Jens, you should know better than me ...
Does the Indian man go the smith's workshop and chooses a ready made katar that fits his (or his son's) hands, or orders the smith to forge them according to their size ?
... or more probably the common man fits the first case and the wealthy noble the second one ?

Fernando, I think it worked both ways.
The katars in the armouries were of a general size, but the ones with some money would have had it made to fit the hand.
Now, I also think that the Indian smiths at the time were quite clever, they would have made the pre made katars at the size of the average hand - and if he did not, another smith would.
Bernier writes that it is quite common for people with some money, to burry some, should they be reborn into a poor family, so they still have some money, to buy a nice kaktar or so, (the last part is added by me). What he does not write is, how a man reborn into a poor family would find the money.

No wealthy reborn ... no new katar ;) :D .

Well I guess that you could always get one of the 'common' katars from the armoury - but not a fancy one.
To get a fancy one, you would have to remember where you had hidden the treasure.

It seems to me that it is not only the case of weapons made to fit, but the case of heirloom or gifted weapons that might not correspond well to unusual sizes of hands. True, an armorer probably did make an average run of weapons available for a cross section of persons acquiring arms, but even these were likely to be people of some means.

The large part of rank and file probably used everything from implements to arms collected after battles, and despite the Hollywood notion of standard issued weapons to all.....it was more likely a hodgepodge.

It seems that armorers were a competitive group in their respective locales, and they maintained clientele and patrons whom they consistently strove to impress. I would be inclined to think that specialized size arms would be most likely for wealthy or well stationed persons, while others accepted those 'on the shelf' or acquired them through other means.

At this point i would open an appendix to ponder on the frontier that separates handles being too small to fit their potential owners and those so tight that leave no gap; what the local smiths call josh, a term with no strict (english) rendition, which may be translated as a mix of aggression, fervor and recklessness. Despite this sounding bizarre at first, when the hilt is tightly gripped, and the weapon is held up, one may apprehend what the swordsmiths mean.
I admit this is (certainly) not applicable to katars but only to 'regular' swords, but i thought is an interesting detail to write about.
( Courtesy E. Jaiwant Paul ).
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There is an expression kicked around here which has been around a long time.....'I was just joshing'....(=kidding or fooling around). Hmmmm?

:confused: :confused: :confused:

Robert Elgood in Rajput Arms & Armour, Vol. II shows some childrens katars, and he gives the measurers of the cross bars as follows. 4.3 cm, 4.2 cm, 5.0 cm and 3.8 cm.

I used to own a katar just like this. The seller told me, these smaller katars were used by Rajasthani women.