[B.I]

i think the problem is that the study of indian arms is difficult, and cannot be put into the same dating structure as european arms.
you may well be right about the katar, but the problem is we will never really know. i think this is why these posts veer off in a tangent, as there is only so much you can speculate without running out of actual information.
the miniature you show is moghul, and 18thC. the painting shows court wear, and not armour. unfortunately, moghul is not the whole of india, and their style of dress and tactics of war differ from other regions of india of the same period. also the katar was so widely used in india, buy different races, over different centuries and for both full battle and court/social scenes.
we can only look at what survives, in written accounts, actual pieces and iconography. the written accounts (european) rarely ventured past the trading ports, or into the battlefield. when they did (Tavernier, for example) it was normally with the mughals. the 'local' accounts rarely described past terminology. of miniatures, we only really have the moghul and rajput style, both of which were very similar, despite the difference in religion. the deccani sultanates showed their own style of miniature, which, until very recently was ignored. there is very little drawn accounts of india, past the moghul and deccani dynasties. there is a 'culture' of maharatha frescos, but these are way too crude to offer any real information. there is early sculpture, and this is really all we have to try and fill in the gaps, especially in hindu southern india.
the katar existed in its fully developed form in the 16thC, both in moghul miniatures and southern hindu sculpture. none of this shows the point as being armour piercing, but this isnt conclusive as the katar was always a secondary weapon in art and the nature of indian miniatures is to draw flat on, and not in perspective. so we know the katar existed in the 16thC. the early 17thC offers pieces that have survived, and some of the these were thickened at the tip to reinforce the blade. whether the earlier examples were can only be speculative.
the southern examples shown in 16thC sculpture in the tamil nadu region were not thickened but reinforced with thickened ribs along the length of the blade, as actual examples do exist of the same style.
indian armour itself seems to lead many people astray. the post on the other forum just went in circles, as it was dominated by renegade academics and european armour enthusiasts, all of which, by their own admission, had no experience with indian pieces. this means that they can only see with european eyes and so their assumptions hold no merit at all. this mode of thinking says that early armour was plate and riveted mail, which developed into lighter fabric and butted mail. the difference in armour is not stated, and when chainmail is mentioned, the style, type and date is forgotten. this is where they fell flat, in roping all chainmail in one category.
there were heavy mail and plate shirts in the 16thC, by i think these were influenced directly by the ottoman armour of the same style. the influence existed in culture, so why not arms.
i dont think the moghuls ever wore heavy armour, even in the 16thC. if they did, it is not shown in the miniatures which have survived in abundance. the moghul style of armour was heavily padded, with possibly a scale or mail undershirt. the char aina was not really introduced until the 18thC, although the late 16th and into the 17th depictions show rounded plates sewn onto fabric armour, which was probably where they were influenced from.
so, both padded fabric and mail and late existed at the same time. also, full riveted chainmail shorts existed, which could possibly have been worn under the fabric armour, hence the absence of 'metal' torso armour in mughal miniatures.
one thing that has been ignored it the structure of the armour used, and that of the weapons in question (ie the katar).
Islamic armour was well constructed, but the actual metal was not of a great hardened quality. wootz, by its very nature is of much harder quality. if you think that most katars are made of wootz, and virtually all early mail/plate was weaker steel, than the picture becomes slightly different. there are tests being done, but a diagnosis has been done on various styles of ottoman armour which i believe were a direct influence on the slightly later deccani shirts. if you transfer these results to the indian shirts, then the european view goes completely out of the window.
whether the katar was first made to pierce armour is something that can only ever be speculated. it appeared in its fully developed form, and if an earlier transitional form showed itself, then the question can be taken further.
the question of whether it can actually pierce chainmail is pointless. the answer is of course it can. the question itself leads to extremes, and if you take an exceptionally thickened and sturdy katar, made from high quality wootz and tried to pierce an inferior quality mail shirt, made of un-hardened steel then the answer is clear. any other variations can only be speculative, without destructive tests, which themselves will never be conclusive and will always lend themselves to doubt.
Tim, i agree that the katar could have been constructed for ultimate penetrative use, but it is only an opinion, and i am always willing to listen to others. the last decade or so has unearthed information, theories and conclusions that have been overlooked for many years before. so, its by bringing up the same questions over and over again, that we may one day yield something new. the best thing about this forum is that we can do this, without academic bullies and bruised egos.
incidentally, mail production was still being done in the Sudan in the late 19thC. it is recorded that one armourer and 6 assistants took 12 days to make one shirt. the pitt rivers have examples taken from the sudanese wars and they were crude examples of armour.
also, the are 18thC accounts of the cuirass being the only able to repel the thrust of these daggers. by the cuirass, we can assume it was the char aina, which were mostly made of wootz, hence the hardened ability to withstand the daggers.