This quote and these views are probably the most essential and pertinent words that have been posted in this thread, which as I have said, is on a most intriguing, if not vexing, topic.

In these kinds of discussions I think it is key to exchange ideas as well as supportive data in a very courteous and objective manner. It is good to see discourse like this which prompts contemplation and often better understanding of a very complex topic.
Keep it going and avoid taking anything personally......its actually a pretty phun and phascinating discussion!!! :)

David,
I find what you wrote very interesting, and very valid, but at the same time I find that the names, like the ones Robert Elgood has given of the same dagger types are important.
One collector concentrates on weapons from one area, and others on weapons from another area. If we know the names used in the different areas we will also know it is the same weapon they are writing about, even without a picture of the weapon.

To the other participating members.
Some collectors are interested in the way the weapons look/where used, while others are interested in the names and the origin of the names, and to my oppinion everyone should be given free hand to follow his interest, and not from the start be met with mistrust - maybe some of us could learn a bit here and there along the road.
Jens

Again very interesting!
But pata without any surprises first of all meant "wooden rapier". And there are a lot of information about pata-khilana and so )))

Ariel, thank you a lots! Good luck!

May i ask which illustrated dictionary you took this picture from ?
Is this the entire image in the book, or did you cut the lower part of the fencer's body with his 'weapon' for posting. It would be interesting to date this drawing. There could be a connection between this so called Pút-a and the appearing of the pata as an actual weapon; minding that the first examples that are recorded and available, first quarter XVI century, had a turned and carved wooden guard (gauntlet).
It would be pertinent to consider such evolution, as we may see in such earliest examples the presence of European blades, those from navigators of the XV-XVI centuries transiction.
On the other hand, if the drawing in the illustration is posterior, we may then consider that had either device had its own course.
Below two pata examples: one considered by its owner as the oldest and most primitive example known, with its gauntlet in wood, reinforced with iron straps and a later one with a 'basket' guard, in which a leather reinforcement was applied, now disappeared. The first one with an early European blade and the second with a weak one, of local production.
(Collection Rainer Daehnhardt).

.

Dear fernando
These are unrelated things: dictionary of Urdu of 1838, and picture from book about Khonds of 1864. Both references and picture are in the article. I am sorry I can not put it all here. May be some later all of the articles in "Historical Weaponology" will be free.
In sources (not illustrated books about weapons) there are a lot messes about pata. Some times it is a wooden sword, some times a steel one, some times a rapier and some times a staff. I wrote about it and tried to explain but it is still not very clear. Very weak spot. This requires further research.

Well i'm not really sure why this would be particularly important since we all pretty much have the capacity to share images of our weapons from any place in the world in an instant. What we most likely discover in this exercise is that people from one area call that weapon a "sharp pointy piece of metal" in their own dialect while people in another area call it pretty much the same thing in their own dialect.
That said, i was clear that i do find this game of names interesting and their linguistic roots can indeed be fascinating and sometimes even enlightening. However, i am not a linguist and do not pretend be capable of tackling the intricacies of the field enough to be able to distinguish between true root word connections, sound alike only similarities and outright coincidences of arrangements of letters. My ears are always open, however, to those who have a better grasp on this study though i remain skeptical that anyone can make irrefutable connections to most of these word roots we encounter. Even the true experts tend to disagree on their theories. And even if they are absolutely correct, knowing the root words are meaningless if you don't understand the original intent of the culture that used that word when naming that weapon. Usually that can only be met with assumption or speculation. Names and categories seem to have become far too important to many collectors here at the sacrifice of what i personally feel are much more important aspects of the weapons we collect. But as is always the case, to each their own in their direction of study. I just don't believe that naming the thing is the key to understanding it. :)

But naming the thing incorrectly is nothing altogether. Without any hope for finding the keys for understanding at all.

As Jens has pointed out:- different people have different interests, and the whole of these different interests contribute to a holistic understanding of the item in question, be it an edged weapon or be it a teddy bear.

A correct understanding of the name of a weapon can sometimes indicate, or suggest, the origin of the weapon, or its method of use, or its mode of wear. So even though I am most definitely in the camp of those who oppose the "name game" for its own sake, I do support research that will give us a better understanding of the how, where, and why of a name that is applied to a weapon, or anything else for that matter.

In this thread there seems to be some discussion surrounding the words beginning with "P", "PH" and "F".(Fulad/ pulad /phulad)

Mercenary, since we are reading words that have been romanised from other scripts, would it be possible for you to clarify the pronunciation of words using these spellings?

Another point that perhaps we should take note of is the native tongue of the person who has transliterated from the original script into roman script. The romanised spellings of Javanese and Malay words that were transliterated by Dutch scholars are quite different to the transliterations of the same words by English scholars.

The reason I have raised this question of pronunciation is that I know a Balinese gentleman who studied in India for many years, and whose Indian name is spelt "Phal----", the "Ph" is not pronounced as in English, similar to "F", but rather it is pronounced as an aspirated "P".

Names are important. They are part of the object per se as well as the culture it came from. Remember Grimm Brothers? If you know the name of Rumpelstilskin, you have power over him.
Names were given to the weapons by masters and owners, they often have meanings and clues that the form and the function would miss.
David and Alan , both "krisologists" would undoubtedly bristle an the erroneous use of a name for a tiny hook at the base of a kris, and rightfully so! ( they are probably already seething by now, since I wrote kris, and not keris:-)))

Koummya and shibria are just curved knives, a variants of jambia ( or khanjar:-)
But just their names give us full info about the culture they came from and their appearance.

Stone ( of blessed memory) put Parang Nabur from Banjarmasin and Minasbad from Bicol in the same picture: one of his few obvious errors. Would he do it if he knew that they had different names? But they looked so much alike ! :-)

Names are integral parts of everything around us, they are what we use to orient ourselves in this confusing world. Semasiologists maintain that most of our problems stem from our imprecision in defining what exactly each and every word means.

Ignorance of a correct name, or just mis-spelling can land us in St. Paul, MN instead of San Paulo, Brazil :-)

I agree wholeheartedly with you Ariel:- names are important.

In fact, I'll go further than this:- words are important.

Words are used to transfer ideas from one person's mind into the mind of another, if our use of words is imprecise all sorts of errors can occur.

Because of this, I can assure you that I will never bristle at an incorrect use, or knowledge of, keris terminology, in fact, I actively encourage the use of English words when we are using the English language as a medium of communication.

The truly important thing is that we understand one another, not that we all understand every minor usage of language.

But I must admit, I do find the pointless use of misunderstood words to be just slightly annoying, most especially so when a good English word will transfer an idea more effectively.

Perhaps the second paragraph of my post #49 may give some indication of my position in this matter of names.

This thread gets better and better!!!
Not only is it fascinating to see the perspectives on linguistics and terminology concerning references to these weapons. It is amazing to see these old references as shown by Mercenary...I had no idea of this early type of wooden weapon in India in this manner, and that certainly is interesting to see this explanation of the 'pata' term.

Also, thank you Fernando for showing these pata examples, are these from Daehnhardt's book ?
The 'pata' conundrum is yet another of India's edged weapon mysteries which remains elusively intriguing, and these images and these mentions of it very much rekindle the flame.

As has been shown, the importance of broadening our understanding of the various terms and names used for these arms is essential as we look to early narratives and works describing them. Having some sort of cross reference to align these would be ideal, but a daunting undertaking. Still, once through the philosophy of all this, any advance toward compiling this material will be useful in my opinion.

Mercenary, you seem to have a considerable acumen toward the weapons of India as well as the linguistics and etymology of the languages. I hope you will keep us advised of the article you are working on and its progress. I always am delighted to see attention to the weapons of India, and encourage any work toward better understanding the inherent complexities surrounding them.

To my opinion the forum members interest in the subject is admirable, but I do find the criticism of Marcenary's idea a bit overdone.

Mercenary has come up with an idea. So let him work on it, and when it is done, and you still want to criticize it, you can do so – but I find it is a bit early to do so now.

Jens

Thanks, Alan!
I am glad we are on the same page.
And this is the reason why I strongly insist on any interpretation of any foreign name to be done by a native speaker or, at least, by a foreigner fluent in the native language and immersed in local culture.


The thread on "Tilang Kemarau" amusingly illustrates the point :-)

Rather complex indeed Alan, this thing of the written language.
This "Ph" meaning "F" issue is long gone in other written universes.
... If i am allowed to widen this problematic to other languages to which romanized transcriptions are also practiced, should we also take into account that nations, ones more often than other, introduce reforms in their own orthography. In Portugal, like in other countries here around, the Greek digraphs were abandoned and replaced by simple graphemes; these odd names meaning that, for one, the "PH" was replaced by the "F". Thus we have that, we may (and do) have works in our libraries, namely chronicles from the discoveries period, where we either read the same terms with both "Ph" and "F", depending on the date of the publication.


.

Yes Jim, from his collection, as mentioned, and also from his books. I don't recall having seen patas when i had the previlege to visit his collection; which is no surprise, due to the myriad ot items that my eyes had to look at, in so little time.

Yes, things are not yet clear. But that would be another deal.

Yes Fernando, trying to represent the spoken word as the written word is very complex indeed. Look at the "international language" of English. Its a nightmare. There is no way you can read English phonetically, it just doesn't work. I'm truly glad I was born into an English speaking society, because I sincerely doubt that I would ever have been able to learn it as a second language.

But even though I am a native English speaker, I have encountered people from other places, notably parts of the UK, who are also native speakers of English and whom I simply cannot understand.

Then there are the historical conventions.

The whole thing sometimes becomes too confusing altogether.

Alan, you are so correct.

I had the good fortune to have been born and educated in the same English-speaking environment as you. For the last 35 years I have lived in the US, and had to learn a number of different English dialects and idiom. While UK and US English are close in many respects, there are obvious and not so obvious spelling and grammatical differences that must confuse the heck out of people for whom English is a second language. And then there is Ebonics, or African-American English, that has some substantial differences from Standard American English. I remember too growing up in Australia and hearing "Pidgin English", a condescending colonial form that was taught to Australian indigenous people, and those in Papua New Guinea and neighboring islands.

And these are just some of the major dialects. Within the UK there are many dialects also--Hiberno-English, West Country English, Scottish English, etc.

Like you, I would hate to try to master English as a second language. Idiomatic use must be very challenging to the newcomer. It must confuse folks enormously when confronted with phrases such as: to "take two bites at the cherry" [and no, this is not a sexual reference]; to "be down in the dumps;" to "take a "butcher's [hook]" at something; to "cut the ground from under your feet;" to "take the bull by the horns;" something that "does the trick;" someone is "mutton dressed up as lamb;" someone is "no spring chicken;" "to argue the toss;" "to blow the whistle;" and so on...

Ian.

Yes Ian, very true, and then we have Cockney rhyming slang --- your 'butchers hook' is an example --- that was very much in use amongst people of two generations before my own. I can remember my grandfather and couple of his mates having running conversations in this art form, that nobody had a hope of understanding except the participants.

The vocabulary of old swordmakers all over the world was largely metaphoric. All those Sossun Pattas , Kirk Nardubans, Pesh Kabzes, Bichwas, Jamadhar Kataris etc., did not describe particular weapons in their dry engineering terms, but rather as esthetic/religious/poetic entities.

Without thorough immersion into their contemporary atmospheres ( further complicated by linguistic problems), one cannot fully understand the multilayered depth of meaning of the peculiar names given to old elongated and sharpened pieces of steel.

Even the names of such simple daggers as janbiya and shibriya do not signify "just a knife" :-)

The "name game" is not a useless exercise as some of us think: it is a window into the mind of old masters and warriors.

Through a glass, darkly.....

Specially if you have to deal with British english and later struggle to converse in American english, "aggravated" by the diverse levels of education; this starting from a native language that has little or nothing to do with it. Still is fascinating when you learn all those by ear from the beginning, no school involved, just trying to express yourself with what you have at hand. Needless to say that the range of self learning resources is nowadays so much larger with the Internet.

Ah, we also use that one over here :cool:

Ariel, I believe I can accept the blame for first coining the term "name game".

At least, I had never heard it before I myself used it, and I first used it perhaps 40 odd years ago.

The intent encaptioned in the term was not to denigrate the diligent research of those scholars who seek to interpret and understand the terminologies applied to weaponry --- and for that matter, other examples of the material culture of foreign places, but rather to illuminate the total and absolute futility of attempting to identify the "correct" terminology applied to any item in the absence of a good working knowledge of the culture, society, history and language of the place concerned.

Further, any terminology that may be perceived as being a probable "correct" terminology must be fixed in terms of time and place, for the very obvious reason that time distorts perception, and that which is accepted as accurate today has only about a 45% possibility of still being accepted as accurate in 50 years time --- at least this appears to be so in the field of medicine, and by extrapolation can probably be considered to be so to a greater or lesser degree in other fields.

The meanings of words change over time, as does the way in which constant meanings are understood, thus if it can be shown that a particular name is correct for any object, that correctness must at the very least be fixed within a framework of time and place.

For example, if it can be shown that the accepted name for a particular object was "Whatsit", that accepted name must be qualified in terms of time and place by the affixation of historical and geographic parameters. To do less than this is not simply sloppy, it is close to rabid stupidity.

Thus, our Whatsit becomes "an object known as a Whatsit during the 13th century in Shaftsbury, Dorset, England". Of course supporting references and/or evidence are provided.

As an example of the way in which meanings can become lost or can change I would like to use the case of the keris, variant spellings of creese, kris, cris, and a few more that do not readily come to mind. At the present time we have a number of other words that can be used to refer to the keris:- dhuwung, kadgo, curigo, wangkingan, cundrik, pusaka, and that is only in Javanese.

However in this same language of Javanese, prior to about 1600, it is probable that none of those names would have referred to a keris as we know it now. Good candidates for the "correct" name for the Modern Keris, and other keris-like objects , in pre-1600 Jawa were "tewek" and "tuhuk", but we do not really know with any certainty whether this presumption is correct or not.

So, I put it to you:- the "name game", when understood as I intended the phrase to be understood, is something worse than useless, however, diligent research into terminology by dedicated scholars is not the "name game", and must never be thought of as such.

You know if you study ethnic weaponry seriously than you have to join to one of serious disciplines: or history of art or ethnography. If you don't do it then you will be able to publish only beautiful pictures. There is nothing wrong but for what?

Many thanks Ariel again. This is what I consulted before with some serious ethnographers about. They advised me: you should not to make new "right" classification. It will also be bad as other ones. Just show how Indians looked at their weapons, what they felt and how they explained it. It is what I am working on.
The article we discussed here (thank you all, I saw how it was hard for some of you) is an article about military (warriors) practices of North India of 1600-1800. This article was reported (and published) at 5th International Science-practical conference, May 2014 in the Military-Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps (Russia, St.Petersburg). The second part of the article (about kinds and names of weapons) was reported at 6th conference, May, 2015. You know when you are researching in the fields such as of the using weapons it is very important to know what kind of weapons was used (while you have for it only the mix of names and languages).
Some of this information was published in "On the Use of Indian Terms for Identification of Weapon Types" in "Historical Weaponology" #1, 2015.

Alan,
There was no attempt to assign the blame for the " name game". In my defense, I didn't even know that you were the culprit:-)
But you have made my point very well: I qualified the requirements by mentioning " immersion in the contemporary atmosphere", and your example of "keris" names does it beautifully.
.
This is exactly the reason why IMHO the " name game" has to be played as part of the holistic approach to the overall study of weapons: it is a reflection of the societal view of them. We are in complete agreement.

And this is why it needs to be played by people like yourself, at least in the field of Javanese kerises.


Having read a boatload of books about ottoman-to-indian swords , I definitely know more about them than the rest of the University of Michigan faculty, students, their significant others and pets :-))))

However, I am completely unqualified to add anything new to the field beyond what can already be found in Stone, Pant and Elgood.

A rather silly example: I can proudly advance a hypothesis that Indian " kirach" or "kirich" is just a mis-pronounced Turkish " kilij", i.e. just a "sword". However, in the absense of even rudimentary knowledge of any "indian" language and phonetics such a "discovery" would be plainly laughable.

Looks as if we're in agreement Ariel.

Your "kilij" is not an isolated example, SE Asian weaponry is full of such probable mispronunciations or misunderstandings.

Still, one thing continues to bother me, and that is the use of the term "name game" to refer to serious investigation, as well as to uninformed application of names for less than serious reasons by less than serious people.

Personally, I would much prefer the serious researchers to be carried in a separate bucket to that which contains people who want a name at any cost, so that the relevant item can be filed into the "correct" pigeonhole.

Phul-katara
 

Hello,

Mercenary, leaving your "primary school little game" aside...

A variety of Sanskrit dictionaries define kattara as simply dagger:
http://spokensanskrit.de/index.php?s...e&direction=AU.

Kattara is not just the blade. In the 16th-17th Northern Indian context it appears to have been a court dagger worn in the sash with a narrow, piercing blade. This is also clear from the Ain-i-Akbari, which lists katara as a "long and narrow dagger".

I have not yet read your article, but here are additional sources to study.

The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (Memoirs of Jahangir) includes a number of references to the phul-kattara being gifted year after year at the New Year's feast. Sometimes it is noted as just a phul-katara, other times it is specifically qualified as a phul-katara studded with jewels.

The full text is accessible here in a variety of formats: https://archive.org/details/tuzukijahangirio00jahauoft and the text is searchable.

Some passages essentially repeating the same structure, with some variations:

Additional translations of the text are available here:
http://persian.packhum.org/persian/m...0%26work%3D001

Elgood documented what was shown to him in Jaipur as phul katara. They are dagger with narrow piercing blades, with floral hilts. Some examples of these might have been jeweled, and some might have crucible steel blades.

I am well aware of the addition of a variety of plant material to the crucible loads to impart carbon to the iron. That does not mean flower dagger = wootz.

All the best,
Emanuel

))
THE JAHANGIRNAMA
Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India
Translated, edited, and annotated by Wheeler M. Thackston
FREER GALLERY OF ART ® ARTHUR M. SACKLER GALLERY
S}nithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
in association witFi
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York ® Oxford

Try more. Good luck!

Dear colleagues, just smile ))))

But I'm not kidding. Why in Ain-i-Akbari there are nothing information about the dagger "phul-katara", while it was an ordinary item for gift? And a very prestigious gift for the first persons? Although Abu-l Fazl says even about "karmahi" - very rare but real weapon?

First of all, not every weapon known to us by its ( presumed) name was mentioned in that book.
Second, this book listed weapons, not their modes of decoration.
No sense listing a dagger with a flower-like handle, since there must have been examples of the same dagger without it, or with handles of a variety of different styles.

Very sensibly noted.

So it is no separate kind of dagger. This is progress.
What do you think were there any different types of hilt decoration at Jahangir court?

I think that such daggers are very beautiful. Can I see some of them?
And be so kind what are you mean by "floral hilts"?

Floral hilt is a hilt with a flower ( or flowers) as its main decoration.

O! I see! I have realised why at Jahangir court all the daggers were with phul-katara:
(pictures from Robert Hales's book)

More:

No need to exaggerate: I said " main decoration"
The upper panel would suffice.

Ok. So you think there are "phul-kattara" on the pictures with the upper panel?

Hi Mercenary,

We are working from two different translations of Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (Memoirs of Jahangir). Not having access to the original text and not having a linguistic background, I cannot say which one is more correct. The translation I used indicated that phul katara can sometimes be jeweled and sometimes not.

For the Ain-i-Akbari, I used the plate from Egerton. A katara is clearly labelled.

Thank you for the excellent pictures. To clarify I would consider the bottom 3 and rightmost examples in the attached images as phul katara. The top of the hilt is clearly floral, and matches the examples in Elgood closely. Elgood used the words "gourd", "seedpod","leaves","flowers". He also comments that such hilts can be found in ivory and nephrite in some numbers and were obviously fashionable throughout the Rajput courts until later 18th-19th centuries.

There is no need to be confrontational about this topic. It was merely pointed out to you that your proof that "phul-katara" meant "wootz blade" is problematic. You derived that understanding from the similarity between the words phul=flower, with phulad (also transliterated as phulad or fulad or pulad)=steel. Then you tried to argue the relevance of this association with the use of plants in crucible steel production.

Again, Ann Feuerbach and other academics on the topic of crucible steel presented good arguments for the etymology of the word pulad (also known as bulad or bulat in Central Asia) as derived from Sanskrit for "purified iron":
पूत "pu" लोह "auha/loha" = pure/clean/purified iron.

That's all.

Emanuel

Some more of what I think of as jewelled phul katara.