AN IVORY KERIS HILT

Description:

Indonesia, Bali, early 20th c. or earlier
H. 11,5 cm
Figural keris hilt, ivory carved (generic term for figural handles: togog, deling). The handle depicts a laughing bald priest figure with a prayer cord, with six dots on the forehead. The figure has large earlobes, a typical feature of gods of fortune and saints in China and Japan. Chinese influences are clearly recognisable in the style of the figure. The Buddhist influences in Javanese-Balinese Hinduism are partly significant. The design of the handle as a whole evokes phallic connotations; note the design of the back of the head and the folds of cloth at the nape of the neck. Silver selut with light blue gemstones and tiger eyes. The prayer cord is common to Hindu heroes and deities and goes back to the Indo-Aryan lasso of the cattle breeders who successively immigrated to northern India in the Bronze and early Iron Ages and founded the Vedic tradition. From the Sino-Japanese realm, Daoist saints and deities such as Jurojin and Fukurokuju often have phallic or sexual connotations. A high head conveys a latently phallic message, as in Chinese Daoism the head is regarded as the sexual centre of sensation and the "storehouse of all semen", which is equated with vitality and fertility. They are often pre-Buddhist local agricultural and fertility deities who were re-evaluated as "immortals" (xian) or Buddhist saints (luohan, arhat). They are usually characterised by a cheerful to exalted habitus and corpulence, which is associated with wealth and success by the adorants (even if the monks themselves lived ascetic lives). The gana, the mostly grotesquely depicted devotees of Shiva Bhairava or Shiva Kalashtami (Shiva as destroyer or warlord), are another level of meaning of the pot-bellied priests.
From an old German private collection, assembled since the 1950s - The EU trade certificate for the sale of this lot is available - Minor wear
Lit.: IFICAH (2015): Götter-Schmiede. Balinesische Zeremonialklingen im kulturellen Kontext. Wohlesbostel. - Neka, P.W.S. (2010): Keris Bali Bersejarah. Neka Art Museum, Ubud. - Ramseyer, U. (1977): Bali. Leben in zwei Welten. Zurich.