[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you for your contribution Dizos.

Certainly a rather interesting and divergent opinion, but I do have more than a little difficulty in seeing any relevance to the keris. Still, as you say, the keris is well outside your own area of speciality.

In respect of the cock fight association, I just ran that image search myself and if I read the text associated with the images I find most text seems to be Malay or Indonesian. In fact, the idea of "batu lapak" associated with a fighting cock's feet has no relationship at all to the idea of batu lapak associated with keris, either as "saddle stone", or as "beginning".

The palm of the hand, or the sole of the foot is the "telapak". The word "lapak" actually carries a connotation of the lower part of something, so sole of the foot, being at the bottom, has become "telapak". Horse's hoof = "telapak kuda".

This "batu lapak" associated with fighting cocks is a hard callous on the bottom of a fighting cock's foot, it has the appearance of an implanted stone in the bottom of the fowl's foot. Batu = stone.

In a fighting cock a "batu lapak" is a "sole of the foot stone", or just simply a "foot stone".

No relationship to keris at all.

But then, maybe there is a relationship, and to follow this idea, it is best to understand that in the Javanese mind, more is better:- a multitude of deities is better than a single deity, and a multitude of meanings is better than a single meaning.

Now, I've already pointed out that the word "lapak" carries the connotation of the lowest part of anything. The lower part of the wilah is the sor-soran, and sor-soran also has a connotation of "low", in fact in ordinary speech, not keris jargon, "sor-soran" means "subordinate".

Now included in the sor-soran is a characteristic that sometimes appears called the "tungkakan", "tungkak" means "heel", "tungkakan" means "heel (of something)". The "tungkakan" is the little bend in the wilah that sits under the buntut urang of the gonjo. So looking at the lowest part of the keris we have this heel, and stretching across the blade in front of it? Well, although it is not named in keris related terminology, that straight line would have to be the telapak, the sole of the foot of the keris. So, if we see a batu in the middle of this "sole" , what else can it be but a "batu lapak"?

Batu lapak most certainly can be understood as "beginning stone", but if we look at the tungkakan, and pause to think for just one moment, maybe "batu lapak" can also be understood as "foot stone". Obviously one understanding does not necessarily negate the other:- the more meanings that can be given to anything, the better the understanding.

Consider for a moment:- not only is the sole of the foot the beginning of a man, but of any being that walks, and the beginning of anything is the lowest part of any endeavour.

A little bit like "aum" and "Allah" and "ron dha". The understanding that is appropriate to the level of knowledge.