[mariusgmioc]

This is the most beautifully shaped blade I have seen in a Khanjarli. I wonder if it is wootz?! It doesn't seem to be, so I would say it is from around 1900.

Regarding the small human figures, one can distinguish the two pairs of arms characteristic to many Hindu deities.

While the standing postures look like representations of Vishnu as you correctly assumed, others look more like Shiva (see the ones with red arrow) with the first in the "lotus" position and the other one dancing (Nataraja).

Also, with some imagination one figure may look like Lakshmi (the one with yellow arrow).

However, since it appears there are at least three distinct deities, I can speculate that each figure is supposed to represent a different deity. So maybe with a lot of imagination one can identify Ganesha, Parvati, Hanuman, Brahma, Krishna, etc.

But the level of detail is so poor that these are only speculations and probably only the carver can tell us exactly who they represent.