Balinese kris from Polish Museum

[BluErf]

I think my ganja iras keris is beautiful. Its of Malay origin, so don't expect any pamor (actually, it has pamor kulit semangka, if you look carefully at the middle portion).

And Adni recently acquired (and sold) a Bugis keris (possibly of Sumatran origins) of the ganja iras form, luk 5 as well. That was a beautiful blade complete with the famed Bugis sturdiness. Its a full featured blade with kembang kacang, sogokan (depan, belakang), greneng, and well controlled pamor. Interesting cross section too as it starts out 'flat oval' at the base, then progress to typical Bugis hexagonal cross-section, then to diamond cross-section near the tip.

I recall seeing and handling at least another 2 ganja iras blades, also of Sumatran origins, with good dapur, beautiful luks, and are well-dressed.

And also, the most amazing one I've seen was a Balinese ganja iras keris more than 3 years ago in Adni's shop. It had pamor similar to junjung darjat (if I remember correctly). I dubbed it the 'zebra' keris then because there were so many peaks that they almost resembled a zebra's strips. Of course, no offense to the blade, but that was a nice, full featured Balinese blade too. The keris was dressed in high quality pelet which I dubbed the 'leopard skin' because it looked like the spots on a cloud leopard. I told Adni that the keris is like a mini-safari, because it was topped off with a Hanuman hilt.

The "Ensiklopedi Keris" is an authoritative book, but I would read it within the Javanese context, mostly.

Btw, the symbolism of ganja and peksi is towards the lingam and yoni, male and female. I have heard that sometimes a female pandai besi would forge a ganja iras keris and the keris would still be considered 'complete' because the pandai herself is the 'female/yoni' aspect. That is one aspect which I would consider to be on the mystical side.

Shortcuts or not, what makes a good beautiful keris would be overall workmanship. We all know there are many bad-looking kerises with ganja.