Ganja !

[A. G. Maisey]

I apologise for not playing the vote game.

For me to cast a vote, I would have to have an opinion, and I currently do not have a single firm opinion that I am prepared to defend.

I offer the following thoughts that may---or may not---be worthy of consideration.

1---at Prambanan the dagger which may be considered as an ancestor of the keris clearly shows a gonjo.This dagger is held with the pommel facing skywards, thus the wider section provided by the fitting of a gonjo has a gaurd-like effect in cushioning the heel of the hand in delivering a strike.

2---again at Prambanan the dagger which resembles a keris buda has the same feature of a gonjo.

3---observe the keris which is gonjo iras:- the sorsoran is seldom wide, the buntut urang is seldom substantial, evidence of forging difficulty is often found in the wadidang. My personal experience in forging a keris blade has been that it is quite difficult to forge out the wadidang and at the same time maintain adequate thickness.

4---the spiritual beliefs associated with the keris have developed over a very extended period. I believe it would be extraordinarily difficult to demonstrate the existence of any of these beliefs being attached to a dagger of an essentially Indian type, shown in Javanese reliefs of circa 900AD, but that is where we first see the gonjo.

5---the word "ganja" ( a note on spelling:- ganja is properly written with a dot over the "a"'s, and is pronounced "gonjo"; I prefer to write the word "gonjo" because that is how it is pronounced, and probably how most people in Central Jawa would write it)---to repeat, the word "ganja" is found in Old Javanese, but it appears not to be associated with any root word in Sanscrit , or Malay, or any other language. It appears not to be associated with any other word, in any other language, or with any other idea. At the present time I think we can assume it is a stand alone word with a single purpose:- to describe this part of the keris. I have made enquiries in respect of possible associations of this word, but although the people I have approached are at the top of their fields in Old Javanese, and in comparative linguistics, I have not yet had very enlightening responses from them. I personally feel that the way forward in solution of this question is to identify the root of the word. It may be from an Indian language, it may be original Javanese, but if it is original Javanese, it is a little strange that no associations can be tracked with other Old Javanese words.

It would not surprise me if at some time in the future we discover that the word "gonjo" derives from some archaic dialect of the Indian Sub-Continent, and carries the sense of "gaurd", or "pillow", or "support" or something similar.

Once we have a sense of meaning to the word, we can perhaps assume a reason for its original existence. In the mean time, consider how very painful it might be to recieve the full force of a strike on either the heel of the hand, or the first joint of the index finger, if the piece of metal against which that part of the body rested was narrow. Again consider the difficulties involved in forging and carving a blade with a thick, assymetric base , and a light, thin body to the rest of the blade.

As I said:- I have no opinions, only questions.

[VVV]

I googled on ganja and Sanskrit online dictionaries.
I think most of you could guess the most found translation.
But there is another meaning also:

ganja [ gañga ] m. or n. (?) treasury: -na, a. sur passing (--&degree); -vara, m. treasurer.

For me the description treasury, in this case, implies something not related to construction or physical matters...

Michael

[Rick]

If the ganja is a device to widen the sorsoran why have it seperate ?
Why not just make the ganja, fit it over the pesi and weld it into one piece with the rest of the blade?

Wouldn't this be an easier task than making it fit precisely to the wilah?

[A. G. Maisey]

Michael, I did not use an online dictionary, I used the hard copy Macdonell dictionary, when I came up empty there I posed questions to the author of an Old Javanese dictionary, and a professor of comparative linguistics. I have also put the question to a teacher of Sanscrit and Indian culture who used to teach at an Indian university, but who now lives in Canada.
I still have no answer.

I do not think that it is valid to transpose "j" and "g".To get a definite answer on that it is possibly necessary to go back to the original characters.

Is it possible that three academics could all be wrong, two of whom are probably the most renowned in their respective fields?

Yes, I guess it is, but if you could come up with the answer so easily and quickly, it causes me to ask why these other gentlemen could not, and also why I cannot locate the word in Macdonell .

If we go to "ganga" in Old Javanese, we get a direct Sanscrit link to river, which is synonymous with a goddess and with water. Ganga, gangga is one sound and idea, ganja, gonjo is a different sound and idea.

Michael, could you provide a link to the dictionary you quote, please?


Rick, to follow the method of construction that you suggest would be very, very difficult. Don't forget, we are fire welding, not gas welding or electric welding, What you propose would require precise fitting to an unfinished forging, then the taking of a weld where there is a long protrusion---the future pesi---sticking into the air in the middle of the weld area. I would not like to try this. It could possibly be done, but even with modern technology and a high degree of skill, it would not be easy.

These people were working with a fire in a depression in the ground, and weld heat was obtained with what was in effect feather dusters working up and down in hollow logs.The fuel was charcoal. What you can get with this technology is a very small spot in the fire where you can weld.

Incidentally, in Hindu belief, "ganga" refers to the Ganges River specifically, which flows from the toe of Vishnu. There is a whole story attached to this, which does not belong here. When the river is represented by a goddess, she is the eldest daughter of Himavat and Mena, and became the wife of King Santanu. Ganga, or Ganges has a number of other names and titles, but none seem to relate to the object that we are talking about here.

Actually, I would very much like to be able to demonstrate that "ganja", or "gonjo" is equivalent to "ganja", because if we could do this we could construct the fire/water/ earth trilogy into the keris and date that symbolism from pre-Mataram, with would synch very conveniently with the agrarian culture of Mojopahit, Mataram and before. However--- if academic knowledge cannot support the foundation, I'm simply not brave enough to take that leap.

[VVV]

Alan,

I found these two links.
When I did my first search I also found a third link before I quit the search that also referred to river Ganga as a second alternative. I had to filter several cannabis related sites...

http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rom...able=macdonell

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=135...3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q

Michael

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks Michael.

As I said, I have the hardcopy of Macdonell, 1999 edition, New Delhi. In that there is no ganja, and no gonjo (which is probably what we should be looking for). On P81 there is the entry for "ganga" as treasury ( from Persian), and also the tavern/hemp entry, with a different pronunciation.No alternative spelling with a "j" is given.

I think it is important to remember this:- this word ganja is written in Javanese, when roman lettering is used, with a dot over the "a". It is pronounced "gonjo", not "ganja". Ganja is hemp. Gonjo is a part of a keris.

Now, when we go to look for this word in Sanscrit we need to look for a word with the same sound, and the two words given in Macdonell do not have the same sound, or even a similar sound, to "ganja" ( with dotted a) in Javanese.

Really, I feel like I am wading through knee deep mud in this matter. I did not just address this question this morning when Rick put his post up. I started to address it perhaps 20 years ago. I have been over, and over, and over all of the leads I can find. I have written to people who know Sanscrit as I know English. I have written to the author of an Old Javanese dictionary. I have had contact through a third party with a Brahmin priest and scholar.I have been worrying at this question for years.I am still no further advanced than I was when I started.

We must not be misled by the conventions of using Roman lettering, I am absolutely certain of that, but if we do not use those conventions , then we need to learn the original scripts and their pronunciations. That is a big job. So, we are stuck with Roman lettering, but if we are stuck with Roman letters, then we must take infinite care that we use the phonetics indicated by the writers of these dictionaries. We cannot just look at the letters, we must try to the utmost to give those letters the pronunciations that have been indicated. Since I at least, am not a professional linguist, I find this task quite trying.However, although it may be a struggle, I believe that this path is probably the only way forward.

Then there is the possibility that the word we need is not "gonjo" in the first place. Perhaps we need a word that uses "u" .

Or perhaps we need something else entirely. I do not know. What I do know is that there no easy answer to this question. I feel sure that the answer is buried in language, but I have tried for 20 years to access this answer , and I still have no answer, not even enough of an answer to form a half-hearted opinion.

I would very much like to come up with something that can be massaged into a logically supportable answer. So far I have failed.

Getting away from researching words, and looking at the current philosophical interpretations. I know these thoroughly. As a current interpretation I have no problem with them. If this is what people now believe, for those people who believe this, it is true. It is fact. It is real.However, these current interpretations are not supportable historically. Nor logically in any historical sense. What I am looking for is what the gonjo on a dagger meant to somebody who lived in Central Jawa1000 years ago.

I strongly suspect that it meant something to support or protect his hand.

Then there is this question:- although the word "gonjo" appears in Old Javanese, it does not necessarily mean that that was the word used to describe this part of a dagger 1000 years ago. Old Javanese was used up until not long before Mataram . Thats maybe a 400 year gap from when Old Javanese was not used , back to Prambanan. In the 21st century we no longer use words with the same sense as our grandfathers did.Certainly not as Elizabethans did.

When we start to ask questions about the meaning of parts of the keris, we open Pandora's box. Here we are looking at the gonjo, but this is only one of one thousand other questions, and sometimes formulating the question is more difficult than answering it.

Personally, I think that Rick has performed very, very well in raising this question. It truly is a doozy.

[VVV]

Alan,

I just did the Sanskrit google out of curiosity and didn't believe that it was some kind of objective truth. Just input to this discussion of a possible meaning.
Speaking a couple of languages myself I don't think that the pronounciation is the proper way to solve this riddle.
F.i. the Viking word for Sword is used in several languages, but with completely different pronounciation (and spelling) in the different Germanic languages (svärd, sverd, schwert, zwaard, sword etc.).
But it's the same root word and has the same meaning. Then we have the different local dialects within the specific language also to consider.
And in some cases spelling, as well as pronounciation, has changed within the same language over time...

Michael