Figural !

[ganjawulung]

Picture taken at Ganjawulung's Collection...

[Gavin Nugent]

One of my favorites.

Gavin

[Rick]

Almost reminds one of the Green Man from another culture .

[Gavin Nugent]

Originally Posted by Rick

Almost reminds one of the Green Man from another culture .

Vanna Ghiringhelli notes this fella as an unknown demon....can anyone quanitify this "Unknown Deman"

Gavin

[VVV]

Most probably it was supposed to be a Yaksha.
A better reference work for old keris and their original symbolism (as an alternative to the contemporary interpretations) is Kris disk by the late Karsten Sejr Jensen.

Michael

[David]

Originally Posted by VVV

Most probably it was supposed to be a Yaksha.
A better reference work for old keris and their original symbolism (as an alternative to the contemporary interpretations) is Kris disk by the late Karsten Sejr Jensen.

Michael

I don't own the Kris Disk, but would love to know more about Jensen's determining factors for this attribution. Was it purely because the figures are vegetal in form or were there other clues he followed that lead to this theory? Yaksha as depicted in surrounding cultures do not appear in such abstracted form, though in Thailand they do often have green faces, probably as a hint to their nature-spirit qualities.

[A. G. Maisey]

In respect of the hilt shown by Gavin in Post # 77.

Mention has been made of the opinions of Vanna Ghiringhelli and of Karsten Sejr. Jensen, and it is true that the opinions of both these people must be given due consideration.

Vanna Ghiringhelli is a noted academic who has a very firm foundation in Hindu culture, certainly more mainstream than specifically early Javanese, but her depth of understanding of this mainstream permits an informed analysis of the streams which have their source in the mainstream.

Karsten Sejr. Jensen was a dedicated researcher with a very high level of interest in the keris, and this permitted him to form some very interesting ideas which must be given careful consideration. However, as he himself states:-

"--- Therefore the interpretations, that I give them, are only possible interpretations and there may be many layers under and above the meaning that I indicate.---"


My own opinion is that at this remove it is a total impossibility to affix any specific identity to any of these figural interpretations found in keris hilts.

Indeed, even at the time when one of these hilts was carved, no person apart from the client and/or the carver may have known the true identity of the figure that was represented in the carving.

Why might this be so?

Because the figure may have been intended to represent an ancestor of the client personified as a yaksa (Jav.). The yaksa itself may have been intended as the personification of a deity.

In Javanese thought, most especially early Javanese thought, when a person passed to the other world, that person's earthly spirit could be absorbed into the unseen essence of a being from the Unseen World. Rulers and other great notables were often represented after death as deities, for example Gajah Mada as Ganesha.

Deities could present themselves as Yaksas, Lord Siwa himself was not averse to assuming the form of a yaksa when it served his purpose.

So, even though a figure may be in the form of a yaksa, that does not necessarily mean that it was intended as a simple representation of a yaksa, but may have been intended as one of the higher deities which had absorbed the spirit of an ancestor.

The client of course knew who the figural representation was intended to be, as in early days did the artist who carved the figure, but nobody else was likely to know.

One does not gather power by providing gratuitous information.
This is, and seems to always have been, a basic element of the Javanese world.

Thus if one commissions a representation of a yaksa that in fact is intended as a vessel for the spirit of an ancestor, is it wise to let anybody else know the true nature of the representation?

In light of the above, I think that I am in the Vanna Ghiringhelli camp:- "unknown".

[VVV]

Originally Posted by David

I don't own the Kris Disk, but would love to know more about Jensen's determining factors for this attribution. Was it purely because the figures are vegetal in form or were there other clues he followed that lead to this theory? Yaksha as depicted in surrounding cultures do not appear in such abstracted form, though in Thailand they do often have green faces, probably as a hint to their nature-spirit qualities.

David, I didn't write that Jensen state it is a yaksha (he usually calls it "a raksasa prince").
You really should try to get hold of the Kris disk. Besides being like a Stone or van Zonnenveld for the keris world regarding that it compiles most of what has been written about it outside Indonesia, it also is the largest and best picture source for complete "historic" keris (complete=the dress is also old and have not been changed according to the present fashion).

Yes, Alan, a yaksha is not always a yaksha and, like the quote from Jensen, there are always several layers in an interpretation. But that is quite obvious for all outsider interpretations (and quite often even the insiders themselves are not aware of all the symbolism and meanings in a motif they use).
I prefer to use the short answer in a forum like this but I am aware that we are living in a postmodern era where nothing is neither black or white nor is there only one correct answer to any question...

Michael

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by SwordsAntiqueWeapons

One of my favorites.

Gavin

Hello Gavin,

here the brother of your hilt! I personally would call it a putra satu hilt in abstract form.

Regards,
Detlef

[A. G. Maisey]

I'm in complete agreement with you Michael, but I prefer to take the concepts of "truth", "fact", and "accuracy", just a little further.

There was an economist named Fritz Machlup. He was an Austrian, but he migrated to America before WWII.

He came up with the proposal that there was a "half-life of knowledge", this was given as the length of time that had to pass before half of the knowledge in any specific field was either shown to be untrue or was replaced with a more up-to-date version.

As time goes by the residual half of knowledge that remains from the initial degradation of the field becomes less and less so that eventually nothing, or perhaps almost nothing is left that can still be considered to be true.

Machlup died some time in the early 1960's, just about the time I was being taught about his ideas.

Not long ago a mathematician named Sam Arbesman published a book called "The Half-Life of Facts". Arbesman has demonstrated that the ideas that we accept as "facts" are slowly being replaced, and although we can never guess when any particular "fact" is going to go under, we can predict when half the facts in any specific field are going become out-dated.

An idea not dissimilar to Machlup's idea.

The accepted "facts" in any field have differing lives. Half the facts in the field of maths will be revised/replaced in about 9 or 10 years. Half the facts in the field of physics are good for about 13 years. And so on.

Now, with the keris, we're not dealing with perceived "facts" for most of the time, rather, we are dealing with opinions and beliefs.

I'm not at all sure how we can estimate the half-life of keris opinions, but I guess somebody who is much better at math than I am could come up with a formula. However, its probably not all that important how long our opinions and beliefs resist change, what is important is that we recognise that those opinions and beliefs will change, and that at some time in the future much, or most, of what we accept as "fact" today will have been demonstrated to be incorrect.

For this reason, I would most humbly suggest that none of us should become so entwined in our own beliefs and opinions that we are unable to give consideration to the beliefs and opinions of others.

[Sajen]

Three more Ramajala Tegal hilts from my collection.

[VVV]

Yes, Alan, this kind of postmodern criticism of the "one-truth-Enlightenment" has been going on much longer than 50 years now in the academia. Machlup and Arbesman are just two out of 100's.
However, for a discussion on a forum like this, and to be able to handle other "non-academic" everyday situations, I find it quite boring and nonconstructive to force all participants to write long disclaimers each time they state something. If it would be in an academic situation the accepted way would be first to have a method and theory discussion about these factors of skepticism and uncertainty to show that you are aware of them. And after that you would be allowed to state something and argue that it is valuable current knowledge. And then in the end you could write that you hope someone in the future will be able to add-on new knowledge and perhaps prove that you were wrong (like, for instance, Freud did).

If the moderators are afraid that the participants of this forum are not aware of this philosophical discussion, maybe they (David ) can write some kind of disclaimer for us all so we can keep the discussion going in each thread?

I think a statement like: "Most probably it was supposed to be a Yaksha" , which both contributes to the discussion but at the same time accepts the existence of alternative interpretations, is better suited to answer the level of a non-academic forum like this.

Michael

[Jean]

Originally Posted by Sajen

Hello Gavin,

here the brother of your hilt! I personally would call it a putra satu hilt in abstract form.

Regards,
Detlef

I am with Sajen, these pieces apparently originate from East Java/ Madura and are locally called putrasatu (prince?), I show an older cousin....
Regards

[VVV]

A beautiful hilt, Jean.
Yes, we all know about the term putrasatu, but that is what Alan referred to as "the understanding of present day Jawa". We were trying to go a bit deeper into the symbolism of this, and the related, hilts. Even if it is not possible to find a definitive answer it is still interesting to give it a joint try and perhaps find some probable clues.

Michael

[Jean]

Thank you Michael and Alan for your very educative posts.
I am now showing another common specimen of putra satu hilt with peculiar features (sort of mask on the face, shield under the left elbow, and left leg looking like a fish tail?). Any interpretation for it?

Regards

[A. G. Maisey]

I've got a thing about names, and for that matter, about language in general.

Words are supposed to convey ideas:- we get the words wrong, the ideas get deformed, twisted and those ideas no longer move freely from one person to another.

When we examine words we can learn a lot about origins.

Origins of ideas, origins of motives, origins of the things to which the words refer. Other origins too.

So words are pretty important. They need to be right. That is, if they are intended to mean anything.

In this discussion group, we use words, because we would be unable to discuss if we did not use words. Who ever heard of a discussion without words?

We more or less agree on a common vocabulary, and we do this so that each of us knows what the other person is talking about.

So, if Jean refers to the hilt shown in post #99 as a "putra satu", we all know what he's talking about. If Michael calls it a "yaksa", yep, we understand him too. If somebody wants to call it "raksasa", I doubt any of us will have any problem with that.

For myself, I don't really care what anybody calls it. My professional mind would like to label it as a Jawa ZX7, but then I'd be the only one who knew what I meant, so that would be a pretty silly way to go.

But lets look at what the common terms used to describe this hilt type mean.

We've already had a discussion on yaksa & raksasa, so I won't revisit them except to mention in passing that both words are Javanese, and were known in Old Javanese.

But "putra satu". That one is an interesting name.

Why?

Because it is a new name. A very new name. A name that is extremely unlikely to have been in use in Jawa prior to, let's say, 1950. A name that in any case would never have had a Javanese usage at any time in history.

Why?

Because it is Bahasa Indonesia, not Javanese.

In Javanese the word "satu" refers to a kind of cake.

In Javanese the word "putra" means a child.

But when these words occur in Indonesian they mean something else entirely.

The word "putra" means "prince" (it has other associated meanings, depending upon context; it is a contraction of "putera")

The word "satu" means "one".

I do not know where the term "putra satu" originated. I know it is in general usage amongst collectors, and some dealers.

My gut feeling is that this term is a dealer's invention to flim-flam collectors.

Most importantly, this term tells us nothing at all of what name this hilt type may have been given by the people who carved them and wore them.

It is simply a term that permits identification amongst collectors.

[Sajen]

Thank you for your logical education about the term "putra satu" Alan. Of course I am aware about the meaning (my young son is named Putra) but never thought about that it can't be the correct name for this hilt type simple because it isn't a javanese term.

Regards,
Detlef