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A. G. Maisey · 17th March 2023, 08:07 PM

During the period I have been closely associated with Jawa & Bali, & that means approx. the last 50 odd years, I have only very rarely encountered what I could consider to be "old" understandings of the keris, and the people who had these understandings were, for the most part, not craftsmen, nor collectors, nor dealers, they were mostly people who had no particular interest in keris at all.

So yes, I am inclined to believe that a lot of the ideas that might have been associated with the keris at times in the past are now no longer a part of keris understanding.

The belief system that is Bali-Hindu has always varied from the belief system that we regard as mainstream Hindu. In very simple terms Bali-Hindu prior to the Independence of Indonesia was a mixture of Hindu-Buddhist- & indigenous beliefs, and it still is, but the requirements of the Abrahamic religions, and specifically Islam, that came with the formation of the new state of Indonesia required the Bali Hindu religion to adopt certain changes in order to retain the legitimacy of the Balinese system of belief, so now, we do not call the Balinese system of belief "Bali Hindu", we call it "Bali Dharma", or more correctly "Agama Hindu Dharma".

There is a lot about this on the net, but good old Wiki puts it all into a teacup:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balinese_Hinduism

17th March 2023, 08:07 PM	#17
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,712	During the period I have been closely associated with Jawa & Bali, & that means approx. the last 50 odd years, I have only very rarely encountered what I could consider to be "old" understandings of the keris, and the people who had these understandings were, for the most part, not craftsmen, nor collectors, nor dealers, they were mostly people who had no particular interest in keris at all. So yes, I am inclined to believe that a lot of the ideas that might have been associated with the keris at times in the past are now no longer a part of keris understanding. The belief system that is Bali-Hindu has always varied from the belief system that we regard as mainstream Hindu. In very simple terms Bali-Hindu prior to the Independence of Indonesia was a mixture of Hindu-Buddhist- & indigenous beliefs, and it still is, but the requirements of the Abrahamic religions, and specifically Islam, that came with the formation of the new state of Indonesia required the Bali Hindu religion to adopt certain changes in order to retain the legitimacy of the Balinese system of belief, so now, we do not call the Balinese system of belief "Bali Hindu", we call it "Bali Dharma", or more correctly "Agama Hindu Dharma". There is a lot about this on the net, but good old Wiki puts it all into a teacup:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balinese_Hinduism Last edited by A. G. Maisey; 17th March 2023 at 08:22 PM.