[Jim McDougall]

FURTHER NOTES:
Re: possible use of the European rapier blade in Indian pata and khanda, the gauntlet sword and 'Hindu basket hilt'.

In Rawson (1969, p.23),
"...Indian swordsmanship seems never to have made use of the point or much use of guarding with the sword. We have it on the authority of the traveler Tavernier that his own European method of point-fence was completely unfamiliar to his Indian hosts. The only evidence for the use of the point in Indian hand arms occurs in the specialized katars equipped with a heavy 'maille perce' tip. Indian sword blades were thus not made primarily to parry wigh. Parrying was the function of the small circular shield in use since the 10th c.
Blades were intended primarily to cut, and only the Maratha swords influenced by European examples, which were given reinforced edges and basket hilts, seem ever to have been conceived as parrying weapons. "

on p.47 re, the Marathas":
"..they seem to be content with the forms of the European blades as they received them, and the actual forms of the mountings have no more than immediately practical invention expended on them".

also, "...there is no indication that the Marathas entertained an aesthetic of the sword, though no doubt they rated good workmanship highly, and must have been skilled swordsmen. Their fondness for the adaptable BROADSWORD indicates they were swordsmen of a character that did not allow any preconceptions of a science of swordsmanship to interfere with expediency".

Throughout the 18th into the 19th c. many kinds of sword besides standard forms were used by the Marathas, noted as a 'motley' crowd, and used pretty much any blades and weapons available.

MY CONCLUSION:
While there was a wide array of European sword blades entering the Maratha sphere, these were primarily arming types of blades, typically double edged, but some were backswords. Although some of these were narrow blades, the term 'rapier' blade was often misleadingly used, as they were 'heavy' rapier blades as used on swords such a pappenheimers, schiavona and other military type arming swords.

These were coming into Indian trade through the Marathas, and most probably many Armenian merchants, and came mostly from Solingen, possibly Genoa and other entrepots. As there were often intrigues interrupting shipments of blades from Germany into England, it is possible that the notion of English blades might have become construed through such routing. However the comment by Admiral Angre surely could not have referred to these German blades s they were high quality.

Therefore I would submit that the narrow rapier type blades used in civilian fencing type swords were not used in swords such as the pata and khanda. They could however have been used in the 'gupti' sword cane/stick.