The development of the Indian katar

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

Ibrahiim and estcrh,
Thank you for the pictures of katars, of which many are very interesting.
However, personallly I find that such pictures should not stand alone, but be followed by some text explaning abut the age and from where in India the katars come/origin. This way others can lear from the look at a katar how old it is and from where in India it comes.
If only picture are shown and no text to follow, the reader does not get an idea of the development of the katar.

Sultans of the South. Arts of India's Deccan Courts, 1323-1687. MET, 2011.
This is a book with many interesting articles like one by Robert Elgood: Swords in the Deccan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Another article which I will highly recommend is Richard M. Eaton's A Social and Historical Introduction to the Deccan, 1323-1687. This article tells on eight pages about the different influences made upond Deccan from places like Turky, Persia, Mongols and several others, and it gives a relativly good background for understanding how Deccan art developed under the different influences.

Ian,
The following is a quote from the article mentioned above. Maybe it can help when it comes to the language in which the stones are inscribed.
"As early as 1535 Bijapur switched the language of its revenue and Judical accounts from Persian to Marathi; Golconda would do the same with Telugu". I dont know if it will help, as Gujarat could have switched to a third language, but there seem to have been a change of language at the time.

The katar shown is Nayak, from Tanjore or Madurai. 16th to early 17th century. Length 51 cm. Length of blade 33 cm.

Jens

Salaams Jens, I rather think the same ...however, there is time to develop the thread with lots of detail especially from learned people such as yourself. I do, however, consider a picture to be worth 1000 words occasionally. At the same time the inclusion of Moghul and Rajastani artwork showing Katar is in itself documentary proof of the age of certain styles and should be viewed in that context...That sort of research is hugely time consuming but I believe beneficial to the overall picture.. By nature a thread is fragmentary and built from a host of tiny pieces of information. The jigsaw may never be complete but with the right steering by those who are expert in the field I think a decent team job is often achieved.

Getting the right blend of content into a post is never easy...especially when one is also learning as well as posting. I thought it important to gather before Forum a much larger collection thus I turned to the Met collection to thicken the volume of weapons...so that an informed assessment could be better made. Note that before I unfurled all those different styles we only had about 6 examples on thread.

What I find interesting about this particular weapon is that the earlier type have the huge, often intricate handguard....I wondered if it was in some way a relative to the Pata Swords however at #4 that seems to be rather remote..or unlikely except for the earlier note "The gauntlet-sword or pata was developed from the katar, according to Middle Ages researcher Tobias Capewell".

As the weapon spread throughout the region it became something of a status symbol, much like the Southeast Asian kris or the Japanese katana.

The British involvement in the East Indies Company period and the Raj had a distinct impression on Katar with many blades being from British swords and easier to date.. Late oddeties like the pistol Katar combinations can be dated to early to mid 19th C. The ancient martial style (kalaripayattu) Kerela points to a diverse application and possibly an earlier development.

Other than that I am learning like everyone else but will try my best to include some definition and description as we roll forward.

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.