Old Indian Sword

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Miguel

Hi Jim,
Thank you for your interesting comments. Even though this sword has been through the mill and seen better days I love it for the images it invokes in my imagination, sorry about that.
I had already done some research on it using Stone, Egerton, Paul and the Internet but still found it difficult to decide. I eventually found in favour of Rajput mainly because I found more images of them having back curved blades than the Marathas although the latter did have two types of sword with a back curved blade, one that was straight for most of its length before curving whose name I cannot remember and a Talwar type called Ahir neither of which are very common. Incidentally the back curved blade was not seen in India before the 15 th to 16th centuries when it was introduced by the Persians (see Paul).
I also lean towards it being 18th century again because the state of the basket hilt resembles the state of the basket hilts shown in some references as being of this time or earlier but as you can see it is all supposition on my part and only more research is needed before I will be satisfied.
Thanks again for your reply.
Regards
Miguel

Miguel,
Thank you so much for the personal response! That is most appreciated.
Not sure why you apologize for having imagination and images.....that is what this is all about!
I am glad you are pursuing research on this.....the references you note are of course the venerable and standard ones most used, and always serve as valuable benchmarks to set the course further.
I am inclined to agree with your very soundly reasoned ideas on this probably being Rajput, which though speculative seems most likely.

I am most curious about your reference to 'back curved' and not sure what sword you refer to which is Maratha straight most of length then curved or the tulwar called asir.....are these references from 'Paul' ?
Do you have access to "Indian Arms & Armour", G.N.Pant, 1980?

Very good notes on the research you have done thus far, and thank you for sharing these in detail. Often it seems the more I think I have learned, the more I realize I don't know thoroughly......so I can well relate to your comments on more research.

Very best regards,
Jim