Thank you Jim. It was nice of you to write, as no one else seems to be interested any more.
There are a few things, which I should have mentioned, but now I have the opportunity to do so. Seeing weapons in Indian armouries, or weapons marked in the different armouries, is most interesting, but you must be aware of a few things. The weapons could have been made at the armoury, but they don’t have to be, although marked at the armoury the reason for this are the many wars going on in India during the centuries, and with the wars came the looting, so the weapons may have changed hands many times, and come from many different places, before they end up in our collections.
An example could be the Raja’s of Bikaner, as many of them served in the Mughal army as officers and were highly decorated, as the soldiers of Bikaner were regarded some of the best. On Raja especially (sorry I can’t recall his name at the moment) participated in a lot of battles, often as a general, and ended up as governor of Deccan for twenty years. What he ‘collected’ after all his battles, we can’t know; but one thing is sure – what he collected of weapons he sent back to the Bikaner armoury, where it was dot marked. So in many of the Rajasthan armouries you will find weapons, marked or not, for a lot of different places in India.
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