Hi Jim,
Interesting questions you ask.
When I wrote the article How Old is the Katar? I only had a drawing of it, but decided to write the article all the same. Before the article was published a friend of mine, who lives in India, asked a photographer in Orissa, to find the statue and photograph it. The man said he had used an hour, although he knew which temple he had to look for, and he had found nothing!
Later I have bought a book on temples in Orissa, and there the statue is, and it is very clear that the 'katar' was used as a weapon.
Welch writes that no katars are found on paintings showing katars, before the Mughal time. This does not mean that the katar was not used in Rajasthan, it could have had a low status. However, when Akbar came to power, and wanted the Muslims and the Hindus to get closer, maybe, and only maybe, the katar was given a higher status.
I dont know how it all went, but I intend to dig into it.
Jens
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