Pak Usman,
No, you are not mistaken, a portion of a Borobudur relief is shown on page 27 of the second edition of Ensiklopedi.However, the dagger that is identified as resembling a keris buda bears absolutely no resemblance at all to a keris buda. None at all. Yes, it is a short, double edged dagger, but it lacks the assymetry of the keris blade, the blade shown carries no features that could be considered as keris-like, moreover this dagger has a substantial pommel and guard.
The dagger from the Borobudur relief is still identifiable as a distinctly Indian style.However, although it does display the common heritage of the keris, that of a leaf shaped blade, it has not yet begun the development which would ultimately result in the keris buda and then the modern keris. This Borobudur representation cannot in any way be considered a keris, nor to be keris-like.
Yes, of course there was an evolutionary process, and daggers such as the one shown in the Borobudur relief were possibly a part of that process, but to point to this Borobudur dagger and claim that it resembles a keris buda is an absolute nonsense.
Pak Usman, do you know the progression of this farce?
Please allow me to enlighten you.
In the 1988 edition of Ensiklopedi, Bambang Harsrinuksmo published a photo of a relief to be found at Candi Prambanan which does indeed show the first monumental depictation of a keris-like dagger. He erroneously captioned this photo as being a relief from Borobudur.Thus the error was planted that grew into the belief that a keris buda was shown in the Borobudur reliefs.
In the second edition of Ensiklopedi, Pak Bambang tried to smooth this error over.
On page 26 of the second edition of Ensiklopedi the photo of the Prambanan relief was published again, this time correctly captioned, however, the published photograph when compared with the earlier published photograph, and with my own photographs of the same relief, gives the appearance of having been retouched to emphasise the pommel and guard of the Prambanan dagger, thus providing a stronger resemblance to the Borobudur dagger.
It would be better for the study of the keris if we could put behind us this nonsense of trying to link the keris to the Borobudur reliefs.
The keris has its roots in Javanese-Hindu culture, and its development to the point of its absorption into Javanese-Islamic culture can be shown to reflect the Javanese-Hindu world view.
There is no evidence available at the present time that can in any way link the keris to the Syailendras.
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