Since we have two versions of the plate from the Ain-i-Akbari here, I thought I would add another from Aziz, Abdul, Arms and jewellery of the Indian Mughuls, Lahore, 1947. Originally posted by Jens.

(1) Shamshir, (2) Khanda, (3-4) Gupti ‘asa and sheath, (5) Jamdhar, (6) Khanjar, (7) Jamkhak (according to Blockmann; name in plate therefore wrong), (8) Bank, (9) Janbwa (name in plate wrong again), (10) Narsingh-moth (so in Blochmann; in plate the name is pesh-qabz), (11) Katara, (12) Kaman (bow), (13) Takhsh-kaman (small bow) and arrow, (14) Tarkash (quiver), (15) Paikan-kash (arrow-drawer).

Of interest here is #11, Katara. It has a jamadhar handle, but the narrow piercing blade is important.

Emanuel,
I will not get mixed up in the discussion, but no 11 as you mention has the 'katar' hilt, a rather narrow blade - but it is curved.
The 'katars' seen in miniatures from Akbar's time look more like the one at the top.
Jens

Discussion here continues to be interesting, though mostly of course simply perspective on a well established conundrum in the study of arms which remains perplexing. The good thing here is bringing together various examples of the semantics and transliteration issues in trying to classify ethnographic weapons, and developing a kind of status quo.

As noted, the term 'name game' is concerning to some as it suggests a less than serious concern for the issue at hand. It is however, in my opinion, simply an idiomatic term used among individuals with regard to discussion of their common interests and not significant as far as an actual practice. The discussion and study are of course not a 'game' but it is a comfortable expression used among those engaged in focus on the topic at hand.

I think that in many cases where identification and classification of weapons where there is any notable variation or exception, there should be qualifying description added. This might include a note pertaining to other matters such as alternate terms or altered description, such as 'British infantry officers straight sabre of 1780, also often termed 'spadroon'.
An Indian katar (properly 'jamadhar') probably 18th century, N. India.
In this case, more a working caption, but not misleading or confusing.

The 'phul phactor' is here seen as a bit more 'colorful' (good one on the 'price list' Mercenary:) I think the humor was missed as often the case). Here a bit more defined description might be necessary.

The idea of a compilation of weapon related terms in a glossary to be used as a cross reference is actually not a bad idea, and actually has been in degree well illustrated on this thread.
In some ways I think of some of the literature and Kiplingesque terms of the British Raj, and the use of Hobson-Jobson catalog of such terms as applied along with proper English and Indian terms.

Yes it seems like a lot of these daggers were more or less curved.

I just realized Jens, that you had posted a lovely plate from the Moser collection catalogue a long time ago.

Ultimately the name of these daggers is indeed a matter of semantics. The fact remains that they are marvellous things, regardless of what we call them :)

Emanuel, in the Aziz book you mentioned the phul-katara, it is mentioned about ten times, here are a few quotes.

Page 9. "Among the articles presented by Nur Jahan to Prince Shah Jahan on Thursday, the 27 Mirh (Xii ruling year), were a waisy-band studded with pearls, a sword with jewelled shoulder belt (paradala) and a phul-katara."
Here the phul-katara stands alone, unlike in the other places where it is mentioned.

Page 97. "WhenShah Shuja was sent on the Deccan expedition (22 Safar, 1043) he received a spaccil robe of honour with gold-worked Nadiri, a jewelled khapwa with phul-katara, a jewelled sword....."

Page 143. "The Emperor bestoved on the bridegroom [Sultan Sulaiman Shukoh, te eldest sone of Dara Shukoh] a robe of honour........a jewelled jamdhar with phul-katara........."
The plate you show in your last mail is from the Moser catalogue 1912.
Lets say that phul-katara was the flowers like on the dagger in the midle. How can it then be explained that flowers like that can be placed on a jamdahar/katar? The only place I can think of, is chiselled on the blade, gilded and with gems inlaid. But we dont know if it was so.

In the plate you showed from Arms and Jewellery there are three 'katars'.
No 5. Jamdahar. Looking like most of the katars we know to day.
no 10. Narsingh-moth. Blade narrow and curved.
no 11. Katara. Side guards bend outwards, blade as broad as the ´hilt and curved.
Here is a quote from page 53-54. "The katar or Katara is a beautiful weapon with handle similar to thar of the jamdhar, but the blade is much narrower and longer, and is curved.
Irvin quotes the following from the translator of the Siyar: 'A poignard peculiar to India made with a hilt, whose two branches extend along the arm, so as to shelter the hand and part of the arm............ The total length is 2 or 2½ feet, one half of it being the blade." It is also mentioned in the text, no quoted, that the blade is very thick with two cutting edges, having a breadth of three inches at the hilt and a solid point of about one inch in breadth.
The description above sounds more like a jamdhar, than a description of the two others.
Maybe someone saw a katara, heard the name and forun that all daggers with such a hilt must have been named the same - or found it easier to do so.
Jens

Hi Jens,

Simple answer is that I have no idea. A floral hilt on what we think of jamadhar with arm bars makes no sense.

Like you say, we dont know if it was so. We have multiple terms in English translations apparently used interchangeably (katar, katara, khanjar, jamadhar, khapwa). We still don't know if the term referred to specific handle type, blade type, curvature, thickness, or entire ensemble. The use of these terms seems to have changed over time place.

Maybe katara referred just to a narrow blade, slightly curved. Maybe not. Like most things, there were probably qualifiers to denote more specific uses (ex. slashing knife, stabbing knife, dagger, punch-dagger, etc...).

Based on the sources at my disposal, my thinking was that the term phul-katara matched a dagger that has a narrow, piercing, slightly curved blade, and some form of major floral hilt. Could be jewelled or not. Ivory, or other material like jade/nephratite.

Unless we go to the original texts and associate them with period illustrations, we know nothing :shrug:

Then again we have the Ain-i-Akbari in Urdu, and the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri in Persian covering matters in the Mughal context.

What do we have from the Rajputs?

Emanuel

Emanuel,
We dont have very much hiis early, and the drawings like the ones from Ani-Akbar would at best leave something to guessing.
There is of course the description of the katar - katara/jamdhar/narsingh-moth.
My guess is, that the Europeians choose one name for daggers with this kind of hilt - but this is purely guessing.

The katars shown in the Akbar miniatures are clearly jamdahars, and I try to research this, as there is something funny/strange, but I am not prepared to discuss anything about it yet.

A pity I did not contact you when I was in Toronto some years ago :-).

Jens

There are indeed some interesting things in those Akbar miniatures. I'm looking through the copies I found online and there is lots to extract and dissect.

A pity indeed. Next time you come by our shores, please do drop a line :)

Emanuel

Having hijacked Mercenary's thread enough (my apologies :) ), I moved discussion of Akbar's weapons specifically, here: http://vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=20629

Emanuel

I am sorry to say that it will not happend again - a trip to Canada. I found it fantastic - but I hated the time of flying to Canada and over Canada to the west coast - thirteen hours of flying and about two hours of waiting.
So much more I regret not to have contacted you.
Jens

Ah, the Niagara falls, the Royal Ontario Museum, the CN tower ... all fascinating :cool:.

Jens, I am located in Ann Arbor, a delightful college town 1 hour drive from Windsor, Ontario.
You are alway welcome.
On top of that, I can give you a long tour of all our local microbreweries:-)

Ariel, I see you have some time. Be so kind answere my post #72 .

You may find examples in:

India: Art and Culture, 1300-1900.
by Stuart Cary Welch

It is available on Amazon, I just checked.

It includes the famous one with the head of his son, Shah Jahan.

You should to learn other styles of Mughal daggers decoration. There was very beautiful Animal style and others.
After that you will be able to understand that Mughals could not to present each other only "floral style" which you think was phul-katara ))

They did have a lot of figural styles :)
Those with flowers and large plant motifs would be termed "floral", and those with animals would be "zoomorphic" I think. Also a lot defying any such simple classification.

I spoke with native Hindi and Farsi speakers. It seems that Mercenary's theory in defining wootz as something like " floral ( or flowery) steel" is indeed mistaken.

In Hindi flower is Ful, steel is Loha. In Farsi flower is Gol, and steel is Fulad.

Thus, Fulad and Ful define two totally different things, and the only thing that "unites" them is partial homophony.

It is indeed a confusing area, especially when two languages are compared or intermixed. Even in the same language there are confusing pairs: complement and compliment, for example. Or, even worse, horse and whores:-)
People may make such mistakes very easily, especially when the language in question is not their native.

So, Mercenary, no cigar, but nice try:-)

Just to add some notes amidst the phulishness :) theme, it seems Pant ("Indian Arms and Armour", 1980), notes (p.188-89) that "...the word phul (flower) is obscure. Perhaps it means the knot or crochet of jewels called by Chardin ' une enseigne ronde de pierceries' and which the Persians called 'rose de Poignard'.

It seems that many of the examples shown and described are heavily jeweled, so that might lend to the idea of that kind of decoration, however with many examples of 'phul katara' it seems they are sans jewels but highly decorated florally in theme.

In a number of references from the Turk I Jahangir an account noted an offering to an ambassador to Bijapur in 1613 as a jeweled dagger, and then a phul katara along with other items. Another instance in the same account notes a 'jeweled phul katara' among items.

These suggest some disparity in the idea of 'jewelled' being the case for the term 'phul' as applied on these daggers, and perhaps stronger for the floral theme.

Interesting though is that the article " The Use of Flora and Fauna Imagery in Mughal Decorative Arts" by Stephen Markel (Marg magazine , Vo.50 #3, pp.25-35) throughout the remarkably thorough descriptions and images concerning material culture and arms does not mention the term 'phul' anywhere. Possibly as it was a broader coverage of the decorative theme than just arms.
Possibly then the phul-katara designator was more arms oriented?

As far as the term phul being rooted (no pun intended) in the concept of pulad (=watered steel) as a flowered pattern seems to me tenuous at best, and particularly in the idea that phul katara must have all had wootz blades.
I think this has been well resolved however already but wanted to add these notes.

It seems clear that the debates and discourse pertaining to these kinds of disparity in terminology and classifications especially with ethnographic arms often becomes heated out of pure frustration . Altogether too many times it is misconstrued that debate or difference in opinion has to be contentious or dynamic. For me I learn more from solidly supported and presented ideas and positions. Aside from the occasional barbs, this has been a pretty good discussion.

Many thanks Jim.

But whole quotation is "the katara was a long, narrow dagger. But the word phul (flower) is obscure...". So "phul" is inextricably linked with blade. That is why:
What kind of daggers were used by Jahangir's court and what daggers were bestowed? I was able to find only two gifts. And there were nothing such as flower, roses or so. Let's see:

...

I do not think that it is could be "phul-katara" as "flower+blade". Just "jeweled dagger with some (?) blade". Not "jeweled dagger with jeweled flawored hilt with blade" ))

There are likely many names/things which are known, but which are rather diffuce to collectors.
Take kundan, many know what kundan is, but it seems as if few knows how it was made - as there are several theories.
The same goes for Phul-katara, many seem to have an idea of what it could be, but very few know what it is - when I say very few - I do mean very few - if any at all
Could be that when old Sanskrit manuscripts are translated, it will bring us closer to what it meant at the time.
Few collectors take an interest in the manuscripts translated, but there are 'tons' of them, not translated and there are 'tons' of them translated, but not yet known.
This is a lifetime study - and you will never finish.

Presented are several pictures of high-class daggers worn by Mughal gentlemen. However, we have no idea which of them, if any, were gifts from the Emperor.


One of the elementary rules of logic is: Absence of the evidence is not the same as the evidence of absence.



Regretfully, I agree with Jens ("This is a lifetime study - and you will never finish."} and with Jim ("phulishness"}

While it could be nice to know the truth, none of us here know Sanskrit or even Hindi and have wherewithals to crack this trivial and unanswerable question.

Not everything I wrote was the wild delirium, isn't it?
With "phul katara", too, need to wait a bit...

Please Mercenary and others - when you show a quote - let us know from where it is. The title, The author, the publisher, the date of publishing and the page from where it is taken. Thank you very much.

I am sorry. I thought that all have already read this wonderful article, the link to which estcrh kindly gave in the thread "European blades in India" :shrug:
https://books.google.com/books?id=i...epage&q&f=false
Robert Elgood
Swords in the Deccan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Their Manufacture and the Influence of European Imports
in
Navina Najat Haidar, Marika Sardar
Sultans of the South: Arts of India's Deccan Courts, 1323-1687
pp. 218-233
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011
p.224

This might mean little to this discussion, but i believe that "Loha" is Hindi for iron, not steel. Steel in Hindi seems to be a variation on the English word and seems to be pronounced "Stila".
:shrug:

"Loha" verified with several native speakers, both from the North and the South. "Stila" sounds like "indianized" English.


In any case, it is the homophony of "Ful" in Hindi and Farsi that is the point.


But the relation of Sukhela (var. Sakhela) to the current discussion is puzzling. The kind of steel used for its production is only one possiblilty, but Sukhela or Dhup as a specific name for a straight-bladed sword was recorded by Tarassuk & Blair in their Encyclopedia and by E. Jaiwant Paul in his book on Indian weapons. This "controversy" is nothing new.

That was even discussed here in passing years ago..
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=10071

As far as I can see, the discussion is not running as it should.
Whatever blade you show, or whatever steel type you mention will be called something else in other parts of India.
If you really want to discuss this, you should specify which part of India you want to discuss.

Something else. Did you know that there is a place called Qandahar in Deccan? Or did you know that there is a Hyderabad in Sind?

We cant know it all. - can we?

"I'll be back" (c)
Soon )

Homophony can play funny games with people who do not know pertinent languages.
The same Ful in Arabic is a Fava bean. Is Ful Katara an Omani knife to be used for eating Ful Medames? Or does the latter mean Full Madams with Arabic accent? :-)))

I have pondered on Jens' last remark. He is correct 100%.


India is a huge country with very long history, essentially multiethnic population, multiple foreign influences and internal conflicts.

Weapons ( or their components) of very well-defined patterns originated in one corner, then traveled to another, acquired something else in the transition, and were modified over decades and centuries. In the process their names were altered and sometmes downright changed.

The complexity of such an evolution may be enormous for some examples.

In many cases we can discern traces of their former identity, but in some those are masked by time, distance and external changes.

It is important to have a basic agreement on what is what, but we must have a lot of humility to accept the imprecision of our knowledge and understanding as well as the necessity to know "when and where?" Vehement arguments on what constitutes a true Khanda and how it is cardinally different from something we just as vehemently call Dhup ( just an example) are missing the point. This is especially true if such pronouncements are made by people who do not know different languages used in India, cannot study primary sources and never spent time working with local historians/ethnographers.

I have witnessed heated arguments about a "true" name: katar or jamadhar?

As Pushkin used to say about Russian revolts: " senseless and merciless".

Glad you agree Ariel :-)

Tod, vol. II page 158. “The Bikaneris work well in iron, and have shops in the capital and in all the larger towns for the manufacture of sword blades, matchlocks, daggers, iron lances, etc. The sword-handles, which are often inlaid with variegated steel, or burnished, are in high request, and exported to various parts of India.”

Having read this one start to wonder, if the hilts were made in the fashion of Bikaner hilts (whatever that was), or if they adjusted the hilt form in the fashion to the place where they were supposed to be sold?
From what Tod writes they must have had quite a big production, but we must not forget, that Bikaner was pased by a lot of caravans going in all directions.
From Robert Elgood and others, we know that weapons were made at a lot of places, and likely exported, like the ones from Bikaner, to other parts of India.

Hi, Ariel!

I bow to your vast knowledge. But I have two questions after your busy and interesting monologue. When the last time you were in India? And how many primary sources you studied?

Best Regards

Tod got his materials on Bikaner at the end of 18 - beginning of 19 century. However, ~150 years earlier the entire armoury of Adoni was transferred to Bikaner.
God only knows how the Adoni examples influenced the Rajastani ones. But likely the Bikaner hilts ( whether reflecting pure Rajastani tradition, evolving from the southern one, or any other combination of ethnic inventiveness) that were "... exported to various parts of India" pollinated so many other places, that it might be impossible at the end to separate flies from hamburgers ( a delightful Russian saying). I bet that some of those patterns eventually got new and specific names based on distant localities. Everybody likes to be a source of something unique and patriotic. Perhaps that is why we have so many different hilt patterns:-)
I remember Jonathan Barrett's talk in Timonium in which he ruefully admitted that , perhaps, only Udaipuri hilts have a chance to be firmly attributed.

I think something important to keep in mind along these lines is that derivation is not necessarily tied to definition. As definitions are descriptive and not prescriptive; Whatever the common lexical understanding of a word is at any given time and place, is essentially that words definition for a given time and place.

So even though Gladius is just what a roman may have said to refer to a sword generically. Today the words association with a distinctly roman sword in common lexical understanding sort of overrides the need to delineate with words like mainz or pompie. At least in casual conversation wherein 'I know, that you know, what I mean'. And these modernized gross-generalizations and misnomers are actually helpful for expedient communication.

Even so delving a little deeper is always good to do for those interested in order to better inform deeper discussion. Just saying...'Even if it was so doesn't mean it is so' as definitions can and do change over time (given that they are just descriptions of the common and current usage of a word).

It is very nice that my many year's efforts on the Russian forum were not in vain.

One more "style". Bundi shahi )))

Mercenary,
How do you know that this is a Bundi hilt, and how old would you say it is?
From which museum is the picture?
Jens

It was joke. I many times wrote on another forum that to define of the hilt style as the place of production is mostly mind game. But I was alone. Likewise I many years have been talking that in the case of Indian weapons of the 19th century we are dealing mainly with Indian souvenirs of the 19th century. I am glad that such things are now beginning to understand.