Sari

[A. G. Maisey]

In the Madura/Thai thread, Paul de Souza provided us with a link to an old thread that was started by Dave Henkel:-

http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000918.html

Dave began that thread with this post:-

I just got back from another trip up north to Kelantan and brought back my latest acquisitions. Just thought I'd do the show and tell thing and share them with you.
The first piece I'll be posting is this keris saribulan also sometimes known as a sabit bulan. Sari is a Sanskrit origin term for flower and bulan means moon, thus the term translates as moonflower. Sabit, meaning crescent is most likely a bastardized Arabic term, and is, I think the more recent moniker.


I would like to comment on the name given to the keris scabbard in this thread.

I do not know this scabbard by the names that Dave has given us, but that is immaterial, as Dave is providing advice based upon usage in Kelantan.

However, what I feel I must comment upon is the name "Sari Bulan" (saribulan)

The word "bulan", or alternatively "wulan" is most certainly "moon".

However, in Malay languages today, the word "sari" has the meaning of "core" or "essence" or "the best part". It can also mean "pollen", but when given this usage it is normally coupled to one of the words for flower, so we would have, for example, "sari bunga".

The word "sari" does not mean flower, but because it can mean "pollen", this has given rise to the common misunderstanding that it can also mean "flower". It does not mean flower.

The Sanscrit connection is that about half of the words found in Classical Malay have Sanscrit roots. In the case of the word "sari", the Sanscrit root word is "sara", which has a couple of different pronunciations, and around ten different meanings. Of these ten or more different meanings, most can be linked back to the idea of "core, or essence".

On the other hand, the meaning of "sari" in Sanscrit is "a strip of cloth", which of course is the root word for the Indian woman's garment of the same name.

Some may think I'm being a little bit pedantic because of my concern about this incorrect usage, but what we can see here in this incorrect understanding of the word "sari" is one of the root causes of all the incorrect information that is generated by the "Name Game". Any name presented as correct is only of value when it is in fact correct.

[rasdan]

G’day Alan,
I couldn’t agree more on the name game. I am quite sure many of the keris terms that we use nowadays are quite recent. Some may even have just been created and then used by the public that mostly are unaware on the origin of the term. Problem is most people almost never question where these terms originated.

Regarding saribulan. Another name for this sampir is “Sampir Dua Haribulan ” – (shape of the moon on the second day of the lunar month). Probably the name Sari bulan is a corruption of Hari Bulan.

On the other hand, when looking at old manuscript, it seems that the word seri (meaning gleaming light –something of that effect) may also a misspelt/mispronounced as sari. For example Balairong Seri spelled as Balairong Sari. This may occur due to local dialects. For example the Minangkabau people pronounced sebelas (eleven) as sabelas and berseri (gleaming) as barsari. Therefore, I think it is also possible that sampir Sari Bulan may actually mean “Seri Bulan” – gleaming light of the moon.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Rasdan, names can be a problem, actually, I don't have a problem with new names, language changes all the time, and if a new name, or a new term comes into common usage, that only demonstrates the vitality of the language.

The fact that many, if not most Malay languages have floating letter values in constant words is a given, so we can't get too upset about that, its just a characteristic of the language --- Javanese is a real headache in this respect, because in ngoko, people will change pronunciations at will, to make a sentence, more pleasant to the ear, or for some other reason. Some linguists have remarked that Javanese people seem to have the attitude that they own the words they use, thus they can contort those words as they see fit.

My big problem with naming is firstly, an obvious misunderstanding of a word, usually by a non-native speaker, or alternatively generated by carelessness.

My other problem is with translation of words from the original language into English, or some other language. This is a massive problem with the keris, because the words that are frequently used in the keris lexicon are euphemisms, designed to conceal the true name of something, because the true name should only be known to people with the knowledge to understand what the true name implies.

I've sometimes thought that for purist collectors it might be more reasonable to forget all about the so-called "correct" name of anything, which could well be a name they have no hope of understanding, and instead devise a universal alpha-numeric system or similar, which would at least permit everybody to understand what was meant.

Another problem with the keris is the concept of "old".

For some people, anything after the early 17th century is already new, and thus contaminated, along with all of its terminology.

We will often hear or see reference to "old" books etc, but those old books virtually never go back beyond the beginning of the 19th century, at which time in Jawa, the keris had already taken on a new societal function that was only partially in harmony with its earlier functions.

As to what "sari bulan" should really be, who knows? It might even mean "sari bulan" : "essence of the moon" --- it also might not. If it can be translated as anything, there is a better than fair chance that whatever the direct translation is, the true name and meaning is something quite different.