How old is the kora, as a type?
Most collectors have been asked the question: “How old is this weapon as a type”?
I most cases it is impossible to answer the question, to the surprise of the one who asked the question, but the different weapon types developed slowly, and many of the first types are long gone. I therefore think the information below may be a surprise to many.
In ‘A Catalogue of Arms and Armour in the State Museum, Hyderabad, A.P., 1975’, I found the following text.
In the eastern parts of the Deccan, some new weapons seem to have been introduced to suit to the regional needs of the people. The ‘Kora’, which could produce deadly blows with its forward-curved and broad-tipped blade, appears, for the first time, in one of the sculptural panels carved in the second gate of the Mukhalintesvara temple at Mukhlingam, the capital seat of the Eastern Ganga monarchs.
The temple is datable to the second half of the eighth century A.D. It may, therefore, be presumed that ‘Kora’, the favourite weapon of the Gurkhas, had come in vogue by the middle of the eighth century A.D.
The age, of this sword type, will no doubt surprise many, like it did me, but also the place surprised me. Not north India and not Nepal, but Deccan.
The kora could have been used all over Indian in the early times, vanishing, and in the end only being used in north India and Nepal – but was it so, or did it travel north during war times, and ended up being adopted in the north but vanishing in Decca?
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