How to read a greneng

[A. G. Maisey]

Johan, it is not possible to understand anything if that anything is taken out of context.

If we take a sentence from, let us say Shakespeare, is it possible to understand the message that the selected sentence carries, lacking the context of the play?

I suggest to you that it is totally impossible.

So it is with the keris and everything that pertains to it.

In any case, I have been pushing my own little barrow for more years than I can count, trying to get some people to try to understand just a little bit about what it is that they collect.

Very few people are prepared to make the effort to learn their ABC before they try to read "War & Peace".

There are no short cuts. We must put in the hard work first.

Regrettably.

When it comes to the keris in Jawa we need to put in a lot of what might seem like irrelevant effort before we can even begin to understand, then it becomes a matter of "understand what?" even if we understand the words, does that mean that we understand the message, or further, that we understand that message in context?

Collectors prefer to collect. Its what they do. Their interest is in the physical.

I am now 76 years old. I have had an interest in the keris for more than 60 years. For the last almost 50 years I have actively studied the keris. I probably will not live very much longer, and I will die knowing very, very little about the keris.

Here is a beginning for you:-

http://www.kerisattosanaji.com/INTERPRETATIONPAGE4.html

[Johan van Zyl]

Well, as a 71-year old, let me say to you, Alan: we're still young enough for very many years, and may those years be filled with further fulfilling labours. I have been a scholar all my life and am learning still. Looking at your very many threads and posts, I have come to view you as a teacher in the most honourable sense of the word, and I ask you to please continue teaching.

To show how right you are in encouraging members to read up incessantly in keris lore, I'd like to give an example of my own "research".

(Coincidentally, your Interpretation Part 4 is the very same paper I have been studying during the few days this thread has been running. I had judged it earlier to be most informative with this topic in mind.)

The seemingly irrelevant efforts I have been making by delving into all aspects of the keris (under your insistence, for which I thank you) has given me much food for thought. So I have discovered that the Indonesians (of which the greater part were Javanese) who were brought to this country during the sad time of the slave trade, helped in the development of Afrikaans, my mother tongue. In fact, in time, those Javanese and Bugis learned to speak Dutch, and they, together with the European colonists who came over, changed the Dutch into Afrikaans. The size of this contribution to the language, made by the Indonesians, was not evident during early studies, but today it is acknowledged. Today Afrikaans is the adopted (read: only) first language of not only people like myself (eleventh generation South African) but also thousands of people living here in the Western Cape Province, whose forebears came from Java, Sulawesi and the like.

I have read a lot of Shakespeare, and have seldom understood it in its correct context. Yet I have read it, talked about it, quoted from it, and taught it to my grandchildren. I will not withhold it from them because of their imperfect understanding of the Bard's life and times.

So I give you a wide smile of appreciation and ask you not to be withholding because of uncertainties in Keris lore, but please keep on teaching in this forum!

Johan

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks Johan.

Psalms 90:10

I'm not planning on flying anywhere at the moment --- except may to Blitar next March to do a photo cover of Panataran. But I am at the point where I can positively count the time left on my fingers and toes --- maybe. That's not long. It took me half that time to read and understand Pigeaud's "Java in the 14th. Century". More than double that time to get a reasonable understanding of the Javanese language. My problem is I'm a slow learner, so I need more time than most people to get a thorough understanding of anything.

Understandings come easy, but thorough understandings are very, very draining.

Three score & ten is the blink of the eye, and it is already a sextet of summer solstices behind me.

[Johan van Zyl]

So true! But let me describe my own mindset in regard to our "available" threescore-and-ten plus bonus years before coming to the on-topic point of this post (and I'm saying this not for Alan specifically, but also for all the younger set): Carry on flying till the end; if you stumble, get up again; spend your days right up to the last one.

Here's a humorous incident which has some bearing on what I'm trying to say: In the public service department where I worked as a lecturer for 36 years there developed over time a habit for those on the point of retirement, to either 1) not arrive to work that day, 2) to go home after morning tea, 3) to be picked up by family after midday lunch, 4) or at the least to not make use of the shuttle vehicle, but to drive to work on your own steam.

I volunteered as driver of the shuttle for about 20 years, and it was expected that I surrender the bus the previous day of my retirement. I said no. Not only did I decide to fulfil my duty as shuttle "pilot" there & back, but it included being at work the entire day. I raised a lot of eyebrows, but they were understanding, because I was being consistent to the last. The same goes for life - carry on till the end, especially in the way you deal with friends, family and people around you.

Now before the moderator hurls me from the forum for off-topic comments, let me get on to the greneng once again. I realise that my few concise words can be misunderstood - reminds me of the speaker who was asked to give a talk of an hour's duration. He said he could do that right away. When urgently contacted to say the talk would have to be cut to ten minutes, he replied that they would have to postpone the talk as he needed a lot of time to prepare!

The greneng is one example of the incorporation of religious symbolism put into the keris. But the greneng consists of a number of elements, and I'm wondering if these elements could be seen as one "message"? Can one compare the entities as being in a relationship to one another, in the same way as the separate words in a sentence are in relationship? Could the "message" of the greneng be understood as worship? If the ron dha could be understood as a mantra symbol, could not the whole greneng be understood as a prayer?

All right, so the other elements of the greneng cannot be letters of the alphabet. But they could be stylised representations of something? Could they have been cut there as the empu's appeal to the principle god Siva? Moreover, on a single keris there are elements of symbolism to Ganesha also. But the greneng seems to be different in that the elements are arranged in line, as if they are interconnected.

Alan admits that iconography interpretation is a neglected field of research. But surely that does not mean one should not keep asking questions? Sometimes we are confronted by such a staggering accumulation of observations that we cannot see the forest for the trees. Me, I'm seeing the trees but not the forest! Perhaps this post is my way of asking whether it might be a good idea to narrow down the field a bit and make a few daring conclusions with regard to the Javanese greneng.

[A. G. Maisey]

Johan, any remarks I may make in respect of ron dha, greneng and keris iconography in general are to be understood only within the context of the Pre-Islamic Javanese keris and/or the Balinese keris.

In its most pure form the greneng consists of only the ron dha,sometimes repeated two or three times, this expression of form can sometimes be seen in Balinese keris, and in very old Javanese keris. The other couple of elements sometimes found in later Javanese greneng seem to have been included in the greneng after the keris had become an Islamic icon and was subjected to artistic expression. The ron dha is sometimes also seen as an addition to the kembang kacang or the gandhik.

Thus, reading across the sorsoran gives:-

"Aum, Ganesha, Siwa, Aum"

Perhaps a re-reading of the relevant parts of "Interpretation---" may answer your questions in respect of religious intent.

Some people in Jawa today refer to the keris as a "prayer in steel".

[Bjorn]

Alan, when you refer to the other elements in the greneng, apart from the ron dha, do you mean the tingil and ri pandan?

Reading a mantra across the sorsoran certainly seems appropriate in the context of Majahapit times. And the mantra om ganesha siwa om seems logical when a jenggot is present.
However, in many cases there is no jenggot. Can we assume that it would then be implied? Or possibly we should read the mantra from right to left (om siwa ganesha). As far as I know, a mantra must start with om, though not all mantras end with om.

My interpretation is based only on general knowledge of mantra, and no specific knowledge on how these were used in pre-Islamic Indonesia - so my interpretations may be very flawed.