Pawakan

[A. G. Maisey]

I'm up a bit south of Nowra Ian, near a little town called Tomerong, used to be a big timber town up until about 1950 or so. Saw mills all over the place.

There was still a bullock team operating here into the 1990's.

Nowra itself was a cowtown into the 1960's, but its pretty much a suburb of Sydney now. 100 miles from Sydney, a lot of the dairy farms have become Pitt Street farmers weekend get aways with pretty little horses and Galloway cows.

Bit hard to find any genuine country people here these days, most have opted for an easier life, shuffling papers or acting the part of baristers in Balmain coffee shops.

Old Oz is on the way down the tubes.

Ever tried to buy a decent axe recently?

Cheap garbage. You want a decent axe you need to order from a custom maker. In the 1990's you could still buy 5 pound and 5 1/2 pound axes in the hardware store in Nowra. Hytests. But no Plumbs or Keesteels.

No decent hardware stores left either. Bunnings killed them.

Been a lot of change in only the last 20 or so years.

[jagabuwana]

3) the third level is to understand the feeling of a keris. In the opinion of Empu Suparman it is a total impossibility to understand feeling until a complete understanding of level one and two have been achieved. A person who is skilled at level three can form a judgement from vibration alone, he does not need to see the keris, he only needs to hold it and he will receive a clear impression of the esoteric qualities of the keris. At this third level the physical appearance of the keris is totally irrelevant.

For this third level, is it something that is arrived at as a consequence of becoming expert at the first and second levels? Or does it necessarily require that the person already have an innate sensitivity or "claim" to this ability?

[A. G. Maisey]

JB, this third level is in my understanding not something for everybody, there needs to be that special quality as well as the deep formal understanding.

The formal understanding can be learnt, but that does not necessarily mean that having become competent at level one & two, a person can automatically progress to level three.

However, although somebody might have that special gift to cross from the seen to the unseen world, without the foundation of the formal understanding nobody can expect to understand the esoteric qualities of a keris that might be expressed by a transmission of feeling.

When I first encountered these ideas I thought of Luciano Pavarotti. His father understood what was needed to make a singer who rose above the ordinary, Pavarotti's father was a singer himself, but he earnt his living as a baker. Luciano had an inborn talent, his initial guidance was from his father, but it took him 20 years of training & experience to develop the voice he was born with into the instrument it became.

In the absence of early guidance and a lifetime of learning Luciano Pavarotti would have been just another good singer.

It is the same with being able to understand a keris through feeling alone:- we need the experience, knowledge & understanding that can be learnt, but then we need that special gift that permits us to move from the world that we see into the world that we feel.

As far as I was able to understand this idea, it was not exclusively the opinion of Empu Suparman, but it was an opinion that seemed to be held by every upper level ahli keris that I encountered in Solo between 1980 and about 2000.

[jagabuwana]

Thank you once again, Alan

[jagabuwana]

Hello all. Returning to this discussion as I have some more questions.
Alan - these are primarily addressed to you as they are formed after reading your posts and I would be grateful for more of your knowledge on these subjects. But I also welcome perspectives from others should they have a view on them.

I'd like to apologise in advance for what may be long-winded ways of approaching the questions.

On Pawakan (overall visual appearance)


From other discussions in this forum, I have seen pawakan used in a way to describe how a keris generally looks for the purposes of discussing classification.

For example, it seems that someone could say that a keris has the overall visual appearance of a Madura keris, despite having more specific features that might not be Madura.

But I have also seen pawakan used in such a way such as to describe a keris as awkward or not-harmonious.

I can see how the former is related to overall visual appearance, but the latter seems to me to be a description of the feelings generated due to its physical appearance i.e. wanda.

❓Is there a blurry line between pawakan and wanda, or am I misunderstanding?


On Wanda (the feeling or personality of the keris)



Worldly and experienced people who are good judges of character could use different words or characteristics to judge the same man. On the other hand they could also have polar opposite judgments depending on their experiences, biases or values.

A proud-chested well dressed man might cause a person to judge him as confident and brave, while another might judge him to hiding some kind of insecurity.

It seems much more subjective than pawakan as we are approaching internal feelings and qualities informed by, but not formed entirely by what our eyes see, which can be anchored to shared commonly shared perceptions shaped by society.

Then it seems reasonable to me that two esteemed ahli keris could easily have different feelings about the same keris and that wouldn't be controversial.

This leads me to ask what the purpose of this judgment or information is.

My initial assumption is that if wanda is part of menangguh ('doing' tangguh), then a positive wanda - e.g. bravery - would be better for the keris' prestige or value than a negative wanda - e.g. cowardly. And if the tangguh system was made by a particular class of people in Javanese society as a way of judging the real-world market value of a keris, then an esteemed ahli keris' judgment of a keris' wanda seems to be important.

❓But what if we take tangguh out of the picture?
❓Is this information useful or valuable outside of the context of "value"?


On Batin

❓Given that this has no basis in how a keris looks, from where does batin originate?

[A. G. Maisey]

Pawakan is usually used to refer to a man, it is his outward appearance, for example if a man stoops a little too much and bows his head, he looks humble, if he stands too straight he looks awkward, so with keris, what we are looking for is an overall appearance of harmony, the overall form of a keris should create a harmonious impression.

Wanda (wondo) is the personality of the keris, the feeling that we might get from the keris; just as a man might create an entirely different feeling in different people, so the wanda of the keris can create a different feeling in different people.

Pawakan:- outward appearance, we want to see a harmonious appearance

Wanda :- personality, the feeling generated by the keris, and this feeling can be different in different people.

Wanda is NOT an indicator used in keris classification, pawakan is.

In Basa Jawa, batin refers to one's inner feelings, the core of self; kebatinan is the inner self, it is a synonym of spiritualism and mysticism.

Example:- Empu Suparman's house was diagonally opposite a mesjid, the call to prayer from this mesjid was often unreasonably loud, some would say that although it was situated in Kampung Komplang, Solo, that call to prayer could be heard in Jakarta. When it would start up, Empu Suparman's constant complaint was that it "--- menganggu kebatinan saya---" in English, it disturbed his inner self.

In Bahasa Indonesia it has wider applications, related, but some marginally different, I believe it probably came into BI from Malay, as BI originates from a dialect of Malay that is spoken in Southern Sumatera.

However, it would, I believe, have come into both BJ & Malay from Arabic, where I think the original meaning was "hidden" or "esoteric".

I don't think I have heard the word "batin", or "kebatinan" used in relation to a tangguh classification, but I guess some people might be able to relate wanda to an effect upon their inner self.

In respect of the value of wanda & pawakan, well, assessment of pawakan can play a role in determination of the tangguh classification of a keris, and thus of its monetary value.

In respect of wanda, this can impact upon the personal value to an individual that the keris might have for the specific individual. Thus pawakan is something that can be perceived by everybody, wanda is specific the individual.

Now I will issue the same caution that was issued to me:- do not think for one moment that you can understand pawakan or wanda where it relates to keris until you have a very high level of keris knowledge and you understand how a keris should look and feel. This will take years of study & experience. You cannot learn something like this in five minutes.

[jagabuwana]

Thank you for clarifying so clearly, Alan. Your caution is well noted.