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Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
More astounding photos Ibrahiim !! Thank you.
It truly is fascinating looking more at the recurved guard 'necks' and their variation in style especially as occurring on tulwars in India as opposed to the paluoar (while of Afghanistan but in actuality N. India).
In most cases it seems the decorative treatment on tulwars is more inclined to floral theme, and these recurved features resemble a bud (probably lotus). There are of course exceptions, but it seems worth noting.
The Afghan paluoar seems to nearly invariably use a dragon or 'monster' in stylized degree on both the downturned quillon terminals and the recurved neck of the guard.
The use of the dragon symbolically is of course not confined to the Ottoman sphere, however it does seem to be significantly important.
This is well described in "The Silver Dragon and the Golden Fish: An Imperial Ottoman Symbol", David Alexander , Gladius XXIII, 2003, pp.211-268.
This suggests the preponderance of the 'dragon' used by Ottomans, and seemingly favored by Afghans in the decoration of these swords accordingly as a symbol of power. In many, if not most cases, these are of course dramatically stylized.
With the military 'Machin Khana' style hilts, it is intriguing to see the general form of these hilts with recurved neck on guard fashioned into simple machine type guards, slotted as in some more decorative tulwar and paluouar hilts. Along with this we see the extremely austere bayonet style hilt, following the 'strictly business' character of western military arms.
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Thank you for the post Jim; The industrial make of the Afghan weapon certainly ruled out any traditional fashion statement although it can be seen as a reflection in the goosehead style of finial as a tiny vestige of what went before..I completely support the bud...probably as you say a lotus bud ~ and it may be related to the name Tulvar or Pulvar as Pul and Tul mean flower... though it is an outside shot. I actually considered the dish pommel as a floral form and had considered that as indicative of the name...
One system I have held back in joining the flux is the Sri Lankan form where dragons abound but they are probably related...and seen below as examples.