In respect of the hilt shown by Gavin in Post # 77.
Mention has been made of the opinions of Vanna Ghiringhelli and of Karsten Sejr. Jensen, and it is true that the opinions of both these people must be given due consideration.
Vanna Ghiringhelli is a noted academic who has a very firm foundation in Hindu culture, certainly more mainstream than specifically early Javanese, but her depth of understanding of this mainstream permits an informed analysis of the streams which have their source in the mainstream.
Karsten Sejr. Jensen was a dedicated researcher with a very high level of interest in the keris, and this permitted him to form some very interesting ideas which must be given careful consideration. However, as he himself states:-
"--- Therefore the interpretations, that I give them, are only possible interpretations and there may be many layers under and above the meaning that I indicate.---"
My own opinion is that at this remove it is a total impossibility to affix any specific identity to any of these figural interpretations found in keris hilts.
Indeed, even at the time when one of these hilts was carved, no person apart from the client and/or the carver may have known the true identity of the figure that was represented in the carving.
Why might this be so?
Because the figure may have been intended to represent an ancestor of the client personified as a yaksa (Jav.). The yaksa itself may have been intended as the personification of a deity.
In Javanese thought, most especially early Javanese thought, when a person passed to the other world, that person's earthly spirit could be absorbed into the unseen essence of a being from the Unseen World. Rulers and other great notables were often represented after death as deities, for example Gajah Mada as Ganesha.
Deities could present themselves as Yaksas, Lord Siwa himself was not averse to assuming the form of a yaksa when it served his purpose.
So, even though a figure may be in the form of a yaksa, that does not necessarily mean that it was intended as a simple representation of a yaksa, but may have been intended as one of the higher deities which had absorbed the spirit of an ancestor.
The client of course knew who the figural representation was intended to be, as in early days did the artist who carved the figure, but nobody else was likely to know.
One does not gather power by providing gratuitous information.
This is, and seems to always have been, a basic element of the Javanese world.
Thus if one commissions a representation of a yaksa that in fact is intended as a vessel for the spirit of an ancestor, is it wise to let anybody else know the true nature of the representation?
In light of the above, I think that I am in the Vanna Ghiringhelli camp:- "unknown".
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