[A. G. Maisey]

Darren, this has been a pretty decent sort of a thread, its really nice that you started it, and we've had the opportunity to talk about a few things that seldom get a mention, but I'd like to go back to your post # 7 where in the quote from the book we read this:-

"--- In the very Center of the keris, buried in the layers of
metal, was a strip of paper* on which a charm was written in Sanskrit
letters.---"

You have commented:-

"*The author is mistaken here the Rerajahan is not drawn on paper for obvious reasons instead it is scribed on the metal with a stylus"

In fact, the speaker would have found a piece of paper, and there would have been writing on the paper, which might very well have been a charm.

You see, as keris blades become old, those that were not very well made in the first place begin to delaminate. Sometimes the owner will write something on a piece of paper and tuck it down into the delaminated section of the keris.

What is written might be a genuine charm, or it might be something that pretends to be a charm, keris dealers with somewhat less than the desirable level of integrity will sometimes prepare rotten old unsaleable keris for sale by inserting little half hidden pieces of paper with something written in hanacaraka script into a delamination in the blade. This is no secret, it is well known market place trickery in the Javanese keris trade.

There is no tradition of which I know, nor that my teachers knew, nor that is contained in the primary Surakarta Empus Text-book, that calls for the inscription of magical drawings into any part of the metal used to produce a keris blade. My training has all been Javanese, it may be different in Bali, I do not know because I have never had instruction from a Balinese pande.

The thing that we see in the video where the pande is scratching something onto the metal very probably is "aum". A Hindu will usually invoke the assistance of Ganesha at the beginning of any new undertaking. Nothing strange, hidden, or unusual in this.

Why has the subject of "rerajahan" never come up in our keris discussions?

Well, I guess it is because of a couple of reasons, one of which is the word itself, which appears to be a pretty recent addition to the Balinese lexicon. The old word is "rajah" or "rajahan", and it is such a common thing in everyday Balinese life that it really would not rate a mention in discussion specifically about keris. In discussion of Balinese esoteric practices it might get a few mentions. But even then, I'm not so sure that the "rerajahan" form would be found in old sources.

Perhaps the other reason might be that the whole concept of "keris magic" is so little understood that those who do have some comprehension of this also have sufficient understanding to withhold discussion of these matters in public --- if at all.