The so-called " cobra swords"

ariel · 23rd November 2019, 04:59 PM

I am in complete agreement: descriptive approach is the only one we have at our disposal. A pity we do not know the original name of the S. Indian sword with the " chakra" blade :-((

I am with Jens: the influence went from South to North. Afghanis just adopted it, and very cleverly, to boot. Again, pity we do not have Afghani swords before 16 century; then we could have argued that they introduced it to the South, before the images of cup-like pommels there. Thus, arguing the North-to-South direction is a pure speculation.
I have an Afghani sword with a cup-like pommel but no lid ( likely, it was not there to start with. One can recall somewhat similar pommels from Hamza Nama and later tulwar pommels from NW India.

Jens mentioned to me the issue of Kukri: virtually identical blades were present among very early Southern swords ( see Rawson).
And, as a matter of fact, the earliest image of kukri is in the portrait of Dravya Shah ( 16 century)on the battlefield, and this kukri is still stored in the National Museum in Nepal. I used to have both pics but lost them.
But what the heck! Afghanis made kukris in the 20th century. If it works, use it.

23rd November 2019, 04:59 PM	#16
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	I am in complete agreement: descriptive approach is the only one we have at our disposal. A pity we do not know the original name of the S. Indian sword with the " chakra" blade :-(( I am with Jens: the influence went from South to North. Afghanis just adopted it, and very cleverly, to boot. Again, pity we do not have Afghani swords before 16 century; then we could have argued that they introduced it to the South, before the images of cup-like pommels there. Thus, arguing the North-to-South direction is a pure speculation. I have an Afghani sword with a cup-like pommel but no lid ( likely, it was not there to start with. One can recall somewhat similar pommels from Hamza Nama and later tulwar pommels from NW India. Jens mentioned to me the issue of Kukri: virtually identical blades were present among very early Southern swords ( see Rawson). And, as a matter of fact, the earliest image of kukri is in the portrait of Dravya Shah ( 16 century)on the battlefield, and this kukri is still stored in the National Museum in Nepal. I used to have both pics but lost them. But what the heck! Afghanis made kukris in the 20th century. If it works, use it.