Obviously the blades of those patas Marcus linked to youtube are meant for show business; you would not call them flexible but undulating … or floppy … or whips, a great challenge for cutting apples and lemons, good for tribal rituals but unreal for battle. Certainly the sense of flexible as opposing to stiff was something that period warriors were certainly used to deal with. When we hear that the use of patas required intense training, we may assume that one of the purposes was to prevent users from muscular stress. In paging Elgood’s HINDU ARMS AND RITUAL we see a pata in page 97, quoted as (quote) arguably the earliest example known, in which the (Indian) blade has a pronounced central rib reaching to the point and obviously intended to stiffen the blade.
Certainly patas were not invented to deliberately use import blades but these surely played a substantial role. Obviously Rainer Daehnhardt opinion is worth what is worth (as i cared to mention) but evidence is strong enough to assume that European blades having been largely mounted in patas is not only an association of ideas built from such blades abounding in katars, pulwars and talwars.
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