INDONESIAN KERIS: Aesthetic and Philosophical Meaning

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you Ariel, for taking the time to make a response when you are under pressure. I do understand:- wives, grandchildren and significant others can really be quite demanding at times.

I live in The Land of Oz, not because I choose to, but because I am an Australian. Although I do have a part of my left foot planted firmly in Jawa, it is not really a place I would choose to live, particularly as I grow older. Javanese villages, both urban and rural tend not to be mystical, but rather to be hotbeds of factions, intrigues, slander and gossip. They are places where the elected government official who has responsibility for the good order and political safety of the households under his administration has the right to enter any household at any time, day or night if his entry is in the best interests of the community. I much prefer to live in Oz where people need a search warrant before they can search my house. Jawa, indeed Indonesia in general is a wonderful place to visit ---

Body language is one thing that can be difficult for an outsider to come to terms with, and I used the left hand example as one that usually surprises, sometimes shocks people who are unaware of it, especially when one explains why nobody in Jawa possesses a left hand. I understand that in many parts of India the left hand is equally as unloved, but for entirely different reasons.

The head touching thing is another Javanese no-no, and it is not so long ago that it was deemed to be adequate reason to kill a person.

Jawa really should not be thought of Muslim, which could well be thought a very peculiar thing to say, when Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world. The truth of the matter is the vast bulk of Javanese people --- and here I mean people who live in The land of Jawa, not upon the Island of Jawa --- remain faithful to their indigenous belief system. When Indonesia replaced the old Dutch colonial rule, it was decided that everybody could follow the religion of their choice and had the freedom to worship their own God, but the indigenous belief system was not recognised as a religion, so people who could not, or who did not want to identify as Buddhist, Hindu, Christian --- or whatever--- mostly jumped on the Muslim bandwagon and became what we call "Islam KTP" = "Islam kartu penduduk" = "Islam according to identity card". Maybe a bit like a lot of people in England, and Australia for that matter, are CofE. These non-religious people are sometimes referred to as "Abangan".Even the people who do consider themselves Muslim are very often Kejawen; the actual number of hard-core, mainline Muslims is very small, and they tend to be made the butt of humour by many other Javanese.

Still, with all that said, Islam has had a deep and a lasting effect upon the way in which the keris is understood at the present time. But that's a different story.

Enjoy your visit Ariel, and remind those parents of your grandchildren that visits are two way streets. We senior people are entitled to dictate terms to those who follow. Its one of the privileges of living long enough to do so.

David,

yes, there is some remarkably good stuff online now, have a look at Sumastuti.

[Bjorn]

I'll be sure to look into those books in future, Alan.

This reminds me, that while coffee-table books generally offer very limited information, at least in the case of the Invincible Keris 2 I do find that it offers a plethora of references to check.

A lot of these are not sources dealing strictly with keris but rather sources that delve into the world of knowledge that indirectly touches on the keris and the symbolism of it and its parts - and as we know, owing to Indonesia's syncretic nature that world is quite large. The intricacies of Javanese society, the Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms of old, geometric designs in Islam, Indian symbolism, etc. To me this all forms a fascinating realm to be explored further.

On a small side note, while living in a society itself is of immense value, at times reading a book can still teach you new knowledge. I've lived in Mainland China for some four years but was largely unaware of the symbolism of Chinese motifs on keris dress. I could recognize them as Chinese or Chinese influenced, but knew little to nothing about their meaning. I did inquire about such things while in China but found that, generally speaking, people had little knowledge of such things. No doubt, the Cultural Revolution played its part in that but I also suspect that modernization and urbanization contribute greatly to a lack of interest for old symbolism.

Alan, could you share with us how you find to be the state of knowledge in this regard in Indonesia? I imagine it is not dissimilar to China in that many - especially younger - people are no longer familiar with the symbolism and hidden meaning behind many patterns and designs as such knowledge is no longer relevant to their successful functioning in present-day society.

[Tatyana Dianova]

Good news: the book KERIS INDONESIA, Estetika dan Makna Filosofi /
INDONESIAN KERIS: Aesthetic and Philosophical Meaning is both in English and Indonesian. Some western dealers have it already for sale.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yuuzan, perhaps the hardest thing with any research is to ask the right question.

Answers to a question are not difficult to formulate, it is possible to take a smidgen of fact and spin that into a web of misinformation and error. However, if the question is carefully constructed then the answer must follow the parameters of the question and under these circumstances error and misinformation is rarely possible.

Thus, when we have a very great number of references then we need a very carefully constructed question, or set of questions in order to extract the relevant information from those references. The references are only part of the equation, the other parts are the questions and the answers, so if we wish to make use of references we must first decide the questions that we want answered and then address the references in order to find an answer to the questions.

Yes, Invincible Krises 2 has a lot of references, but what question do you want to answer?

First formulate the question before you go looking for an answer.

Chinese influences did penetrate Jawa, and other parts of Maritime SE Asia, and it is easy to find many Chinese motifs in the art of Jawa, especially in North Coast art, but I do not know if the symbolism of those Chinese motifs in a Javanese context is the same, or similar to the symbolism in a Chinese context. In fact, I have yet to meet anybody in Jawa who can provide supportable interpretations of most motifs, even the indigenous Javanese ones. The craftsmen simply copy what went before, the dealers simply sell, and the buyers simply collect or wear. Probably some academics may know, but in Jawa I never associate with academics --- well, at least not ones who practice in the field of Javanese art. I myself have not yet had the time to examine the relevant historical periods in order to analyse available data relevant to Chinese influences. In fact, I probably never will engage in this exercise as this field of enquiry does not very much interest me.

In respect of symbolism associated with the keris, the keris itself is a symbol, and has been seen as one probably from not long after the blade form that gave birth to the keris first appeared in Jawa. Within the keris, and by the keris I mean only the blade, there is a lexicon of symbols that can be interpreted in different ways depending upon the period in which the interpretation takes place.

That which is interpreted in one way now in 2013, was not necessarily interpreted in the same way 600 years ago. Similarly, interpretations of the iconography found in the keris are not universal, one group of people in a society can interpret in one way, others can interpret in a different way.

This can depend upon social conditions and upon the concept of "need to know". To illustrate this concept:- keris symbolism would have been interpreted in one way by the K'satriya and the Brahmins of the Majapahit court, but the Muslim traders in the enclaves along the north coast of Jawa, who were known to ape the style of the court, had no idea at all of the way in which the symbols of the keris were to be understood, as they were not a part of the relevant segment of society.

The keris began its existence as an indigenous object which developed under Hindu influences, but with the coming of Islam as the dominant political system in Jawa the interpretations that applied under the Hindu-Buddhist court rule of Majapahit underwent revision, probably unintentional, and caused by ignorance as well as the change in societal structure. Although I have said "unintentional" the opposite could be equally true, and caused by religious, political and social necessity.

In any case, if we wish to understand the symbolism of the keris, it is first necessary to identify the period in which that understanding is to apply, and the mindset that will be used to conduct the analysis of the perceived symbols in order to gain a possible understanding of the way in which they can be interpreted.

To begin such an analysis the first necessity is to gain a thorough knowledge of the period of history that will be examined. That is the start. You extend your enquiry from that point and then you do a lot of active thinking.

Eventually you may come up with some possible answers.

Yuuzan, it pleases me to see this type of matter raised here in discussion, if you do have an interest in pursuing enquiry along these lines I strongly suggest that you first ask the question of what you need to know in order to formulate the correct questions that will provide the answers you seek. This is not a casual exercise and I can guarantee you that it will keep you fully occupied for a number of years.