Thread: Pakem and Keris
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Old 1st May 2009, 12:03 AM   #27
A. G. Maisey
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Jussi, English may not be your native language, but I assure you, you handle it beautifully, far better in fact than many native born Australians who are sufficiently educated to pursue a university education. There is very little defect in your English, and I believe that we understand you perfectly.

However, my personal problem with your analogy of cross (or crucifix) : keris, is that the cross is framed in a Christian setting, and the keris is framed in a Javanese setting. I have a limited understanding of the philosophies applied in both settings, and I cannot align one with the other.

Many years ago a professor of Chinese culture said to me that it was not possible to refer to a Chinese concept of "heaven", because the Chinese word that we translated into the Christian words (in western languages) as "heaven" had an entirely different meaning for Christians to the meaning for the Chinese of the Chinese word that we translated as "heaven". To understand this Chinese concept of "heaven" we in fact needed to be Chinese, or at least to learn the a Chinese language and understand the Chinese value system and philosophies.

You tell us that the cross (crucifix) is a symbol of God. Is it ?

For the sake of discussion let us agree that it is, but what was the early Christian concept of God?

Now, is the early Christian concept of God the same, or similar to the early Javanese concept of God?

The keris is not representative of the "God" concept, but rather representative of the binding power of the Naga Basuki, which is quite different to God. Most especially different to "God" in any sense that we can understand this idea within our western philosophical frame of reference.

To me, there is no similarity between the symbolism of the Christian cross and the nature of the keris. But perhaps this is because my understanding of the way in which the early Javanese people thought, and the way in which early Christians thought is very, very far from perfect.We are talking here about value systems and philosophies of two groups of people who existed far in the past. Present day Javanese do not have the same values nor world view as their 13th century forebears, present day Christians are very different to 5th century Christians.

Additionally, when we talk of keris symbolism, we need to clarify which persona of the keris we are talking about:- is it the keris in general, or the keris as pusaka?

In pre-Islamic Jawa the keris was first and foremost the symbol of the masculine.

However, when it was a royal gift it assumed a different character, and when it was a clan pusaka, the character was different again. When it existed as a royal pusaka, again the character it had was differrent to the character of other keris. But even as the royal keris pusaka it still symbolised the masculine.

But, did the 14th century Javanese farmer, or sailor, or thug consider that his personal keris was primarily a symbol, or did he consider it in a different light?

Jussi, we use words as the tool to move an idea from our own thoughts into the thoughts of somebody else. However, this will only work when both parties to the transaction of idea exchange possess the same words and the same frames of reference to enable them to understand the words used in the same way.

I'm sorry Jussi, but I lack the ability to align the symbolism of the Christian cross with the symbolism of the Javanese keris.


David , we're both on the same page.

But let's look at the question.

To establish when the Malay people first began to give purely magical properties to the keris, we need to examine Malay literature. I myself have only a passing knowledge of Malay literature, but I do know that we have a mention of Hang Tuah in the Sejarah Melayu, and I think that dates from the early 17th century.

Then we have the Hikayat Hang Tuah, and I believe that the earliest version of that dates from about 200 years ago.

We could perhaps start by looking at Sejarah Melayu and examining the way in which taming sari is mentioned in the earliest version of that work, that could then be compared with the mention in the earliest version of Hikayat Hang Tuah.

Let's say that we find taming sari mentioned in Sejarah, and let's say it has a full blown magical nature in that mention. That will establish that by the 1600's Malay people had already given the possibility of a magical nature to the keris.

But it does not establish when this began, only that it was in place by the 1600's.

Let's say that there is no mention of taming sari as a magical object in Sejarah, but there is in Hikayat.

This can be used to demonstrate that by the 1800's that magical nature was accepted, but it does not necessarily mean that such a nature did not exist in the 1600's.

As I said in a previous post, this would be a good topic for serious research. Such research would entail as a minimum the reading of all the works in Malay literature with a mention of both Hang Tuah, and taming sari, and that reading would need to be of the original texts, not translations nor transcriptions. Maybe there's a Phd there for somebody.
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