Pawakan

[rasdan]

Hello everybody,

I thought I'll put my understandings on pawakan, wondo and batin/roso based on what Alan explained here. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Pawakan : The physical form, the shape. Size, length, width, curvatures and the combination of the shapes. It is harmony if the combination is good. Like people, the person looks good if the physical proportion of the person is balanced; not the hands are too long.. stuff like that.

Wondo: The feeling that comes from looking at the physical form. Different combination can generate different feeling. On a person, wondo means a person can look athletic, can look happy, strict etc. - due to his/her physical appearance.

[A. G. Maisey]

Rasdan, I think you've got the pawakan right, but wanda is very difficult. As I warned these things take years of experience to understand and not everybody gets the idea.

Lets think about the keris as if it is a person.

Now, there you are in the office, at the meeting, wherever, and one of your friends walks in with somebody you've never seen before, this new comer is a bit lopsided, his left eye squints, his hair seems to wanting to go in several different directions at the same time, he's skinny, his coat hangs on him like it is on a clothes hanger, he is constantly hitching up his pants because he doesn't have sufficient meat on his frame to hold those pants up for very long.

In short, this is a pretty unattractive person. His outward appearance is just straight out off-putting. He is definitely not going to get head hunted to be the new head of customer relations.

Later in the evening he comes up to you and strikes up a conversation, and believe it or not the two of you find common ground and that conversation continues way past the end of the meeting.

The two of you really hit it off, for you, that ugly little man has an aura, a captivating personality, his inner self is in harmony with your inner self.

But for somebody else, that ugly little man might forever be no more than an ugly little man.

Now apply that same idea to a keris.

I have a keris that I rescued from a dealer's rubbish bin. The wrongko was in several pieces, but it was complete and not really badly damaged. The keris itself was worse than corkscrew shape, rusty, frayed edges, loose gonjo.

The dealer was not prepared to spend the necessary money on restoration because restoration cost would have been higher that sale value --- or so he thought.

I asked to buy it, it was not sold to me, it was given to me.

I took it home, I reforged it and reworked it, I repaired the wrongko & pendok. It restored as very nice Pajajaran Kebo Lajer. I feel a very close attachment to this keris. It has --- for me --- a very special personality.


This is wanda.

We are talking about something you cannot see, only feel.

[rasdan]

Thank you Alan for the correction. I can understand now what you mean by wondo can be difficult to comprehend.

So wondo is not physical observation. Rather it is the feeling, the "acquaintance". Therefore wondo can be different from person to person. So does this means that wondo cannot be learnt? Since the feeling generated is different to different individual?

[A. G. Maisey]

I think you might be part right Rasdan.

I do not think it is possible to teach somebody how to gauge a personality that is in balance with one's own personality, I think that is something we probably have from birth, or maybe learn as we grow up.

I was taught that wanda is about the personality of a keris and you can only feel it, but I really don't know what it is that makes some keris feel nice and comfortable and like a companion, and others you just want to get back into the wrongko ASAP and put away.

I have no clue at all why we have these different feelings. I guess it might be from an impression formed by the way a keris might look, and then that generates the feeling. Maybe. Or it might be from the feeling you sometimes get when you handle a particular keris.

Anyway, whatever it is, it is personality of the keris, and personality is a characteristic that we cannot see, only feel.

Maybe this "feeling" thing is universal with all living things, have you ever noticed how animals, for example, dogs can be attracted to one person but not another? Obviously the dogs can feel something that is in harmony with their own spirit, and this can vary, dog to dog, & person to person.

Incidentally.

If we look at the dictionary meaning of "wanda" it is the exact opposite of what I was taught and what I have written here.

"wanda" is actually literary language, Kawi, in Kawi it means the body of something (awak) or the form of something (dhapur).

some keris people use "wanda" to refer to the shape of a keris hilt

I do not know why this should be, but what I do know is that the way I have explained it is the way it was understood relative to keris, by the keris elites in Solo during the 1980's & 1990's.

In respect of "pawakan" it is a very commonly used word, it normally refers to a person, and the overall impression of his or her body:- fat, skinny, sexy, lopsided or whatever, however, although I have access to 5 or 6 Javanese dictionaries I can find it in only one of these dictionaries, a fairly recent one, if I ask a native speaker of Javanese in Solo if it is a Javanese or Indonesian word, the response I get is that it is both, but "pawakan" does not appear in Indonesian dictionaries nor Malay.

I sometimes feel that as with a lot of keris words and meanings, my own understandings are decidedly old time Solo, and not necessarily general.

[rasdan]

Understood. Thank you Alan. In that case judging personality can be subjective to a certain extent. I guess everything especially art works will have a personality; and keris can also be considered an artwork. Maybe we can get more insights into this from other fellow members.

[A. G. Maisey]

Maybe not just art works Rasdan.

I have tools that I think have a personality, like cabinet makers chisels that three generations before me have used.

Like a lawn mower that will not start unless I talk to it --- "start ya useless piecea sh*t or you're straight downa tha dump"

Yeah, I think lots of things have a personality, don't forget:- the thread runs through everything in creation.

[rasdan]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Like a lawn mower that will not start unless I talk to it --- "start ya useless piecea sh*t or you're straight downa tha dump"

Haha.. I used to say that to my bike.. Thank you for the clarifications Alan.