Twisted rods

[Gustav]

Dear Kerislovers,

today an interesting blade was auctioned. The sheath likely is not made for it. What are your thoughts about the origin of it - East Java, Bali, or Lombok?

Is there something about such Pamor Tangkis, with two rods on one, and one rod on other side?

[Battara]

Based on what I see, I was thinking on Bali.....

[A. G. Maisey]

Interesting thing you've posted here Gustav.

I'm sorry, but to make any comment on this I would need to handle it, & even then I might not be able to understand what I would need to understand before commenting.

In respect of overall perceived point of origin, yes, this does imply Bali.

[RobT]

Hi All,

Please consider this observation in light of my relative ignorance of Indonesian keris but I count 8 luk and the center ridge appears to wander off point. Could the blade have been shortened?

Sincerely,
RobT

[A. G. Maisey]

Rob, like a lot of other things with the keris, what you see is not what you get.

The picture shows how we count luk now.

But luk have been counted in different ways in different times & places.

A bloke by the name of "Maisey" has hypothesized that the keris as it had developed during the Mojopahit era in East Jawa had waves (luk) introduced into its form as a type of hierarchical indicator. This hypothesis was founded on information provided by a Bali-Hindu priest, and comparison with still existing ways in which hierarchical indicators within the Balinese socio-cultural fabric are applied now, & have in the past, been applied.

After the Islamic domination of Javanese society, and the separation of Balinese socio-cultural norms from Javanese socio-cultural norms a different method of wave count was introduced by the now Muslim overlords. The reason for this was that it was now necessary to wean the populace of Jawa away from the old Hindu-Buddhist & indigenous systems of belief and bring them under the new Islamic umbrella.

The keris was not only a weapon, it was very much more, and its symbolism was far too intertwined with the old systems of belief, so certain things needed to change. One of those things was the way in which the waves of a keris blade were counted. The new overlords did a similar thing with the Javanese wayang, & for the same reasons.

The above is an over-simplification of a simplification.

This will give a slightly better picture:-

https://kerisattosanaji.com/interpre...e-keris-page-1

even this more complete text only gives a part of the story, there is more in a chapter I contributed to a book of philosophy that was published a couple of years back, but really, I, or somebody else, needs to give some time to trying to get the whole story out there in one piece.

[A. G. Maisey]

Here is the picture.