What Constitutes a Kraton Keris?

[nechesh]

OK folks, here it is, the long awaited Kraton Keris thread!!!

Kai Wee gave this a good start in the now locked thread so i will just copy his questions over:

1. Are kraton kerises referring to the royal pusaka, or simply any keris that may be used/worn by a person working in the kraton, including the guards?

2. Must kraton kerises necessarily come out of the kraton armoury, or is it a reference to a certain level of quality?

3. Are kraton kerises made by empus, or could they have been kerises owned by founding sultans/sunans of the kraton, which may not have been made by an empu?

4. Can kraton pieces be 'inducted'? i.e. purchased from somebody and added to the armoury? If so, how long must it be inside the kraton to be considered a kraton piece?

5. "Rejected" kerises made by empu associated to a kraton - are these kraton pieces?

And also, just to share - there is a book published by the Yogya kraton. It has good pictures of the principal keris attributed to the Sultan, the crown prince, the Eldest son and the chief minister. The Sultan's own keris is a rather 'unspectacular' straight keris with a little bit of kinatah work and a combong. And I have seen the keris blade of the super gold Bugis keris on the cover of "Court Arts of Indonesia". That is a "normal-looking" 7-waved Bugis blade. No doubt a good tough blade with good form, but nothing fancy that we would imagine.

So what does it mean to be a kraton piece? And what are the conceptions that we have of the way a kraton piece must look?

Personally i have no preconceived notions of how a kraton blade must look. I do usually assume that the quality will be good, but it needn't be anything fancy. As Kai Wee points out, there are some rather unassuming blades to be found within the fancy dress of some highly provenenced court pieces.

[Satria]

In my humble opinion.....kraton keris means Royal Pusaka which having a name ( ex.Kanjeng Kyai Sengkelat...etc ), having history and having "silsilah" (family tree? ).

That is my opinion..correct me if I am wrong.

[doecon]

Royal Pusaka are found in many forms. It doesn’t even have to be a keris. Pusaka are items inherited trough generations that are said to contain certain powers. In case it’s a keris it could still come from anywhere or being made by anybody.

[nechesh]

Doecon, Satria is saying that he believes that in order to be called a Kraton keris that it must be a royal pusaka. He is not saying that ALL pusaka are keris, a fact that i believe most of us here are aware. Somehow i doubt that most royal pusaka would "come from anywhere or be made by anyone". Of course, just as people are bound to have different opinions about what a karton keris is they are also bound to have varying opinions on pusaka. Some seem to think the term is only appropriate when applied to "royal" heirloom pieces. Others are more generous with their interpretation and include all class levels of the population. However, this discussion isn't really about pusaka per se.
I am not sure i agree with Satria's limited application of the term (kraton keris) as i would tend to apply it to all keris that have a kraton association. Not all the owners of such keris would necessarily be of the royal family, nor would their keris be named ones in the royal regala.

[Alam Shah]

In my opinion, Satria comments is valid, but not conclusive. It's one of the classification of Kraton pieces, the Royal Pusakas category.

There are other classes as well... but I'll leave it to the more knowledgable to comment.

[Pangeran Datu]

Originally Posted by Alam Shah

In my opinion, Satria comments is valid, but not conclusive. It's one of the classification of Kraton pieces, the Royal Pusakas category.

There are other classes as well... but I'll leave it to the more knowledgable to comment.

so, would you classify Tameng Sari as Royal Pusaka? After all... it only belonged to Hang Tuah

[doecon]

In case Royal Pusaka keris, can be seen as a category of keraton keris, we are back to zero in my opinion.

As mentioned a pusaka keris can have its origin anywhere. Sometimes its has been kept for generations and exact origin might be completely unknown or even fabricated.

BluErf (not kai) mentioned that some Pusaka pieces even look very common (no quote). This is very true.

I happen to posses a few keris Pusaka (which, for reasons privacy and respect, I will not share). If I would compare it to other keris I would class them as very "average". History of those keris is completely known for the last 10 generations (11 when my son is old enough) but I personally can't say they are high quality. The Mpu is unknown as well, and in my opinion could have been anybody.

So if I would take 5 random keris (including 2 of my pusaka) all over 300 years old, there is nobody who can pick the right ones. I seriously wonder how you would set up criteria to do the job.

[Boedhi Adhitya]

Sorry for joining very late in this thread. Perhaps I may add some experiences regarding this subject. Before discussing this subject, I believe we have to define Pusaka terminology, which seems very familiar to us, but in fact, it isn't :

First, (and always ) the confusing "Pusaka" terminology. Usually, it is translated as "HEIRLOOM" in English. To become a heirloom, it must be inherited. In this context, the Pusaka isn't limited only to kerises, but also to houses, rice fields, pendant/ring, etc. Thus, it is very subjective matters.
But in "Tosan Aji" world, (and only in "Tosan Aji" perhaps), especially in Java as I experienced myself, the "Pusaka" terminology may mean 'the top-high quality blades', a little bit more than just 'masterpieces', but for the sake of simplicity, it may be translated to "MASTERPIECES" in English. It is an objective matters.
By clearly define this terminology, I believe, our discussion would be much more easier.

Quoting questions proposed by Nechesh (which was quoted from Kai Wee ):

1. Are kraton kerises referring to the royal pusaka, or simply any keris that may be used/worn by a person working in the kraton, including the guards?

Kraton kerises are kerises which were made (or assumed were made) by the kratons/courts' Empus, whether it were Jogja, Solo, Mataram, Majapahit, etc, and not a village Empus. The keris which were worn by the servants/guards in Kraton is not necessarily a kraton blades. It is the qualities of material and workmanship which define the kraton kerises or not.

2. Must kraton kerises necessarily come out of the kraton armoury, or is it a reference to a certain level of quality?

In fact, it is a reference to a high quality blades, which, not surpraisingly, may only came out from kraton armoury. 99.9% of the high quality blades would only came from kraton armoury. The reasons is kerises, lances or swords were considered as a powerful weapons in the old days. Any one who could made high quality weapons would be considered dangerous (as anyone who could made a nuclear bom today), the technology would be kept as secret and the materials trading would be limited. The court would always seek the finest/talented Empus possible to work to the court and supply the materials needed. The Senior Empus of the court would teach this secret to his trusted, choosen pupils. The talented empus who refused to work to the court would be sentenced to death. Sending away the empus out of the kingdom wasn't an option, because, well, you know why This secrecy add fuels to the legends surrounding the kerises.
The fact that some of my fellow experienced-kerises connoiseurs claimed has found "the secret measurement formulas" of kerises, reinforced this hypothesis. By studying thousands of kerises, they argue that each and every court's empus had follow the same secret exact measurement principles on making the high-quality-court kerises, no matter from what court and age they came. ALL kraton kerises had the SAME 'vital measurement', which may not exhibited by the blade made by village empus. Now, they brought a vernier calipers to judge a keris!

3. Are kraton kerises made by empus, or could they have been kerises owned by founding sultans/sunans of the kraton, which may not have been made by an empu?

What 'kraton kerises' do you means? It is the ones belongs to Sultan, or to The Court ? Yes, in Jogjakarta, the Sultan's personal collections are different from The Court's Masterpieces (pusaka) collections. Today Court's collections which are kept in Gedong Pusaka (Pusaka Hall) consist of around 150's blades, less than 20's of them were made during the reign of HB I - VIII (1755-1940's) So, most of the collections are the old blades, made by the late Court's Empus before the Jogjakarta Sultanate. The 'Sepuh'/old is one of the preferred criteria. The Court collections may change from time to time, but since the late HB IX reign, there was no change had been made to the collection.


4. Can kraton pieces be 'inducted'? i.e. purchased from somebody and added to the armoury? If so, how long must it be inside the kraton to be considered a kraton piece?

Yes, it can. The Sultan HB V known for purchasing a lot of pusakas from outside of the Court to add the Court Collections. Many of them were a Court's Collection, but was gifted to the the princes by the late Sultans, and had handed down to their inheritor by the time the HB V reign. The HB V Court Armoury itself produced the finest Jogjakarta's blades ever made, known as Tangguh "Srimanganti", because the armoury took place in Srimanganti Hall, inside the palace. Some of the HB V armoury's masterpieces were kept on Pusaka Hall, right after they were made. The newly puchased kerises may also kept inside the Pusaka Hall. One thing the same, they must passed the very thight Court's Qualities Judgements. If we define Pusaka as only a Heirloom in this context, we would be confused.

A kraton piece is, IMHO, a kraton piece, even if it found outside the court. The quality, once again, tell.

5. "Rejected" kerises made by empu associated to a kraton - are these kraton pieces?

Yes, it is. A Kraton pieces, with a flaw, of course. As I mentioned before, the kraton ask for a very high qualities, perfect pieces. Something which we may not considered as a flaw, would became a flaw for kraton, and thus, cannot be kept inside the Pusaka Hall. In fact, the keraton always tried to add their Pusaka's Collections, but since the standard is very hight, it was very hard to find the keris which pass the quality judgement, even from the court armoury itself. Almost all the court armoury's blade (the nem-neman/young blades) I found outside the kraton had a flaw, or at least a reason, why it wasn't kept inside the Pusaka Hall, from the very-very-very minor ones to a major ones. This 'flaw' blade would be gifted to the royal families or court's servant, according to the ranks. Of course, the higher the rank, the better.

And also, just to share - there is a book published by the Yogya kraton. It has good pictures of the principal keris attributed to the Sultan, the crown prince, the Eldest son and the chief minister. The Sultan's own keris is a rather 'unspectacular' straight keris with a little bit of kinatah work and a combong. And I have seen the keris blade of the super gold Bugis keris on the cover of "Court Arts of Indonesia". That is a "normal-looking" 7-waved Bugis blade. No doubt a good tough blade with good form, but nothing fancy that we would imagine.

It is 'a great leap' for the kraton to let the pictures of their pusaka taken. The book bear some error: the keris pictures inverted, and some swapped. The Sultan's keris is Kanjeng Kyai Ageng Kopek. This keris was a gift from Pakubuwono III of Solo on Sultan Hamengkubuwono I's Coronation. The 'combong' you see isn't a real combong (that is, the breaking/sepparation of the blade because of the forging flaw), but the worn out 'sraweyan' from hundreds years lime juice etching, which in the end eat up the blade and made a hole in sraweyan. The warangka made from sandalwood, 'gandar iras' and the pendhok from plain semi-gold (swasa), the handle is tayuman burus/plain tayuman wood. Why this keris attributed to the Sultan himself ? Isn't there any luxurious, gold encased blade, with naga form in The Court Collections ? Wasn't there any gold pendok with diamonds ? Any ivory or gold handle ? Yes there are those luxurious, old pieces in Court Collection, but The Sultan had very carefully and wisely choose the Kanjeng Kyai Ageng Kopek to identified himself, for a good reason, of course. We must be thinking that The Court Collection would full of gold with luxurious scabbard. In fact, the higher the blade rank, the more simple it would be, and may deceive you easily. But be careful, the blade's quality isn't as simple as it looks

Best Regards,

Boedhi Adhitya

[nechesh]

Thanks Boedhi Adhitya for adding your perspective to this thread. Better late than never. I always look forward to your contributions on matters of the keris.

[BluErf]

Thank you for sharing your vast knowledge on this issue, Boedhi Adhitya. We had almost given up hope of anyone discussing authoritatively on this issue.

The inverted pictures threw me off, and it took me a while before I realized what was wrong with them. I was surprised that they allowed these kerises to be published. There was an equivalent book published on the Surakarta kraton, and I noticed there were no direct pictures of the kraton's kerises, as expected.

I agree with your last remark - that there is more than meets the eye to the Sultan's keris, hence, I placed the word 'unspectacular' in quotation marks. The keris occupies both the seen and unseen world.

It is interesting to note that the Sultan's personal collection is not equivalent to the Court's collection. Is that to say that the Sultan's personal collection may sometimes hold kerises that do not pass the Court's standards for judging keris? (For example if the Sultan liked a certain keris that do not meet the Court's standard, but he acquired it anyway?)

Thank you.

[Boedhi Adhitya]

Originally Posted by BluErf

It is interesting to note that the Sultan's personal collection is not equivalent to the Court's collection. Is that to say that the Sultan's personal collection may sometimes hold kerises that do not pass the Court's standards for judging keris? (For example if the Sultan liked a certain keris that do not meet the Court's standard, but he acquired it anyway?)

The Sultan's personal collection based mainly on his taste, and of course, his knowledge and interest. While every sultan (likes every royal family members)have personal collections, the qualities may vary since not all sultans (and royal family members) 'keris-literate', but most of them (the sultan collection, and immediate royal family members in the old day) honestly, are good. Yes, their collections may sometimes (or many times ?) hold kerises that do not pass the court's standards, but the court standards is so high that any blades which didn't pass was not necessarily bad. When the sultan pass away, his personal collection will be inherited by his sons, and so on, and so on. That's how a good blades 'seep' into the world

best regards,

boedhi adhitya

[drdavid]

Hi all, a very interesting thread.
Boedhi adhitya when you said:

The book bear some error: the keris pictures inverted, and some swapped

which particular pictures were swapped, page numbers would be helpful if you have the book to hand. (Or maybe you can help Blue Erf).

I have found at least one other thing in this book that I can't agree with and that is the Golok La Nggunti Rante (pge 79) which they say comes from Bali or perhaps Sri Lanka. I just discussed this piece with another forum member and we both agree it has to be a piha kheta which originated in Sri Lankan .

DrD