Keris Buda

[A. G. Maisey]

Our discussion group has been very quiet lately.

Friends who live in the Northern Hemisphere assure me that this is simply because the weather is too good to spend sitting in front of a computer. Maybe this is so, but I doubt that I have ever seen such an extended period with no new posts.

Over the last month I have had computer problems, email problems, net connection problems. All sorts of problems. But now I have a new computer, my net connection has been fixed, and I think I might have even corrected the email issues.

So, I am breaking with my usual practice of only starting a thread if I have something to say, and only contributing to a thread if I feel my contribution may be of use.

Here are photos of very early keris, the keris style that we now refer to as "Keris Buda". This is where the keris started. The inspiration for this blade form was the leaf shaped Indian blades that came into Jawa with Indian culture.

In Jawa this leaf shaped blade form was seen as similar to the indigenous Gunungan form, the Javanese "World Mountain", the place of the Gods and the ancestors. So the Keris Buda became , or was originated as, a weapon representation of this socio-religious Gunungan form.

This was the beginning. From this point a lot of things happened and we finally finished up with the keris as we know it today.

So here you are. Please enjoy looking at what the ancestors of the keris of the 15th century onwards looked like.