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Originally Posted by Mercenary
In the 19th, 20th, 21th and even in 31th centuries, we can call these daggers as we please. But it is perfect for sure that in the 16th century the wide dagger with transverse grip was called "jamdhar", and the narrow dagger with ordinary handle - katar. This is documented facts.
Jim, you are absolutely right that the word "katara" was widespread in India. This word was used for all type of weapons that could cut (before the catalog of Lord Egerton became known in India through the work of Dr. Pant). Like all swords were "tulwars".
Very interesting how Kafirs themself called their daggers? I strongly suspect that "chura" or so. Didn't they?
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I surely don't know the text of these volumes either of the Ain I Akbari, the corpus of the the "Akbarnama" of Mughal culture. I only know the plates I have seen with the transverse grip which I believe was called 'moustika', and this term is another puzzling type of gauntlet type weapon seen in Stone and Calvert ("Spanish Arms and Armor". 1907).
It is great to know that the term jamdhar was documented as for the transverse grip in 16th c. and I do know that katar was used for the regular hilt dagger as shown in Burton and Stone et al.
What I was trying to determine was at what point the terms became switched.
While it seems moot, it does make a difference in reading early contemporary accounts where we cannot visually know the weapon they refer to.
The term chura, if I recall correctly and understand, was a colloquial term used in Northwest Frontier regions for small knives of the pesh kabz variety. I do not think the Kalash (Kafirs) people would have that term in their lexicon, but who knows, dialects diffuse through these regions. That would be a good thing to look into further.