plese help identify this pamor

[Kiai Carita]

Thank you Marto Suwignyo for explaining some cultural background to the keris.

Originally Posted by marto suwignyo

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There is ample evidence in the literature to support my assertion that the nature of the keris in the twentieth and twenty first centuries was not the nature of the keris in earlier times. For those who may be interested in discovering this for themselves, I suggest that they may care to start with a reading of :- "Java in The 14th. Century"--Pigeaud, note particularly the Nagarakertagama and the Nawanatya, and Groenveldt`s translation of the Ying-Yai-Sheng-Lan (1416), which can be found in "Historical notes on Indonesia and Malaya compiled from Chinese sources".
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I believe that the keris was only passingly mentioned by the writer in Zeng He's who did not even know the name of the weapon he was attempiting to describe. If nowadays a writer saw something in an other culture and described it without even knowing its name would his notes be reliable? I don't have the Nagarakertagama and Pararaton on me but I have read old texts and Mpu Gandring's keris is the one and only keris used to kill. There is more evidence in literature to support the notion that the Java keris was never intended to kill even before Islam. Look in Bali where the keris/kedutan is also never intended to kill. When the keris left Java/Bali it began to be seen as a weapon to kill. So it is the other way around, the coming of Islam coincided with the use of the keris as a physical weapon.

Salam keris

[marto suwignyo]

Actually, the Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan as presented by Groeneveldt is a composite of accounts prepared by two priests named Ma Huan and Fei Hsin , who accompanied the Chinese admiral Cheng Ho.

As is the case when most historical studies are undertaken, that which we wish to investigate, or to learn about is seldom set out in a form that makes our quest for knowledge easy. We need to research available resources, to apply logic and to draw conclusions, and to be prepared to defend those conclusions. In the case of the Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, it is true that the word used to refer to the daggers worn by the men of Java in the 15th century is not given as "keris", however the description of these daggers does coincide with the description of a keris, and scholars have long accepted that this description does in fact refer to the keris. In the absence of any evidence to support the existence in Java during the 15th century, of some other generally worn dagger with characteristics that would agree with the description given in the Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, then I believe we must accept that the current concensus of opinion is correct, and that the Chinese writers were indeed talking about the keris when they wrote of the inhabitants of Java:-"---if they get into a quarrel in trading, or if they are drunk and insult each other, they draw their dagger and begin stabbing, thus deciding the question by violence.---"

The passage in which these daggers is mentioned is far from a casual mention of Javanese attitudes and character during this period of history, and paints a vivid picture of the Javanese encountered by the Chinese voyagers.Mention is made of the three types of peoples living in the country of Java at that time:- Mohomedans, Chinese, and the natives who are described as :-"---very ugly and uncouth;they go about with uncombed heads and naked feet and believe devoutly in devils---".

Four hundred years later, in the period immediately after 1812, Raffles when writing of the Javanese was full of praise for their cleanliness and good manners, and in reference to the keris wrote:-"---the keris, among them, has for a long period been more exclusively a personal adornment, than a rapier was in Europe fifty years ago---"

Clearly, some civilising influence had been at work in Java between the early 1400`s and the early 1800`s.Could this influence perhaps have been Islam? Or are we simply looking at societal development?

Further evidence of the use to which the keris was put in early Java can be found in the relief carvings of Candi Panataran and Candi Lara Jonggrang. The explicit nature of these carvings leaves no doubt that the keris in early Java was indeed a weapon.

So, we have evidence in the literature of Java itself, we have the reports of Chinese voyagers, and we have graphic illustrations in relief carvings on Javanese candis that show clearly how to use a keris if we wish to end another`s life with one. Additionally, we have the various mentions of the keris as a weapon in historical accounts. We have the instances of use of a keris to end life which are a part of the accepted Javanese version of history, as in the use of Pangeran Puger`s Kanjeng Kyai Balabar, and the execution of Trunojoyo in Kartasura by Amangkurat Amral. In Bali there are several historical accounts on record of execution by keris. Coming up to the present day we have the case that occurred only a couple of years ago in a village near Sragen in Central Jawa, where a man killed his wife and a neighbour, and wounded several other people, with his keris. When he came to court he claimed that the spirit in the keris had caused the homocides, not him:- he was only the instrument of the evil spirit that dwelt in the keris. The judge did not accept this explanation.

The keris of the legendary Mpu Gandring was the one and only Javanese keris ever used to kill?

Oh yes, of course it was.

There is a theory on the nature of truth that says something to the effect that if sufficient people believe something to be true, then it is true.

In spite of evidence, in spite of logic, in spite of reason , if the point has been reached where the mass of faith outweighs the mass of evidence and logic , then the truth lays in faith.

In the matter of this discussion I cede the field to faith, which in this case is clearly stronger than my desire to continue a discussion where objectivity carries no weight.

[Kiai Carita]

Thank you for the long winded essay Sir!

As you know Zeng He and Cheng Ho are the same Ming dynasty eunuch Admiral who spent much time in Indonesian waters. Ma Huan was describing something that could be a keris but also could be an other weapon such as a wedung or a badek or a glathi and as he saw the natives (like me) as demons I would imagine that he did not bother to even look at them properly or get to know them better or learn their language and again I ask how can you trust a journalist who doesn't even bother to ask the name of the exotic blade he saw? The keris is not the only tosan-aji that could fit the description of the Ming sailing monks.

There are only two famous keris killings: Mpu Gandring's unfinished keris killed Tunggul Ametung, Ken Arok, Anusapati, and Tohjaya but according to Pramoedya Ananta Toer the keris was not a real keris but rather a metaphor for an elite military unit. The second famous keris killing was Trunajaya's execution by the traitor king Amangkurat II Amral: an event that still shocks Javanese today. The keris is now in the Surakarta Kraton (which does not use 11 levels of language) and not thrown in to the South Sea because and only because it was used by a king to personally kill a rebel who very nearly took his throne.

Not only do temple reliefs have keris' being weilded as weapons, the wayang kulit repertoar does also. But if you look closer the reliefs actually depict times from the Zaman Purwacarita just like the wayang kulit does. However the most famous keris deaths in the wayang kulit is also the death of Buta Cakil/Gendring Caluring in the perang kembang part of the wayang performance. Cakil is a bad guy and always gets killed with his own keris. As there are also Prambanan reliefs of monkeys carrying keris would you conclude that Javanese learned about the keris from monkeys?

As for the recent murders using a keris in Sragen I have not heard of them. I come from near Sragen by the way. In 1965-66 the people of Bali had to execute members of their families who were Communist. What weaon was used to stab the hearts of most victims? Not the family keris nor the victims keris but ordinary pig stabbing pisau.

You are welcome to think that the evidence you have touted proves that the keris was intended as a weapon to stab using evidence from Zeng He's monks. But if you take their one paragraph as evidence of keris habitually being used to kill please also accept that racist ethnography and journalism produces valid accounts of the culture observed because that was what these Chinese monks were: racists who did not even bother to say hi what is that thing called? Please add to your theory that Javanese learned to make keris from Indian monkeys! Plus Amangkurat Amral who bent over to be raped by the VOC was a good example of Javanese kingship and cultural use of the keris!

Salam Keris
Salam Keris

[nechesh]

Kiai, i would image one can learn as much about the true history of Jawa from wayang theatre and legeend as one can learn true history of England for the writings of Arthurian legend. Myths and legends serve many great purposes, but i'm afraid accurate and reliable history is not one of them.

[Kiai Carita]

Originally Posted by nechesh

Kiai, i would image one can learn as much about the true history of Jawa from wayang theatre and legeend as one can learn true history of England for the writings of Arthurian legend. Myths and legends serve many great purposes, but i'm afraid accurate and reliable history is not one of them.

I never said that legend is factual but there are clues there: in Java legend was the way people transmitted history. True history? Hmmmmmm. That is a very novel and Western idea that is foreign to me. Only you Westerners imagine that you can grasp the truth and all the truth and nothing but the truth. Walahualam.

An other legend which cannot be true because it doesn't involve any tangible proof but would be good to mention would be the ancient Ramayana that mentions Lokapala (the spice islands) and also Java. This means that according to the Ramayana there was trade and political relationships between the Indonesian islands and india before the Christian age or any stone buildings were built in Java. We all know that this can not be because Walmiki could have just made it up and the name Java was actually given to the island by Raffles in the early 19'th century because he was writing a book called the history of Java and he needed an island to fit in with it? Pior to Raffles' 'study' there was never a Javanese history was there so that means that there was no Java as well?

I suppose your true history of the keris uses the writings of the racist Chinese monks and Portugese pirates and reliefs on stone temples to support the idea that Indonesians were once demons (as written by the racist monks) and learned about kerises from monkeys so that they could better stab people.

Arthurian legends are not alive now while Javanese legends have had a continous narrative life since the beginning of Javanese memory. I suppose you could actually ask a British man in the street about the Chapel Perilous and he could tell you what it was. Or who was Sir Gawain? On the other hand if you asked a Java man in the street what Kawah Candradimuka is and he would be able to tell you. He will also be able to tell you who owns the arrow Pasopati and who owns the club Rujakpolo.

But then if we learnt about kerises from monkeys I suppose our legends are full of crap as well? Thank you for supporting the notion that monkeys brought the keris to Java.

I am all for supporting the views of Ma Huan about the Javanese being uncouth demons and the Java keris being used to kill at the slightest provocation, if we all agree that racism is part of the kerisology and that of course non Javanese know more about the Javanese than the Javanese themselves! Viva racism! Viva ma Huan! How could Javanese uncouth demons make a beautiful thing like a keris? Impossible! The monkeys must have taught them! That make you happy and feel scientific now?

You must use all threads and narratives and legends and other mentions or depictions of the Java keris to construct an idea of what it was. What the keris is now should also be a consideration. Or were Ma Huans jurnals free of racism and there were really demons in Java when Zeng He sailed the Ming armadas around the world?

Salam keris

[Ian]

Gentlemen:

Like so many of our discussions of keris, this one is straying into metaphysical areas and conjecture. We seem to wandering off the original topic posted by VVV.

I would also remind folks this Forum asks that we remain respectful and civil in our exchanges with other members. Some of our past keris discussions have become heated and personal, with people taking offense.

Ian.

[nechesh]

Ian, thanks for stepping in with that reminder. Certainly Kiai seems to be trying to put a great deal of words and beliefs into my mouth that certainly are not my own. I would like to keep this discussion friendly and scholarly and see no need for anyone to get too excitable.
Actually Kaia, rather than denigrate the early Javanese i would put them in the same light as ALL human beings. It seems to me it is the nature of ALL human beings to exaggerate their history and exploits in legend and song. This is true even in "continuous narrative" situations such as the one you claim exists in Jawa. And actually, i would be willing to bet that at least as many Englishmen would be able to tell you about Chapel Perilous and Sir Gawain as Javanese could identify elements of their own mythology. The English certainly spend a lot more school time on their history and legends than we Americans do, but even i as an American am fairly familar with Arthurian legend. I certainly do not claim to know more than you about your own people's legends and myths, but i would be willing to bet that your understanding of such things is the exception rather than the rule because of your intensive study of the keris. I am not so sure that the average man on the streets of Jakarta would have your knowledge of such things.
Just for the record, did the Cihnese monks state that the Javanese they encountered WERE demons, or that they BELIEVED in demons, because i think that the latter statement is probably true, no?
Still i must insist that you keep your statements to me civil and respectful as i have tried to do with you. It is possible to have discussion, debate and even diagreement with out resorting to anger and sarcasm.

[Kiai Carita]

Originally Posted by Ian

Gentlemen:

Like so many of our discussions of keris, this one is straying into metaphysical areas and conjecture. We seem to wandering off the original topic posted by VVV.

I would also remind folks this Forum asks that we remain respectful and civil in our exchanges with other members. Some of our past keris discussions have become heated and personal, with people taking offense.

Ian.

Ian a keris is a metaphysical object more so than it is a physical object so wandering into the metaphysical is the nature of any discussion on keris.

I do not think that using quotes from an ancient racist monk, who saw the highly civilized Javanese as demons and uncouth, without pointing out that these monks had a racist bias and did not even bother to find out the name of the object they were describing, is respectful. On the contrary it is very racist and I am very shocked that this forum feels that it is scientific to tout racist statements as evidence of the keris being a weapon to kill in Java. Also according to the scientific evidence on the stone reliefs of Loro Jonggrang the keris was created by monkeys and copied by the Java Mpus who were stupider than monkeys. I do take offence when people divorce the Java keris from it's cultural context because I am Javanese, albeit a post modern one, one who is not afraid to state my mind and place high value on the knowledge of my society and my fore-fathers, higher than the colonial pseudo-science being used to rob the people of Java from describing their own spiritual weapon.

Salam Keris

[Ian]

OK guys. I think we have heard where people stand.

This thread has lost its way with respect to the original topic and I have locked it. Sorry Vinny -- I hope you got some helpful information.

Ian.

[Andrew]

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