's learning curve that the cat can be skinned in more ways than one.

Again I agree with you that since this Forum is not academically based, and additionally because many of our contributors do not have English as a native language, it is perhaps best to keep responses and new information to a simple, straight-forward, basic level, and this is precisely what I have been trying to do for the entire time I have been involved in discussions here.

However, I do believe that there is a difference between simplicity and insufficient information to permit understanding of base concepts, but this mindset makes it reasonably difficult to determine a point at which to draw the line between "too much", and "not enough".

For example, it is easy for the modern day western collector to differentiate between the raksasa and yaksa --- I'll use Javanese spellings, since we are discussing Jawa.

The raksasa is big, ugly and hairy, and he's a baddy.

The yaksa is a nature spirit somewhat delicate, and essentially a goody.

Thus, if we are involved in a discussion that is centered around the beliefs and terminology of modern day western collectors it is probably more than enough to restrict ourselves to this level of terminology.

However, when a question is raised that seeks to find the specific identity of one of these artificially created groups, it becomes more than a little difficult to provide an explanation in the absence of sufficient information to understand that explanation.

If we stop with generic terms, as understood by collectors outside Javanese society, yaksa & raksasa are probably enough, but then when we get to trying to understand the differences between these two generic groups we can be faced with a problem:- should we apply our own construction to the understanding, should we apply the understanding of present day Jawa, or should we seek to apply the understanding of the people responsible for the production of the artifact that we are attempting to understand?

My present belief is that the nature of the question raised dictates the nature of the answer given. I am open to opposing argument to this position, as my own ideas do sometimes vacillate between trying to provide reasonably complete answers, and answers just sufficient to extinguish the question.

This matter of raksasa and yaksa is a good example of what I mean.

Many of the hilts that have these abstracted figural forms would have been produced by people who spoke Old Javanese.
( Modern Javanese seems to be accepted as having begun its development in the courts of Central Jawa following the establishment of the Second Kingdom of Mataram, roughly some time around 1600)

In Old Javanese the understanding of "yaksa" was that it referred to a group of creatures who were half-gods dedicated to the service of (principally) Wisnu, however, sometimes they were found in the company of dangerous creatures such as the pisaca, a group that included the setan, raksasa, iblis, jin, and other evil and dangerous creatures.

In Old Javanese thought the raksasa was an evil, dangerous demon.

So in Old Javanese thought, the yaksa was usually, but not necessarily, a goody, but in reality the yaksa could also be a bhuta.
A bhuta is generally taken to refer to an evil spirit that haunts lonely places, but it can also mean simply a giant, and in Old Javanese it can carry a wider range of meaning, dependent upon context.

In present day Jawa Krama the yaksa is thought of as a member of the same group of creatures as the daitya, raksasa and asura. In Old Javanese thought the Asuras were enemies of the Dewas, the Daityas were a sub-clan of giants belonging to the larger group of Asuras.

Now, what I have written above is in my view the absolute basic, simplistic level of info needed for a layman to understand the nature of a yaksa and the nature of a raksasa. When we have this most basic level of understanding it becomes clear that to try to differentiate between the yaksa and the raksasa becomes somewhat difficult. Most particularly so if we are trying to understand an abstracted figural carving made by a person who saw the world in Old Javanese terms.

For a long time the world of collectors outside Jawa referred to these figural hilts as "raksasa".
Not particularly accurate, not making any attempt to understand the form in terms of the creators, but sufficient so that all other collectors outside Jawa knew what was being talked about.

We have at least two choices:- we stay with the terminology of yesterday, or we attempt to expand our understanding to allow us to use a perhaps more accurate terminology.

One route is for the collector, the other route is for the student.