Offering tray (talam)

In medieval Javanese Hindu ritual, large metal offering trays were regularly employed for the preparation of ritual utensils and paraphernalia. The term used in Old Javanese is tahas, and they are referred to in modern Javanese and Indonesian as talam. Both variant terms can be sourced to the Tamil word for the same utensil, tattam. Fragmentary bronze trays of this type, together with other metal temple utensils, have been excavated from a mid-10th century shipwreck in the Java Sea in the past decade, affirming their antiquity. The traditions and ritual practices of Central Java (8th to 10th century) were largely preserved in the following centuries in the Hindu-Buddhist centres of East Java, up to the coming of Islam in the 15th century.

This offering tray has an upright rim and engraved designs limited to a central medallion. The central motif is a conch shell (sankha) emerging from a foliate ground. Framing this central motif are three bands of simple decoration with the serrated central band, likely representing the rays of the sun. The conch shell device was widely invoked in Hindu Javanese settings associated with the worship of Vishnu, with whom a number of Majapahit kingdom rulers (12th–15th centuries) closely associated themselves.