Ganja !

[A. G. Maisey]

Jaga, possibly you might not remember, but years & years ago there was an ad on TV for Castrol oil --- mid-1980's, GTX?.

Well, the ganja has a similar problem:-

ganjas ain't ganjas, they's gonjos


in Javanese there is a vowel sound that is sort of between an "A" & an "O", you pronounce it far back in the throat and quite short.

if written correctly this "a" in ganja should have an overring accompanying it, and on old typewriter keyboards and print, that's the way it could be written, but now our keyboards do not have the facility that permits the "A" with overring, so the decision was taken by those who take such decisions to represent the "A" with overring as just "A".

These decision makers figured that the people who knew how to pronounce these words that included the "A" with overring would go on pronouncing them correctly, and those who did not know how to pronounce those words didn't matter anyway.

One thing this did was to permit immediate recognition of an outsider.

A lot of Javanese words use this hidden little vowel.

Surakarta = Surokarto

Kartasura = Kartosuro

Jogjakarta = Jogjokarto = Ngayogyokarto

Lima = Limo

Basa = Boso

Warangka = Rangka = Rongko/Wrongko

In some ways Javanese is a bit like English, you need to know the language as spoken before you can read it correctly, Bahasa Indonesia is quite different, once you know how to pronounce a written word, those vowels are nearly always the same, as with Italian. A child who does not understand what he is reading can read something aloud and adults will understand him -- provided he remembers to roll his r's like a Scotsman, & that the k is often a glottal stop.

We can come up with lots of ideas for the ganja, currently I like the idea that it acts as a cushion for the hand, as well as a guard. Symbolically I'm pretty keen on a water relationship --- Dewi Gangga : Ganges.

[Marcokeris]

Originally Posted by jagabuwana

Some heavy speculation that might jog some discussion.

Ganja in Hindi means cannabis, which is derived from a very similar word with different nuances in Sanskrit. According to various sources, 'ganja' in Sanskrit can refer to the leaves of the cannabis plant, or to a powerful preparation made from cannabis, as opposed to just cannabis itself.

I think this fits the Siva symbology of the keris quite well, as well as the shape of the ganja itself.

Firstly, consider the ovate shape of a cannabis leaf and compare that with a top-down view of the gonjo.

Perhaps more substantially, it seems to relate to the Samudra Manthana story. As the devas used the naga Vasuki to churn the Ocean of Milk to obtain the Nectar of Immortality, the process created an extremely potent poison called halahal. Halahal threatened to kill everyone and so according to some accounts the devas went to Mount Kailash to seek the help of Shiva, who consumes halahal to contain it. Goddess Parvati offers bhang to Shiva to counteract the effects of halahal on his body.

Bhang is a drink made of cannabis. It is still consumed as part of the Maha Shivaratri celebration in India and Nepal.

If I'm to be imaginative, I could imagine that the gonjo could be a way of protecting the keris (as a symbol of Shiva and Mount Kailash) from metaphorical "poisons". Or as a balance against any negative effects that may come about from the keris, considering that an extreme poison was created not by enemies or evil, but in the way of obtaining an elixir of immortality. Or maybe as a symbol of the feminine as a companion for the masculine keris, owing to Parvati's care of Shiva, further supported by the double imagery of the gonjo's yonic shape and its overall shape as a cannabis leaf.

This is not a hypothesis. It is imagination and speculation, a barely baked idea that I haven't gone any further with.

I love cannabis <3

[jagabuwana]

Well noted, Alan. Thank you. I definitely completely ignored the difference between a and å in Javanese, and misunderstood it too.

I'm reading back on it now and laughing at just how far I ran with a bad ball haha. Sorry to subject you all to it.

[A. G. Maisey]

Easy to do mate.