Keris blade

[A. G. Maisey]

Sajen, many, if not most things in the world of the keris are not carved in stone.

In fact, in Jawa, it is not only names concerned with keris that change, names of many things change from town to town, village to village and even person to person. The Javanese language is referred to by linguists as a non-standard language. Each speaker of the language seems to believe that each word he utters is his own personal property and he can do as he will with it. Bearing in mind the strict heirarchy of formal Javanese, this phenomenon does seem rather peculiar.

In any case, from this base, we find a lot of variation in definitions of the meanings of words, and this flows through into definition in many other areas. When we look at definitions as they apply to the form of keris, those definitions strictly speaking should flow from criteria set down by the various Karatons, however, at the present time the criteria of the various keris forms, or dhapur, appear to be able to be defined by anybody who has a following of believers.

In another recent thread we found a further example of variation in the definition of dhapur.

Speaking only for myself, I feel it is perhaps best not to become too entangled in discussion of dhapur. You could well have as many opinions on any specific dhapur as there are keris study groups.

Now, in the case of this blade, as I have said, I do not accept this as a Javanese blade, if this is so, it really cannot be defined in Javanese terms, so it is not really correct to try to afix any Javanese dhapur name to it.