The things we cannot see

[A. G. Maisey]

Rasdan, what I have written is an over-view, it is taken from a lot of notes made during a phone conversation, & compressed into something short enough and direct enough to be read quickly without the reader going to sleep.

So now, I'll expand a little.

The original use of the word "taksu" only applied to performance art, a performance had taksu when the performer became one with the part he played in the piece, when be actually became the character he was playing, when his mask was not a mask any more, but was the actual face of the character.

Then people started to use the concept of taksu to refer to other art works, and when an art object had become perfect it was considered to have taksu, what my friend actually said was this:-

"--- kalau obyek seni, atau barang seni sudah matang, yah, itulah sudah metaksu ---"

I guess we could say that something like the Mona Lisa or Girl with a Pearl Earring is "metaksu":- we look at the painting and what we witness with our eyes has an effect upon our emotions, however, since not only the creation of the condition of 'taksu' is dependent upon the three pillars of taksu, but also the perception of 'taksu' by the observer, an observer who is deficient in all elements of taksu will not be able to feel the taksu generated by the painting.

So --- "full artistic value"?
Maybe, this is not the way I would describe my present understanding.

Now, as I wrote, everybody has their own ideas on how the concept of "taksu" should be understood, you could have a dozen people who all recognise the taksu in a performance and they could well have a dozen different ideas about how & why the performance is taksu. When the word drifts into colloquial usage and is applied broadly to art works other than performance, the interpretations & understandings can vary even more widely, when it gets into gutter colloquialism and we have some half-ripe kid saying to his mother

"hey mum that soto was really metaksu"

well then we really do have a situation where language is undergoing change.

And this is one of the reasons why the word is so difficult to understand:- it means different things to different people, but its true, original meaning is only in performance art and it only means when that divine spirit enters the performer and he becomes one with his character.

If modern usage of the word corrupts the original way in which it was understood, we just need to recognise that this is one of the characteristics of a living language.

In Shakespeare's England you could get time in the stocks for uttering the word "occupy" in public, it was deemed to be obscene language, during the 17th & 18th centuries people in England avoided using this word.

So, if we want to apply "taksu" to a keris, then it would seem that we need to be able to feel the divine spirit in that keris when we look at it --- just look, not feel, do not forget that for the observer "taksu" is the result of witnessing something, and the effect that the observance has on feelings.

We very definitely cannot confuse taksu with tuah.

I cannot be too definite about that.

Tuah is NOT a Balinese concept, whereas taksu is 100% Balinese.

Tuah of a keris is talismanic in nature and is placed into the keris by a qualified maker.

Taksu is evidence of the presence of the divine spirit.

If some present day Balinese confuse taksu with tuah, this simply demonstrates the penetration of Javanese culture & language into modern Bali. Much of the current Balinese keris understanding has been drawn from Jawa, during the 1970's & 1980's it was almost impossible to find anybody with an in depth understanding of keris in Bali. During the last 20 years or so it seems that we have multitudes of keris literate people in Bali.

Who did they learn from?

Who were their teachers?

Rasdan, we cannot begin to understand a single blossom of a culture or society by only looking at that single blossom, we need to look at the garden it came from. If we want to understand the Balinese keris, we need to look at Balinese society & culture.

Balinese life is intertwined, many would say "defined by", religious observance.

I would strongly encourage everybody who has any interest at all in understanding the Balinese keris to begin by trying to gain an understanding of Balinese culture & society, including the changes that have been wrought by the necessity of forcing Balinese religion into a mould that is acceptable to Islam.

Question:- Has the concept of tuah been watered down in order to reduce elements of Hindu belief?

No, I don't think I'd put it that way. It is beyond doubt that the nature of the keris in Jawa, as it is understood at the present time, has been influenced by Islamic belief. But I don't think "watered down" is the way to think about this, rather understandings seem to have been pushed in a different direction. In Jawa we have this multitude of different pamors and dhapurs, most are able to be interpreted in some way or another, usually talismanic in nature.

Does the same situation exist in Bali? Not really.

In Jawa the keris has been principally a dress accoutrement since about the middle of the 18th century, during this time the talismanic component of its nature seems to have grown, whilst its function as weapon has seems to have decreased.

In Bali the primary function of the keris up until the puputans (only a bit more than 100 years ago) --- and maybe a for a while after that time --- has been as a weapon.

In Bali & in Jawa there is a somewhat different understanding of good & evil and the unseen forces that are representative of these concepts. This single variation in foundation understandings is sufficient to alter the way in which the world is understood, and the keris is an object that does physically exist in this world.

[rasdan]

Thank you, Alan. I can see the differences now. So, in short we can say that tuah is a Javanese concept and taksu is purely Balinese. Do you think that the tuah concept in keris Bali used in the current time is most likely an influence from Java?

There is a professor here in Malaysia that says that the word tuah did not exist in the Malay language in the 17th century (if my memory serves me correctly). I wonder what is the word used for keris tuah prior of that. This is probably one of the hints that the concept of tuah in keris is probably something newer than the 17th century.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you for your further comments Rasdan.

Bahasa Indonesia and Modern Malay are to a large degree mutually intelligible, but Modern Malay was preceded by Classical Malay, which was in common usage from about 1400 to about 1800, Classical Malay was proceeded by Old Malay.

So, your Professor is in fact saying that the word "tuah" did not exist in Old Malay, 1600 falls into the middle years of usage of Classical Malay, so what was happening in Malay society during those years from around 1400 to around 1600?

Your professor might be right, because in Wilkinson's original Malay Dictionary(Modern Malay) he uses the spelling "tuwah", the alternate, more modern spelling is used in the abridged version of Wilkinson:- "tuah".

In Modern Javanese the word "tuwah" does not exist, but it can be a regional variation of the word "tuwuh" which means "to grow, to rise to the surface, to increase in rank, to become greater".

In Old Javanese, the form of Javanese that was in general usage up to about 1600, the word "tuwuh" means "to grow, to arise from below".

Now look at Bahasa Indonesia, in this language we do not find "tuwah", nor do we find "tuwuh", but we do find "tuah", which is understood as:-

"1 good luck, good fortune. 2 magic power. 3 respect, honour, prestige."

I am not a linguist, in fact, my ability with languages other than English is pretty limited --- in school I had sufficient French to allow me to roughly understand cycling magazines, but not enough to pass examinations. Nobody could ever mistake my stumbling abilities in a few languages other than English to be representative of competence in these languages --- even in English I consider myself only barely competent. But I do have strong analytical abilities, and applying analysis to the various words & meanings attached to "tuwah/tuwuh" I feel it is not very difficult to understand the relationship between these two words and the word that is spelt as "tuah".

So, although the spelling of "tuah" now has this modern form, perhaps the concept of the modern idea of "tuah" is a concept that did exist in earlier times, but was represented by a word with a very slightly variant pronunciation. In earlier times, the spelling would of course not be a romanised spelling so perhaps these various romanised spellings do in fact come back to a single spelling in earlier scripts.

Just for interest sake, here is the entry in Wilkinson for "tuwah":-

" Luck, good fortune - in that things left to chance turn out well. Bertuwah:- lucky, luck bringing - as an amulet is supposed to bring luck, or as certain coins are believed to be lucky coins., HT.Abd., 58, 78, 486: "sudah dapat gading bertuwah, tandok tiyada berguna lagi: now that he has luck bringing ivory, common horn is of no use to him; now that he is wealthy, simple joys of his poverty please him no more; Prov. V. J.S.A.S.. XI 56, Untong ada tuwah tidak: he get profit but makes no lucky strokes; Prov."

I do think we can say that "taksu" is a purely Balinese idea, but as far as "tuah" goes, I am uncertain, I think the idea might be there, but not necessarily attached to the keris, Modern Balinese came in part from Old Javanese, if an idea existed in Old Javanese it probably still exists in Modern Balinese, but perhaps that idea is represented by a different word.

We still need to look at the idea of "isi" , the understanding of "tuah" is, I believe, essential to the understanding of "isi", but to understand "isi" we need first to understand how some elements of the Unseen World are understood in Bali, as opposed to Jawa.

Does anybody have any opinions on this variance in understandings?