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Originally Posted by marto suwignyo
It is my firm belief that to understand the keris , we must have an understanding of Javanese culture, history, and society; such understanding can only be gained from serious and consistent study in the relevent fields.
Pak Boedhi, the academics are always telling us that correct usage of the Javanese language will be dead within a very short space of time, some people are claiming that within 20 years the only people who will be able to speak Javanese correctly will be professors in universities.
I will not comment as to whether I agree with this , or not, however, I think that this demonstrates that unless those of us who do maintain an interest in Javanese culture, take a serious and studious approach to the preservation of that culture, eventually the unique features of the culture will be forgotten.
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Hi marto suwignyo. I was told a legendary gurindam before the war between kingdom Sriwijaya and Singasari. King Sriwijaya sent a messager to king Singasari to deliver a roll of plain paper with one corner wripped off. However the messager himself did not know the meaning of it and could not answered king Singasari's questions about the will of king Sriwijaya. As that time Singasari influence was developing both in economics and politics far to Malacca strait, this mild sarcastic message was read as Sriwijaya would like to take over sort influence one by one, and it meant a declaration of war. Inspite of that, the messeger was still kept alive and treated descently, he was released to trip back to Sriwijaya after his head had hair cut and shaved very smoothly. This was meant so king Sriwijaya could see the message only when the messager bowed his head to the king, and so read as the humility of Singasari people to avoid war, yet the spears of Singasari which symbolized in the smooth short shaved hair, are always ready to welcome Sriwijaya.
I was about to disbelieve that the symbolic language, also in keris, is about to lost. I feel like the language itself is the spirit of people of Indonesia from ancient time to todays. But as I see the crisis of twin kings of PB and how Indonesia is having a continuous stress under economic pressure which force people to busily do what they do for living, ...and a murder committed by royal family of Bali. I think you are right! This unique feature will be forgotten, not because we have less interests in it, ...but because whoever maintains interests in Javanese/Balinese culture and takes a serious and studious approach to the preservation of these cultures, does not have the power to drive a living energy to the culture. Bali is a little lucky as the driving power is vastly held in traditional spiritual religion of Hindhu, but in Java where kraton is the stronghold of keris culture instead of Islam religion, ...I hope HB of Jogjakarta at least could do something about the crisis, more than any authoritive people outside kraton.
Though I think that culture approach is slight less important than to understand to energy which dwells inside keris, losing the culture is losing the self. But as powerless citizen, I am among those who only could hope that authoritive people could appreciate the culture itself and respect symbolic language both national and traditional. Like the symbolic language of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, which reflected in Upacara Bendera in country palace. ~IBS