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Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
In Tantric Buddhism in Tibet, there is an extremely unusual (in western perception) funeral practice known as 'jhotar' (=sky burial) in which bodies are ceremonially placed in a specific location where they are consumed by mostly predator or scavenger birds. While details of this ritual are a bit too gruesome to elaborate on, it seems quite possible this item is for defleshing.
There is a ritual flaying knife in Tibetan ceremony which is used symbolically to 'cut through demons' or to sever worldly bonds, but like the phurbu, this is a symbolic use only implement. These knives are termed 'kartika' and usually have the vajra type pommel, but the blade is typically a lunette or crescent shape. These are usually quite ornate, like the phurbu.
While the sky burial is typically not observed by outsiders, there are some who claim the defleshing, which is done by individuals who are called 'rogypapas', uses these kartika type knives. This is disputed as this job is done by men, and the kartikas is regarded as a female weapon.
While obviously only speculation, I would submit this is possibly an implement used in this funerary task, and the decoration at the blade edge perhaps symbolically keyed. This does seem utilitarian, but with the necessary degree of appropriate symbolic gesture toward the use in this practice which is of course still reverently intended.
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The second image down is Jim's kart[r]ika (Tibetan gri-gug) the vajra is not shown (Tibetan Dorje). Vajra means "diamond" in Buddhist Sanskrit, but is usually mistranslated as "lightning bolt".
http://tibetanaltar.blogspot.com/200...rt-3-of-5.html. The traditional flaying knife (triguk) looked like this
http://www.metmuseum.org/collections...60006398?img=1, the example ends in a dorje "pommel". This sort of flaying knife was used in traditional butchery too. I looked for photos of sky burials online and found several- the knives as not show in enough detail to be sure what they look like, but they seem long and more or less straight single edged knives. The object we're trying to find out about is obviously not one of them. Tibetans like to highly decorate everything and this cultural trait is the norm as far as ritual items go. This "knife" is hardly decorated at all and seems of fairly crude workmanship. I think we need to find actual native Tibetans to tell us what it is.