How to read a greneng

[Bjorn]

In another thread Alan made the following 2 remarks.

In short, the greneng is a mess, as it is, it does not carry any message at all.
The greneng is the big surprise to me:- it is correctly cut, the man who cut it knew what he was doing, but his level of knowledge was at pandai level, not mpu level. He has cut correct Mataram rondha, but has cut them poorly, and the complete greneng says less than it should.


This to me raises some questions. How should one read a greneng? What should the greneng express/say? And how has this expression changed according to region and time?

[A. G. Maisey]

Bjorn, I'm not sure I can answer this without offending some people on both sides of the fence. I do touch on the subject in my "Interpretation --- " paper. I don't think I want to bring discussion about this matter into this forum.

I do have another paper in the works in which I am a little more detailed, there are two possibilities for publication of this, and I'm not yet certain of exactly which publisher it will run with. Its probably better all round if if I say no more about any of this at the present time.

[Bjorn]

Apologies, Alan. I was not aware this is a contentious issue.

I went over the relevant part in your "Interpretation..." paper again and look forward to publication of your next paper.

[A. G. Maisey]

Probably not contentious --- those who believe one thing believe it completely, those who hold a different view have equal faith, so it is not something that is subject to heated argument, rather it is something of a sensitive nature.

[Bjorn]

Possibly this thread could be steered in a slightly different direction: the aesthetics of a greneng.

It's easy to observe whether we like a greneng or not, but what if we look at it more objectively. What criteria should a greneng possess, e.g. what constitutes a well cut rond dha as opposed to a poorly made one - even when the latter one is aesthetically pleasing.

Do the pakem contain anything on how the individual elements of the ron dha should be shaped? I've often read that the way in which an mpu makes a greneng is akin to a signature, but I imagine that there are constraints on what he or she can and cannot do. On Moro kris we often see greneng, but these are wholly different to those in Jawa, quite possibly because no such restraints are in place there.

[A. G. Maisey]

Bjorn, here are some images that will be of use.

The drawings are from the hand of Empu Suparman Supowijoyo, and have been taken from a lecture that he gave in about 1980.

The page of images showing greneng forms attributed to various empus is from Haryono Haryoguritno's "Keris Jawa".

The various forms of greneng are from "Keris Jawa" also.

The two pages of text are from Raffles "History of Java".

In respect of the greneng forms attributed to Surakarta empus, it is not clear in the book, but in private conversation Haryonoguritno is reported as having said that in all honesty he was unable to distinguish the work of one empu from another. I have heard this from two people, who have no connection with each other. Thus, "attribute" is the correct way to look at these greneng.

As with much else --- some would say "all else" --- to do with the keris, the attribution of various forms of greneng and ron dha to various classifications (tangguh) is an item of belief. However, it is a crucial item of belief, because where a ron dha is found in a keris it is the key element in assignation of a tangguh.

But this can be confusing, because some extremely good quality keris, that have very obviously been made according to the parameters of one tangguh, can have a ron dha that points to a different tangguh.

For example, in the current era in Surakarta the two empus who began the keris revival were Empu Suparman Supowijoyo and Empu Pauzan Pusposukadgo (Pauzan rejected the title of "empu" for religious reasons, he used the designation "Pandai Seni Keris", however he was known as an empu by everybody). Empu Suparman invariably cut a Surakarta greneng, Pauzan usually made his keris in the Mataram form and usually cut a Mataram greneng, or occasionally a variant greneng in accord with his own interpretation.

Although the gentlemen of Jakarta who exercise very great control over the current World of the Keris in Jawa have decreed that we now have a tangguh that covers all keris made since Indonesian Independence, the great empus of the current era, Empu Suparman and Empu Pauzan did not recognise this. Empu Suparman made Surakarta keris, and although this concept of "Tangguh Kamerdekaan" did not come into being until after his passing, I can assure you the very idea of this would have horrified him, he was dedicated to Surakarta. Empu Pauzan made Mataram style keris in the Surakarta era, and as with Empu Suparman, was a Surakarta Karaton Empu.

When we move outside of Jawa we find that the greneng of keris from other areas is often just notches that have no meaning at all. Because of this, and for other reasons, many old-time traditionalists in Jawa would not recognise that these "keris" from other areas were in fact genuine keris, these other "keris" were merely keris-like objects that had been made by people who did not understand what a keris truly was, and the people who carried these keris were simply trying to copy their betters without understanding anything. They were in fact children who had not yet learnt anything.

Now, it is important to understand that this was a very Java-centric attitude, but it did reflect the mindset of some people:- the Keris was holy, these imitators treated it as profane. They had no understanding.

The key to the greneng is the ron dha.

Common belief is that the form of the ron dha is a representation of the Javanese letter dha, and the various forms of the ron dha reflect the form of the letter dha at a particular time in history.

The word "ron" means "leaf" and is Krama for "godhong". It refers to the lontar leaves upon which traditional writing was done and by extension to the letters written upon those leaves. The Javanese letter "dha" equates to "d".

Aesthetically a greneng should be cut so that it appears to be identical when viewed from each side, it should reflect the true form applicable to the classification, where a feature is repeated it should be identical to the other feature, for example, if a greneng has two ron dha, each of those ron dha should be absolutely identical.