Keris malela in Bujangga Manik

[jagabuwana]

Bujangga Manik is an Old Sundanese palm leaf manuscript about a prince who becomes a travelling ascetic, leaving behind his life at the court of Pakuan Pajajaran.

It is likely that the manuscript was written before the arrival of the Portuguese and, therefore, before the spread of Islam. It may be the oldest surviving piece of literature from this time, place, and language.

For those interested in the culture and history of the Sundanese people, this manuscript offers a valuable glimpse into one of the roles that the keris may have played among the Sunda elites - as a prestigious gift. In the story Princess Ajang Larang sends him a package of the finest gifts as part of her marriage proposal, including a keris malela [1]

According to Alex West (2021), the term "malela" in this context refers to wootz steel from India, rather than the more common interpretation of "plain steel" used today to describe some pamorless kerises [2].

The manuscript mentions the keris only as part of Ajang Larang's gifts, and always specifically as a "keris malela." This suggests that the keris malela may have been especially fine, superior, or rare compared to other kerises.

So what, Jaga?

Some questions arise from this interpretation.

For example, do we agree with West's view that "malela" refers to Indian wootz?

Have you seen, or can you share images of any old keris that have wootz or crucible steel as part of its construction?

Aside from the questions, I hope this is valuable to anyone interested in the keris, particularly in a pre-Islamic or Sundanese context.



Footnotes

[1] see Alex West's PhD thesis for the full text in transliterated Old Sundanese and his own English translation - pages 117-119 https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3163618

[2] ibid

[A. G. Maisey]

In the late 1980's I began corresponding with Prof. Jerzy Piaskowski

https://prabook.com/web/jerzy.piaskowski/19271

Prof. Piaskowski had a particular interest in keris, I supplied him with old, damaged keris and gonjos, as well as societal & cultural background information. We maintained contact & keris discussion until the time of his passing on February 2nd, 2013.

Prof.Piaskowski carried out a number of examinations of very old Javanese & other keris & gonjos, & published papers on the results of his findings.

He identified at least one gonjo that had been made from wootz. He probably had more than this single wootz gonjo in his possession, but results of only one examination were published.

I believe that it can be taken as a given that wootz was used in keris & probably other weapons, and that this wootz was imported. My understanding is that there has been no credible evidence produced of smelting activity in Jawa or Sumatera.

[jagabuwana]

Thank you, Alan.
Were the gonjos mated to a keris and then removed for examination? If so, do you recall the quality or classification of the kerises?

[A. G. Maisey]

In most cases the gonjos were not mated to keris, & the quality of everything given to Prof. Piaskowski was total junk, stuff that was thrown away by a couple of dealers and that I scaved from their rubbish bins.

Jerzy used destructive methods involving dissection and acids, he was more than happy with what I provided to him, he did not expect items in any sort of passable condition.

I gave him a lot of items, & everything given was very old, nothing would have been produced after 1850, the blades & parts of blades were in most cases not able to be classified, the gonjos in some cases were able to be classified.

[rasdan]

Hi Jaga,

Here's an example of a wootz keris. It is probably a 17th century Palembang keris. This keris was polished and lightly etched showing the wootz pattern. About 50% of the blade was once adorned with kinatah. Unfortunately this one is no longer mine.

I have another keris that is probably wootz. But this keris was a bit eroded with traditional cleaning it is rather rough and we cant see of it is really wootz. This one is probably Javanese. I don't have any photo of this keris at the moment.

I find that there are a number of examples of other weapons usually from Sumatra that was made from wootz.

[jagabuwana]

Alan - thank you for the extra info. This has challenged my initial assumptions -(1) that wootz keris were of better quality; and (2) that is due to wootz being a more expensive imported product than local steel.

Rasdan - thank you for the reference image. Of the two wootz keris you refer, would you say they are of better-than-average quality and manufacture?

[rasdan]

Hi Jaga,

It is rather difficult to say on quality as we need to match the quality level to the respective age and origin or tangguh of a keris.

Plus there is a problem on how a certain dhapur for certain keris origin/tangguh should ideally look like. Only people who have access to well preserved, high quality keris with known provenance will know this and there are a lot of pretenders out there.

Then there are varying qualities of wootz. I am sure the cost is going to be different. I think we cannot use wootz as an indicator of quality for keris.

Regarding the two keris I mentioned, in general, I think, I can say that both keris when they were new are of good quality. The Palembang is probably, probably the near top quality in Sumatera at the time it was made, but the Jawa one is probably just slightly above average, not top quality. It could be lower, but I have insufficient knowledge to say; I don't even know if it is really wootz because of the surface erosion.

[A. G. Maisey]

No way to judge quality when new of the items I used to send to Jerzy, as I said, it was all junk: old, eroded, formless.

But the thing to note is this:- there was no local material, I used to believe that there was local iron that had been smelted from beach sands in South Jawa & Bali, and possibly other places, my belief was generated by inaccurate information that was floating around 20 or 30 or more years back, probably misguided local pride.

We now know that there is no evidence of locally smelted iron anywhere in Jawa/ Bali.

All the ferric material came in from somewhere else, mostly China, as both raw (ingots) of iron and as tools. There is more than enough evidence of this. But even so, it is reasonable to assume that all material imported was not of equal quality, thus the variations in pamor sanak.

[Jean]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

We now know that there is no evidence of locally smelted iron anywhere in Jawa/ Bali, & probably no credible evidence for anywhere else in the Archipelago either.

Hello Alan,
What about pamor Luwu in Sulawesi?
Regards

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Jean, of course.

I sometimes do get a little bit too focused on Jawa/Bali.

Luwu was a major producer & exporter of nickel/iron, and was producing this from very early times --- & still is. Hardjonegoro gave me some Luwu nickel, but I never got around to using it.

There have been some quite informative archeological investigations of work sites carried out in South Sulawesi, especially around Lake Matano & Katue, I think some of the Kutue sites date back to the first millenium.

You're right Jean, I should stop & think for a moment before extending my Jawa focused thoughts into other places.

So we can just delete my off the cuff comment, & I thank you Jean for waking me up.

However, from memory, I think that those South Sulawesi smelts produced iron/nickel alloy, cannot recall if there was any evidence of pure iron smelting. I think they were smelting from laterite ores, so it might have been impossible to get away from the nickel inclusion.

EDIT

There was a big project a while back that looked closely at this matter, I'm pretty sure it was called the "OXIS Project" and a very good paper was written on it by a Misol Do, I have a copy of the paper but i cannot find it on the net, I'm sure somebody with more time than I have could locate it.

[David]

Is this what you were looking for Alan?
https://www.oxis.org/theses/misol-2103.pdf

[A. G. Maisey]

Yeah, that's the one.

There was another one I think that was organised by some Australian academics. I've totally forgotten the details.

[rasdan]

G'day Alan,

Perhaps this is the other one? It was written by Dr. David Bulbeck of ANU.

https://oxis.org/downloads/land-of-iron.pdf

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks Rasdan, yep, that's it.

In fact I've got a copy of this paper in my computer too, but I'd forgotten the title & details.

I tend to run a lot on memory, and these days my memory is not all that great, I remember some things well enough, other things I partially remember, the folder I keep these papers in is about 6gb - 7gb & its not really well organised.

If I'm actually working on something I survive OK, but if the matter is peripheral, I often do not remember much at all.

[rasdan]

No worries Alan. I have the same problem. I have been "collecting" online references on keris for several years now and most of them are scattered all over my hard drive I can't even locate them.

[A. G. Maisey]

Well, at least my stuff is all in one folder, but then I've got the half dozen drawers in filing cabinets that are full of hardcopy stuff.

We might not be all that far off the time when we will have chips implanted at birth that will enable direct communication through brain waves with our computers, or maybe the computers will be implanted at birth. Probably another 1000 years or so, not long in the total context.

Or better still, re-wire the brain.

[jagabuwana]

Thank you all for your contributions