Keris Measurement

A. G. Maisey · 28th January 2007, 06:09 AM

Thanks David.This method is fairly well known and fairly wide spread, and appears in a number of different versions. The measurement is done along the centre of the blade.

Martin Kerner took one version of this method and created an interesting theory around it. Some of this theory does not stand close examination, but other parts of it are, I believe, touching on one of the great unknowns of keris symbolism. Regretably, I don't think Martin realised this.Using the method as a base, he used mathematics to express the form of a keris and analysed his results statistically.Martin's work has been much undervalued by many people, and this is simply because they do not understand the ground breaking work he did. Some of his interpretations were a little difficult to accept, principally because of his lack of practical and cultural knowledge, but the analytical work he did I consider to be brilliant.I believe that in time Martin Kerner will be honoured as a man who showed us where the door was, even though he himself could not open it.

Several years ago I measured over two hundred keris using the variation of this method that occurs in Bali and is reported in "Keris Bali".This was the same version that Martin Kerner drew upon. The results were fairly consistent, but the remarkable thing was that very good quality, old , Javanese and Balinese keris produced a remarkably consistent result.

When I asked this question I was rather hoping that perhaps somebody may have stumbled across some obscure method of measurement that was not well known, but that could be correlated to the existing well known ones.

drdavid · 28th January 2007, 06:31 AM

Thank you for your comments Alan, could you explain with the Balinese method do you simply measure directly up the centre of the blade including the gonjo. I was/am a bit confused by the reference to the aring in Skeat's description as in my ignorance I thought this was a term for the outermost tail section of the gonjo and hence could not see how you measured up the centre of the blade with this as the starting point.
cheers
David

A. G. Maisey · 28th January 2007, 08:39 PM

This is an English translation from an old Balinese lontar, written in Kawi. It was translated into modern Balinese, Indonesian, French and English. The English says the same as the Indonesian, I cannot read Balinese without a dictionary, and I cannot read Kawi at all.

"Take a rope or young coconut leaf, and take the length of the keris, starting from its ganja until its point, then cut the rope/leaf. It will have the same length as the keris.
Fold the rope /leaf into two. Now its length is half the length of the keris. Find the middle part of the keris by measuring the half length rope/ leaf onto the keris,starting from the wesi (place of the handle of the keris)
After getting the middle part of the keris, unfold the rope/leaf and use it to measure the width of the middle part of the keris, then fold up the rope/leaf following the width of the middle part of the keris ( the length of keris is divided by the width of its middle part)so that we will get some pleats.---"

After this it goes into the usual sort of lucky/unlucky thing.

In the above you can read "wesi" as "pesi", so what you are doing is measuring the length of the blade without gonjo, using a center line.

Maybe Mr. Skeat didn't know the difference between a gonjo and an aring?

In fact, I have to think about aring myself. I never use the Malay terms and when somebody says "aring" I have to stop and think what they mean.

28th January 2007, 06:09 AM	#1
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,056	Thanks David.This method is fairly well known and fairly wide spread, and appears in a number of different versions. The measurement is done along the centre of the blade. Martin Kerner took one version of this method and created an interesting theory around it. Some of this theory does not stand close examination, but other parts of it are, I believe, touching on one of the great unknowns of keris symbolism. Regretably, I don't think Martin realised this.Using the method as a base, he used mathematics to express the form of a keris and analysed his results statistically.Martin's work has been much undervalued by many people, and this is simply because they do not understand the ground breaking work he did. Some of his interpretations were a little difficult to accept, principally because of his lack of practical and cultural knowledge, but the analytical work he did I consider to be brilliant.I believe that in time Martin Kerner will be honoured as a man who showed us where the door was, even though he himself could not open it. Several years ago I measured over two hundred keris using the variation of this method that occurs in Bali and is reported in "Keris Bali".This was the same version that Martin Kerner drew upon. The results were fairly consistent, but the remarkable thing was that very good quality, old , Javanese and Balinese keris produced a remarkably consistent result. When I asked this question I was rather hoping that perhaps somebody may have stumbled across some obscure method of measurement that was not well known, but that could be correlated to the existing well known ones.

28th January 2007, 06:31 AM	#2
drdavid Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Australia Posts: 372	Thank you for your comments Alan, could you explain with the Balinese method do you simply measure directly up the centre of the blade including the gonjo. I was/am a bit confused by the reference to the aring in Skeat's description as in my ignorance I thought this was a term for the outermost tail section of the gonjo and hence could not see how you measured up the centre of the blade with this as the starting point. cheers David

28th January 2007, 08:39 PM	#3
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,056	This is an English translation from an old Balinese lontar, written in Kawi. It was translated into modern Balinese, Indonesian, French and English. The English says the same as the Indonesian, I cannot read Balinese without a dictionary, and I cannot read Kawi at all. "Take a rope or young coconut leaf, and take the length of the keris, starting from its ganja until its point, then cut the rope/leaf. It will have the same length as the keris. Fold the rope /leaf into two. Now its length is half the length of the keris. Find the middle part of the keris by measuring the half length rope/ leaf onto the keris,starting from the wesi (place of the handle of the keris) After getting the middle part of the keris, unfold the rope/leaf and use it to measure the width of the middle part of the keris, then fold up the rope/leaf following the width of the middle part of the keris ( the length of keris is divided by the width of its middle part)so that we will get some pleats.---" After this it goes into the usual sort of lucky/unlucky thing. In the above you can read "wesi" as "pesi", so what you are doing is measuring the length of the blade without gonjo, using a center line. Maybe Mr. Skeat didn't know the difference between a gonjo and an aring? In fact, I have to think about aring myself. I never use the Malay terms and when somebody says "aring" I have to stop and think what they mean.