The things we cannot see

[A. G. Maisey]

In post #46 I wrote that I was unable to provide a clear explanation of "taksu", last night I took steps to remedy this deficiency and made a very long phone call to a lady I know in Bali who is an acknowledged authority in Balinese tradition & culture.

It seems I was not alone in having a deficient understanding of the concept of taksu. According to what I was told, it is a pretty popular subject for discussion and everybody seems to have their own ideas on exactly what taksu is. There are however, a number of things that all can agree upon.

If a performance of music, or dance, or acting, or of other form of art is complimented by saying that it has "taksu", that is the highest compliment that can be given. With taksu the art lives, without taksu the art (whatever it may be) is empty and tasteless.

The perception of taksu by an observer, and the creation of taksu by an artist is limited by three boundaries:- inner power, spiritual power, magic power. An artist who has taksu is able to exercise intelligence in creating his art work, no matter what that might be, and the result of his efforts will be more authoritative and will have a greater presence the higher the degree of taksu that he has.

The principal association of taksu is with the arts, but in everyday usage it is applied to all professions, all endeavour to create, this can be as wide ranging as performance art, politics, cooking, accountancy (everybody here familiar with "creative accounting"?). In religious ceremony taksu is frequently present.

Everybody is born with a seed of taksu but only those who work at its development succeed in gaining the perfect condition of having recognisable taksu.

It is important to understand that to the Balinese people art is not created by the artist, but rather it is created through the artist, so the degree of excellence of an artist's work is evidence of that artist's closeness to divine origins. Each creation is from and for a higher power.

The word "taksu" comes from the Kawi* word "caksu" which means what you can see, what your perspective is, what you witness. So taksu is dependent upon actually witnessing something, but the result that you witness has been produced by the unseen element of taksu, it is the essence that raises a creation far above the ordinary.

The taksu that a great creator has can be absorbed by things that he once used, his clothing, his mask, his tools.

There is another meaning given to the word "taksu", it is the name of a personal shrine in a family compound that is devoted to a person's profession, the person who is responsible for that shrine will make daily offerings to the shrine for the duration of any creative endeavour in which he might be engaged.

The above explanation has come from one person, but bearing in mind the stature of that person I personally am inclined to accept her comments as being pretty accurate.

So, if we are to say that a keris has "taksu", then that keris must be able to assessed as having a physical presence that moves our own emotions to place it on a level of perfection that is far above the ordinary.

This is an overview of a lengthy conversation with a lot of twists & turns, and as was pointed out to me during this conversation, it is a reflection of how many people would understand taksu today, under the influence today's religious observances.

This is an abstract from an academic paper by June Mc Daniel, it can be read on Researchgate:-

"This article describes the role of Hinduism in modern Indonesia and the ways in which it has been adapted to fit the government's definition of religion as a prophetic monotheism with revealed texts and a universal ethic. It gives a brief background on Indonesian history and analyzes the structure and theology of Agama Hindu Dharma Indonesia. It discusses whether a governmental reorganization of an ancient religion can be considered a new religious movement, and some approaches that might be useful from the field of religious studies. It suggests that the definition of new religious movement be changed to fit the case in which a modern religion considered to be a revealed religion also acts as a civil religion."

If we understand how things have changed in recent years we can begin to understand the reasons why the understanding of the concept of "taksu" is somewhat fragmented.

I think this demonstrates something that I have often stated:- understandings are only relevant within a defined socio-cultural context that is limited by time & space.

* Kawi draws strongly on Sanskrit and forms a large part of Old Javanese, these days it is the foundation of literary language

[rasdan]

G’day Alan,

I agree with you that taksu can mean “full artistic value”, something that have achieved highest degree of artistry, something that have sort of “wibawa” – authority feel and look, handsome and attractive. It means the item has fully served its function. Be it physical item or artistic performance.

However, when listening Balinese speak of the force in the keris, they also refer it to “taksu keris” meaning the power of the keris. Sometimes they use the word tuah. They say that the taksu of the keris can come and can also leave. Similarly, I have read somewhere on the net that the taksu of performance art can also come and leave. Locations of a performance can have varying level of taksu. Some locations it is easy to get taksu, some are difficult. Usually, the presence of taksu is denoted with trance of the performer thus it can come, and it can leave. This is just from my vague memory.

So, in my mind, if it is regarded of energy (that originates from the unseen world) and it can come and go, it is quite possible that taksu of a Balinese keris is something that is parallel to tuah in Javanese keris. What is interesting is that, in Balinese understanding, something with taksu must meet physical requirement (artistic value in the case of a keris) and I think it must also meet spiritual requirement in order for a keris to be regarded fully functional in Balinese sense. (this is my guess) Thus a keris that has achieved spiritual taksu must also achieve a high physical artistic standards.

However, I think in Javanese tuah, a keris is not necessarily achieve a high artistic standard to have tuah, but we know one of the characteristics of an empu made keris is that it must have high artistic standards. So it is like an unmentioned rule that actually tuah is only present in high quality keris - similar concept with Balinese understanding.

Therefore, I think it is probable that the concept of tuah in Javanese keris has been watered down so that the elements of Hinduism in it is not so obvious. At the core, it is a Hindu concept. But this is just my guess. Do you think that it is possible to look at it that way?

[A. G. Maisey]

Rasdan, what I have written is an over-view, it is taken from a lot of notes made during a phone conversation, & compressed into something short enough and direct enough to be read quickly without the reader going to sleep.

So now, I'll expand a little.

The original use of the word "taksu" only applied to performance art, a performance had taksu when the performer became one with the part he played in the piece, when be actually became the character he was playing, when his mask was not a mask any more, but was the actual face of the character.

Then people started to use the concept of taksu to refer to other art works, and when an art object had become perfect it was considered to have taksu, what my friend actually said was this:-

"--- kalau obyek seni, atau barang seni sudah matang, yah, itulah sudah metaksu ---"

I guess we could say that something like the Mona Lisa or Girl with a Pearl Earring is "metaksu":- we look at the painting and what we witness with our eyes has an effect upon our emotions, however, since not only the creation of the condition of 'taksu' is dependent upon the three pillars of taksu, but also the perception of 'taksu' by the observer, an observer who is deficient in all elements of taksu will not be able to feel the taksu generated by the painting.

So --- "full artistic value"?
Maybe, this is not the way I would describe my present understanding.

Now, as I wrote, everybody has their own ideas on how the concept of "taksu" should be understood, you could have a dozen people who all recognise the taksu in a performance and they could well have a dozen different ideas about how & why the performance is taksu. When the word drifts into colloquial usage and is applied broadly to art works other than performance, the interpretations & understandings can vary even more widely, when it gets into gutter colloquialism and we have some half-ripe kid saying to his mother

"hey mum that soto was really metaksu"

well then we really do have a situation where language is undergoing change.

And this is one of the reasons why the word is so difficult to understand:- it means different things to different people, but its true, original meaning is only in performance art and it only means when that divine spirit enters the performer and he becomes one with his character.

If modern usage of the word corrupts the original way in which it was understood, we just need to recognise that this is one of the characteristics of a living language.

In Shakespeare's England you could get time in the stocks for uttering the word "occupy" in public, it was deemed to be obscene language, during the 17th & 18th centuries people in England avoided using this word.

So, if we want to apply "taksu" to a keris, then it would seem that we need to be able to feel the divine spirit in that keris when we look at it --- just look, not feel, do not forget that for the observer "taksu" is the result of witnessing something, and the effect that the observance has on feelings.

We very definitely cannot confuse taksu with tuah.

I cannot be too definite about that.

Tuah is NOT a Balinese concept, whereas taksu is 100% Balinese.

Tuah of a keris is talismanic in nature and is placed into the keris by a qualified maker.

Taksu is evidence of the presence of the divine spirit.

If some present day Balinese confuse taksu with tuah, this simply demonstrates the penetration of Javanese culture & language into modern Bali. Much of the current Balinese keris understanding has been drawn from Jawa, during the 1970's & 1980's it was almost impossible to find anybody with an in depth understanding of keris in Bali. During the last 20 years or so it seems that we have multitudes of keris literate people in Bali.

Who did they learn from?

Who were their teachers?

Rasdan, we cannot begin to understand a single blossom of a culture or society by only looking at that single blossom, we need to look at the garden it came from. If we want to understand the Balinese keris, we need to look at Balinese society & culture.

Balinese life is intertwined, many would say "defined by", religious observance.

I would strongly encourage everybody who has any interest at all in understanding the Balinese keris to begin by trying to gain an understanding of Balinese culture & society, including the changes that have been wrought by the necessity of forcing Balinese religion into a mould that is acceptable to Islam.

Question:- Has the concept of tuah been watered down in order to reduce elements of Hindu belief?

No, I don't think I'd put it that way. It is beyond doubt that the nature of the keris in Jawa, as it is understood at the present time, has been influenced by Islamic belief. But I don't think "watered down" is the way to think about this, rather understandings seem to have been pushed in a different direction. In Jawa we have this multitude of different pamors and dhapurs, most are able to be interpreted in some way or another, usually talismanic in nature.

Does the same situation exist in Bali? Not really.

In Jawa the keris has been principally a dress accoutrement since about the middle of the 18th century, during this time the talismanic component of its nature seems to have grown, whilst its function as weapon has seems to have decreased.

In Bali the primary function of the keris up until the puputans (only a bit more than 100 years ago) --- and maybe a for a while after that time --- has been as a weapon.

In Bali & in Jawa there is a somewhat different understanding of good & evil and the unseen forces that are representative of these concepts. This single variation in foundation understandings is sufficient to alter the way in which the world is understood, and the keris is an object that does physically exist in this world.

[rasdan]

Thank you, Alan. I can see the differences now. So, in short we can say that tuah is a Javanese concept and taksu is purely Balinese. Do you think that the tuah concept in keris Bali used in the current time is most likely an influence from Java?

There is a professor here in Malaysia that says that the word tuah did not exist in the Malay language in the 17th century (if my memory serves me correctly). I wonder what is the word used for keris tuah prior of that. This is probably one of the hints that the concept of tuah in keris is probably something newer than the 17th century.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you for your further comments Rasdan.

Bahasa Indonesia and Modern Malay are to a large degree mutually intelligible, but Modern Malay was preceded by Classical Malay, which was in common usage from about 1400 to about 1800, Classical Malay was proceeded by Old Malay.

So, your Professor is in fact saying that the word "tuah" did not exist in Old Malay, 1600 falls into the middle years of usage of Classical Malay, so what was happening in Malay society during those years from around 1400 to around 1600?

Your professor might be right, because in Wilkinson's original Malay Dictionary(Modern Malay) he uses the spelling "tuwah", the alternate, more modern spelling is used in the abridged version of Wilkinson:- "tuah".

In Modern Javanese the word "tuwah" does not exist, but it can be a regional variation of the word "tuwuh" which means "to grow, to rise to the surface, to increase in rank, to become greater".

In Old Javanese, the form of Javanese that was in general usage up to about 1600, the word "tuwuh" means "to grow, to arise from below".

Now look at Bahasa Indonesia, in this language we do not find "tuwah", nor do we find "tuwuh", but we do find "tuah", which is understood as:-

"1 good luck, good fortune. 2 magic power. 3 respect, honour, prestige."

I am not a linguist, in fact, my ability with languages other than English is pretty limited --- in school I had sufficient French to allow me to roughly understand cycling magazines, but not enough to pass examinations. Nobody could ever mistake my stumbling abilities in a few languages other than English to be representative of competence in these languages --- even in English I consider myself only barely competent. But I do have strong analytical abilities, and applying analysis to the various words & meanings attached to "tuwah/tuwuh" I feel it is not very difficult to understand the relationship between these two words and the word that is spelt as "tuah".

So, although the spelling of "tuah" now has this modern form, perhaps the concept of the modern idea of "tuah" is a concept that did exist in earlier times, but was represented by a word with a very slightly variant pronunciation. In earlier times, the spelling would of course not be a romanised spelling so perhaps these various romanised spellings do in fact come back to a single spelling in earlier scripts.

Just for interest sake, here is the entry in Wilkinson for "tuwah":-

" Luck, good fortune - in that things left to chance turn out well. Bertuwah:- lucky, luck bringing - as an amulet is supposed to bring luck, or as certain coins are believed to be lucky coins., HT.Abd., 58, 78, 486: "sudah dapat gading bertuwah, tandok tiyada berguna lagi: now that he has luck bringing ivory, common horn is of no use to him; now that he is wealthy, simple joys of his poverty please him no more; Prov. V. J.S.A.S.. XI 56, Untong ada tuwah tidak: he get profit but makes no lucky strokes; Prov."

I do think we can say that "taksu" is a purely Balinese idea, but as far as "tuah" goes, I am uncertain, I think the idea might be there, but not necessarily attached to the keris, Modern Balinese came in part from Old Javanese, if an idea existed in Old Javanese it probably still exists in Modern Balinese, but perhaps that idea is represented by a different word.

We still need to look at the idea of "isi" , the understanding of "tuah" is, I believe, essential to the understanding of "isi", but to understand "isi" we need first to understand how some elements of the Unseen World are understood in Bali, as opposed to Jawa.

Does anybody have any opinions on this variance in understandings?