Ganja !

[VVV]

Now I don't know how to vote anymore because you have two spiritual alternatives?

But I go for the lock of the spirit which is closest to what I think is the reason.
I think it's talismanic with a lot of different symbolism.
Kind of to balance the spiritual forces of the Keris.
As Shahrial brought up the Linggam/Yoni dualism is one probable factor (on the other side of the ganja it's the pesi/ukiran = same thing).
I also find it probable that it is a kind of lock, as well as a protective shield from, the Naga, or metaphysical forces in the Keris.
But I am sure that there are several other reasons and explanations/speculations?

Michael

[Rick]

Yikes!
Sorry to complicate things Michael.

The first option refers to the entire keris as a spiritual expression of life i.e. the ganja and pesi being a male female concept and all that entails.

The other refers to the belief held by some that an empu can imbue a keris with certain powers and the ganja acts like the stopper on a bottle holding the power in the keris.

Multiple answers are fine .

[VVV]

I have alread voted now and there was only one alternative possible per vote.
Maybe it should have been only two alternatives then?

1) Metaphysical reasons (symbolism, lock etc.)
2) Physical reasons (construction, practical function etc.)

Michael

[Lew]

As far as I am concerned the keris originated as a weapon first. Therefore when constructing a weapon function and form are thought out first any religious meaning or embelishment would be secondary.

Lew

[Rick]

So if it's a construction feature as you suggest Lew; what did it accomplish for the keris ?

Michael, was it physical construction (your answer 2) that morphed from the initial practical application into the metaphysical over time?

Or visa versa; constructed initially and for the purpose of expressing these metaphysical attributes?

[Henk]

I also vote for .3 the spiritual option.

When the pesi of the keris is broken, the keris is damaged and for the believers in the spiritual powers of keris such a keris has become even an unpredictable and dangerous object.
A ganja with a small hole that shows the pesi, called a "lotus cup" is pouring good luck over the owner of the keris. When the ganja has two lotus cups, one at each side the luck is pouring out double.
I think Michael is in the right corner.

A ganja is of course in my opinion a construction technique with a purpose, brought up by man, but what purpose? That's the question. Very nice discussion.

[A. G. Maisey]

I apologise for not playing the vote game.

For me to cast a vote, I would have to have an opinion, and I currently do not have a single firm opinion that I am prepared to defend.

I offer the following thoughts that may---or may not---be worthy of consideration.

1---at Prambanan the dagger which may be considered as an ancestor of the keris clearly shows a gonjo.This dagger is held with the pommel facing skywards, thus the wider section provided by the fitting of a gonjo has a gaurd-like effect in cushioning the heel of the hand in delivering a strike.

2---again at Prambanan the dagger which resembles a keris buda has the same feature of a gonjo.

3---observe the keris which is gonjo iras:- the sorsoran is seldom wide, the buntut urang is seldom substantial, evidence of forging difficulty is often found in the wadidang. My personal experience in forging a keris blade has been that it is quite difficult to forge out the wadidang and at the same time maintain adequate thickness.

4---the spiritual beliefs associated with the keris have developed over a very extended period. I believe it would be extraordinarily difficult to demonstrate the existence of any of these beliefs being attached to a dagger of an essentially Indian type, shown in Javanese reliefs of circa 900AD, but that is where we first see the gonjo.

5---the word "ganja" ( a note on spelling:- ganja is properly written with a dot over the "a"'s, and is pronounced "gonjo"; I prefer to write the word "gonjo" because that is how it is pronounced, and probably how most people in Central Jawa would write it)---to repeat, the word "ganja" is found in Old Javanese, but it appears not to be associated with any root word in Sanscrit , or Malay, or any other language. It appears not to be associated with any other word, in any other language, or with any other idea. At the present time I think we can assume it is a stand alone word with a single purpose:- to describe this part of the keris. I have made enquiries in respect of possible associations of this word, but although the people I have approached are at the top of their fields in Old Javanese, and in comparative linguistics, I have not yet had very enlightening responses from them. I personally feel that the way forward in solution of this question is to identify the root of the word. It may be from an Indian language, it may be original Javanese, but if it is original Javanese, it is a little strange that no associations can be tracked with other Old Javanese words.

It would not surprise me if at some time in the future we discover that the word "gonjo" derives from some archaic dialect of the Indian Sub-Continent, and carries the sense of "gaurd", or "pillow", or "support" or something similar.

Once we have a sense of meaning to the word, we can perhaps assume a reason for its original existence. In the mean time, consider how very painful it might be to recieve the full force of a strike on either the heel of the hand, or the first joint of the index finger, if the piece of metal against which that part of the body rested was narrow. Again consider the difficulties involved in forging and carving a blade with a thick, assymetric base , and a light, thin body to the rest of the blade.

As I said:- I have no opinions, only questions.

[VVV]

Originally Posted by Rick

So if it's a construction feature as you suggest Lew; what did it accomplish for the keris ?

Michael, was it physical construction (your answer 2) that morphed from the initial practical application into the metaphysical over time?

Or visa versa; constructed initially and for the purpose of expressing these metaphysical attributes?

Sorry Rick,

I first noticed you question to me now.
I think/speculate that it is the metaphysical alternative.
For some reason most of the symbolism and talismanic features on a Keris is concentrated on the ganja?
I neither think there is any construction reason for the greneng, lambe gaja etc?
Why isn't a ganja something developed in other cultures if it has a practical purpose?
When I practice martial arts I sometimes use cheap, one piece aluminium practice daggers, without ganja or guard, and thrust them full force into tree trunks with all kind of grips. This to strenghten my grip and practice impact and striking angles. I don't need any built in cushion or protection for this?
But if I would ever use a blade in a life and death situation I would use all the metaphysical help I could think of.
The more, the better, in case I didn't know which talismanic symbol that really worked according to my beliefs.

Michael

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Michael, what you say about the way in which words change when they move from one place to another is very true, that is the reason that I mentioned that perhaps we are not looking for ganja/gonjo at all. However, when we look at Old Javanese, what we find is that a lot of words have moved through into Old Javanese, and Kawi, virtually unchanged from what they were in Sanscrit.

This change is not only apparent when words move from one language to another, but in the same language, over time.

Do not forget that people with one set of language skills may not be able to produce the sounds of another language. For instance, in Australia's colonial days the English word "bullock" was rendered by Australian aboriginals as "bolong". I'm sure we can all come up many examples of this type of thing.Look at the name of the thing we are discussing. Because of the restrictions of the modern English keyboard it gets spelt with "a" 's. If you were not Javanese you would not know that it was really pronounced as if those "a" 's were "o" 's. Things change.Maybe in a hundred years everybody will pronounce "ganja" with "a" for "apple".

Let us not become lost in hypothesis.It would be very easy to do. For instance, in the Nawanatya how is the keris mentioned?
"The keris, a token of manfulness has its place at the front"
Even way back then the keris was recognised in a symbolic sense.
Now, if it is the token of a man, what would be more natural than to give a man's name to it, or to part of it?
In Sanscrit, the words "gungu" and "ganga"(again with a different pronunciation) are masculine names.

But what was the word used for keris at that time in history?
Amongst some other possibilities, it was "twek".

Let's get back and actually look at the thing we are talking about.

Right at the very beginning of its history, long before it assumed the form it has today, long before it became representative of the Cosmic Naga, long before acquired it all of the mystical baggage that is part and parcel of keris belief systems today, right at its birth, we have a graphic representation of it being used to stab downwards, with the pommel pointing at the sky.
Within the same time frame we have other graphic representations of another style of dagger that is the same as the assymetric grandfather of our keris, but this other dagger is symmetrical. It is something quite similar to some Indian daggers, and has a decidedly Indian leaf shaped blade. It is probably not drawing too long a bow to call it a jamdhar katari.

Both these daggers have a feature that is recogniseable as what we would today call a "gonjo".

In Indian and western daggers that are used in the way in which we see these early daggers being used, there is normally found a fairly substantial gaurd that supports the heel of the hand and allows a strike to be delivered with the full force of a hammer blow.

I think it is obvious that the purpose of the "gonjo" in these early daggers was the same as the purpose of a guard in western and Indian daggers:- to support the heel of the hand, and to allow full force to be used with a strike.

Over time and for a number of reasons, the shape of the keris changed, and the way in which it was used changed. I doubt that this happened in a rush, and if we look at the transitional keris that bridge the gap between the keris buda, and the modern keris, what we can see is a blade that could be used to strike down, as with the early daggers shown at Prambanan, or to thrust as with a rapier.I think we can probably assume that for a time the dagger which eventually became the keris as we know it, was used to both stab---a la Prambanan--- and to thrust.
The design of the blade was already established, and methods of use followed the blade form, thus, the "gonjo" that had served as a support for the heel of the hand, now became a support for the index finger.
In short, the existing design was satisfactory, so it underwent minimal alteration.
Probably by the time of the appearance of the modern keris, the keris had already assumed some symbolic value, and we all know that nobody in their right mind fools around with symbols too much. Thus, the gonjo was here to stay.

Ok, so you got a keris, you gotta have a gonjo. Tradition dictates that there just ain't no keris without a gonjo. Take the gonjo away:- you don't got a keris no more.

The method of making a keris was already well established, and was a product of the original lineage of the keris, as well as the available technology.Thus, by this time in the history of the keris, if you wanted a keris, it had to have a gonjo, and that gonjo was produced and fitted in a particular way.

I am convinced that what I have written above is probably a fairly accurate depictation of the origin of the gonjo on a keris, and the reason we still have it on a keris today.

But there is still that question that has not been answered, and that I have been trying to answer for more years than I care to remember:-

what is the origin and meaning of the the word "gonjo/ganja".

To me, that is the big question.

Why?

Because if it can be fixed to a meaning such as "gaurd", or "support" or similar, and if we can fix a date to its use with this sense, we can say:--OKlah, at this point in history it is probable that the keris was still regarded in Jawa as having primarily a weapon nature.

But---if we can fix a meaning to "gonjo" that carries some esoteric sense, or even symbolic sense, and we can place that usage and sense in a time frame, we can say:- at around such and such a point in time, in Jawa, the keris had already assumed such and such a role in society.

This question that Rick has asked is not just some simple little light weight curiosity that that can be settled by application of present day silat styles, or present day philosophical beliefs, or present day collector's desires. This is one of the really big questions associated with the keris, and it goes right to the heart of the history and development of the keris.

This is an important question, and we do not yet have nearly sufficient information or knowledge to be able to form opinions. At least, I do not.

What was the meaning and origin of the word "gonjo/ganja", and when was it first used?

Answer that and you have made a giant leap forward in keris knowledge.