The Knaud

[JustYS]

I’ll jump in.

Disclaimer: I don’t have the book and I’m not knowledgeable in Keris.

I’ve found the following sentence (particularly in bold) intriguing:

"An analysis confirms N.J. Krom's presumption it is not only a very special artefact created in East Java during the 14th century but also that, considering its history and style, it must be linked to the temple site of Panataran which dates from the Majapahit era."

Keris shown in Candi Panataran as far as I know is leaf shape Keris with very basic features such as gandhik polos (non figural gandhik), whereas the Knaud Keris clearly show a figural gandhik and on top of that there are also some detailed carvings on the blade’s surface.

I’m interested to know what analysis confirms that the Knaud Keris was created during the 14th century?

Best Regards,

JustYS

[A. G. Maisey]

There is a number impressed or engraved on the keris blade that has been written in one of the ways that dates were written during the Majapahit era.

Most people assume that this date was placed there at the time of manufacture.

So linking this number to a date of origin is pure assumption. It could have been placed there at any time.

The Knaud is the only keris-like object that we know of that has a number permanently affixed to it.

Further, why must it be linked to Panataran?

Even if we could find exactly similar pictures in the Panataran bas reliefs to the pictures on the Knaud that does not prove anything except that the Knaud pictures might have been copied from Panataran, and this could happen at any time after the construction of Panataran.

There is much more that needs to be queried in the Knaud story.

[jagabuwana]

I also haven't read the book yet, but am interested to.
JustYS - the point you highlighted also caught my eye, for similar reasons and questions. I don't think it's fair that I ask what Knaud's conclusions and findings are without trying to read the book myself first, so I'll refrain from that, but I hope that the association with Panataran is more than just the keris being of the same kind of style that is depicted at Panataran.

I also wonder whether there is much to be said about the situation that surrounds the gifting of this keris to Knaud the physician. The story as I know is that Knaud treated Paku Alam V's son for an illness, and the keris is apparently PA-V's gift of gratitude to Knaud for his service.


I don't believe Knaud was keris-interested in the same way Groneman was and even if he was I don't know if he had the means (or desire) to question what he was told about a keris. He was also Dutch, which I can only assume meant that he was viewed with some ambivalence by a people and culture who sometimes view even people of related cultures ambivalently, but I don't know how directly relevant this is. Despite being Dutch he apparently was also interested in Javanese mysticism, so had to have been exposed to the idea of a keris having isi and tuah.

With all that in mind, I do find it difficult to believe that this keris is everything that is claimed about it. Yes it was gifted freely with gratitude, but I have often seen this keris described as a pusaka. I don't think pusakas are gifted in this way, and gratitude does not seem to be a factor in determining the next custodian of a pusaka.

If the author referred to notes or correspondences as evidences for their conclusions or speculations, then I wonder if they considered that the concept of a consistent truth or fact is hard to pin down in or irrelevant in Javanese culture and many other Indonesian cultures. I myself have been confronted with what the Western side of my brain sees as deliberate embellishments or interpolations, by people I love and trust in my family and extended family, concerning tosan aji and other related things. It got to the point that I really wondered what the point of being shamelessly lied to was - nothing I was told could have been historically true or consistent.
How can the story about an object that I know be different to the story my sister or my mother knows, despite being told by the same person?
How is it that who we know to be two distinctly different people in history can now be described as the same person?
How can one historical person be buried in several locations, with all grave sites considered to be the real resting place of the person, with no custodians of the burial site disputing the claim of the other?

I know better to now know that I wasn't being lied to, and these people I know are not liars - they just operate in a completely different world to me and that matters in fundamental, sometimes irreconcilable ways.

The word I find that comes closest to this in English is retcon - a portmanteau of retroactive continuity. Here's a fine definition from the first paragraph of its wikipedia page:

Retroactive continuity, or retcon for short, is a literary device in which established diegetic facts in the plot of a fictional work (those established through the narrative itself) are adjusted, ignored, supplemented, or contradicted by a subsequently published work which recontextualizes or breaks continuity with the former.

It goes on to explain that authors use retcons under the "assumption that the changes are unimportant to the audience compared to the new story which can be told".

In Western cultures we accept this in film and literature, and even then, sometimes with passionate argument and dispute. We confine it to the world of fiction that we consume for enjoyment. We do not expect to find retcons in real things with real histories because we associate it with incorrectness at best or manipulation and Orwellian-ness at worst.

We know by now that that is not the case in other cultures - certainly not the culture from which the keris came. To gift a legitimately old keris to someone is not a cheapskate's offer, but perhaps its gifters felt that it needed something more than what reality could permit. And as we know, in some cultures reality may not be an obstacle to elevating something to a status more befitting of the situation, the persons involved, or posterity.

[A. G. Maisey]

Those comments of yours are very pertinent JG. Your own socio-cultural background has permitted you to immediately see one of the major fault-lines in the Knaud argument.

In fact, David Van Duuren delves pretty deeply into the back story of the Knaud's acquisition and gives us a lot of info that we, or at least I, did not previously know. For example:-

Charles Knaud was not a "doctor" in the European sense of the word, he claimed to have trained under a Javanese dukun, and his powers of healing came from a Javanese, not a Dutch, foundation.

Dutch doctors had already attempted to heal the young prince, but had failed, Charley Knaud enters the scene, detects that the prince has been subjected to guna-guna, ie, black magic, and promptly cures him.

What we know of CharleyK mostly comes from his grand nephew John Knaud who wrote an article about CharleyK many years after his death. According to this article CharleyK was an eccentric, a painter, and an art collector who had a very high degree of interest in Javanese beliefs.

The keris itself was brought into the spotlight after Charley got hold of it, then it disappeared, it was commented upon by N.J.Krom, it was rediscovered in 2002.

In his book, David Van Duuren is rather dismissive of the back story, he concentrates on the keris itself, not the embroidery surrounding it. You yourself understand that convention in Javanese society is that reality must never be permitted to get in the way of making a story, or anything else for that matter, better or more interesting than it really is. The truth of something is often so exceedingly boring, one of the reasons why gratuitous truths are never welcome.

So, let us just concentrate on the keris itself. I will continue to call it a "keris", but frankly, when I look at many of the physical features of The Knaud, I am forced to think of it as a "keris-like object", rather than a keris.

What questions can be directed at the physical characteristics of The Knaud?

[JeffS]

Withdrawing my comment.

[JustYS]

Hi jagabuwana,

I agreed with you, I will try to get hold of this book as well.

Hi Alan,

Looking at the keris itself, my first impression is that the pawakan looks awkward. The sharp bent above the gandhik seems to me lack of harmony.

[A. G. Maisey]

Perhaps we might consider the dimensions & proportions?

Does this keris have a separate gonjo or is gonjo iras?

Have we looked closely at the pesi?

Have we considered the actual blade sculpting that is covered by the bronze overlay?

Lots of things going on here gentleman. Can we relate all these things to the Keris Buda form?

Harmony?

Well, from that perspective it is certainly no symphony.

[JustYS]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Perhaps we might consider the dimensions & proportions?

Does this keris have a separate gonjo or is gonjo iras?

Have we looked closely at the pesi?

Have we considered the actual blade sculpting that is covered by the bronze overlay?

Lots of things going on here gentleman. Can we relate all these things to the Keris Buda form?

Harmony?

Well, from that perspective it is certainly no symphony.

Thank you for posing these questions Alan.

To my untrained eyes, Knaud Keris has round pesi, which would not be conform to Keris Buda that typically square pesi?