Majapahit Keris

[A. G. Maisey]

Kai, I'm a very simple man, and I am sufficiently unfortunate to recognise my very distinct limitations.

One of those limitations is that I cannot be expert in all things that may be of interest to me. Thus, when it comes to some things I do not try to be an expert and to generate my own opinions, I simply turn to the people who are widely recognised as experts and I rely on those people.

So, if a whole flock of people regarded as expert in the interpretation and understanding of early Javanese sculpture are of the opinion that something is so, I do not feel that my own knowledge, even though I have used a considerable part of my life in the study of Javanese classical sculpture, is of sufficient weight to counter that group opinion.

There is a clear trail of keris development recorded in Javanese classical sculpture that stretches all the way from Candi Loro Jonggrang in Central Jawa, across into a swath of candis and statuary in East Jawa, and back to Candi Sukuh in Central Jawa.

Perhaps a good starting point to begin to understand what was happening during this period of development might be a reading of Pigeaud's "Java in the 14th Century". This work does not by any means give the whole story, but it is, I feel, an essential foundation stone upon which to build the necessary structure of knowledge. I was in my late thirties when I discovered it, and I wish I had known of it 20 years earlier, it would have helped to prevent me going down a lot of dead ends.