Agreed Michael, it could be a yaksha.
In fact it could be anything.
Perhaps the carver knew what it was.
Perhaps he did not.
Perhaps it was an abstraction of an abstraction .
Perhaps it was an original creation.
To clarify a point Michael, I have put no arguments in my comments. I am not pushing any barrow here, I am simply attempting to place on record the situation in respect of interpretation of SE Asian art, as it appears to be understood by a number of people who know vastly more than I do about the subject. What I have gathered is that it is often rather futlie to attempt to interpret things that we do not understand, indeed, can have no hope of understanding. Most especially when people within the same time frame and from the same cultural background cannot understand those things if they lack the specialist knowledge that will allow them to understand.
There is no need for you to be a bit sceptical that everything changed after societal dominance by Islam.
Of course everything did not change.
And I have at no time suggested that everything did change.
What I said about Islam was this:-
This question is of course meaningless unless it it is framed within the historical structure of the relevant society, thus in Jawa this point could be argued to have occurred with societal dominance by Islam, whilst in Bali the point in time will be a different one.
I have used this as an example, not as a definitive. The point at which the societal shift took place could as easily have been with the organisation of Javanese society into into city states; it could have been with the shift of power from Central Jawa to East Jawa, it could have been with any number of things, and I am not suggesting for one moment that I have any idea when this point may have been reached. I have no idea when professional carvers appeared on the scene in Jawa and began to produce art works rather than talismanically potent personal adornments that served a societal purpose.
What I am suggesting is this:- to hypothesise upon the identity of an abstracted figure from a time long past, and from a society that is only partially understood, even by authorities respected as expert on that society and its history, organisation and beliefs is an entertaining pastime, but hardly a useful one, and has the potential to mislead, rather than to provide substantial answers.
It is always very tempting to attempt to build constructs on those things we do not understand.
We see all this artistic variety and abstraction in Javanese keris handles, and we would not be human if we did not try to affix identities to those hilt figures.However, the truth could be vastly different from our hypotheses, and at this remove it is impossible know with any certainty what that truth may be.Most especially is it impossible in the case of representation bearing a set of unique characteristics that prevents it being aligned with known and acknowledged forms.
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