Bob,
Agree with you completely. The only similarity between the two is, as you have mentioned, the distance between the bars of the Katar and the upper and lower “ quillons” of the Jamdhar Katari. The explanation is simple: both of them demarcate the grip, the size of which is determined by the width of human fist. Any dagger will have approximately same size grip: chillanum, ch’hura, khanjarli etc.
It is the position of the grip that determines the function, and the transverse positioning of it in case of katars is unique: it is a perfect stabber but an extremely poor slasher.
No matter how Jamdhar Katari and Katar might be similar phonetically or linguistically, they are two different weapons with two different engineering solutions. Linguistics is the only thing that unites them
Once again, I would like to remind Elgood’s definition: “ Jamdhar= Katar”. But that is all that unites them.
What is interesting, IMHO, that blades of South Indian katars were flat to the point that many used a fragment of European rapiers. But the North Indian ones had inherently reinforced points in a manner of Zirah Bouks. Does it suggest that North Indians constructed them with a view to more heavily armored opponents?
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