On the Use of Indian Terms for Identification of Weapon Types

[Ian]

Alan, you are so correct.

I had the good fortune to have been born and educated in the same English-speaking environment as you. For the last 35 years I have lived in the US, and had to learn a number of different English dialects and idiom. While UK and US English are close in many respects, there are obvious and not so obvious spelling and grammatical differences that must confuse the heck out of people for whom English is a second language. And then there is Ebonics, or African-American English, that has some substantial differences from Standard American English. I remember too growing up in Australia and hearing "Pidgin English", a condescending colonial form that was taught to Australian indigenous people, and those in Papua New Guinea and neighboring islands.

And these are just some of the major dialects. Within the UK there are many dialects also--Hiberno-English, West Country English, Scottish English, etc.

Like you, I would hate to try to master English as a second language. Idiomatic use must be very challenging to the newcomer. It must confuse folks enormously when confronted with phrases such as: to "take two bites at the cherry" [and no, this is not a sexual reference]; to "be down in the dumps;" to "take a "butcher's [hook]" at something; to "cut the ground from under your feet;" to "take the bull by the horns;" something that "does the trick;" someone is "mutton dressed up as lamb;" someone is "no spring chicken;" "to argue the toss;" "to blow the whistle;" and so on...

Ian.

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Yes Fernando, trying to represent the spoken word as the written word is very complex indeed. Look at the "international language" of English. Its a nightmare. There is no way you can read English phonetically, it just doesn't work. I'm truly glad I was born into an English speaking society, because I sincerely doubt that I would ever have been able to learn it as a second language.

But even though I am a native English speaker, I have encountered people from other places, notably parts of the UK, who are also native speakers of English and whom I simply cannot understand.

Then there are the historical conventions.

The whole thing sometimes becomes too confusing altogether.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Ian, very true, and then we have Cockney rhyming slang --- your 'butchers hook' is an example --- that was very much in use amongst people of two generations before my own. I can remember my grandfather and couple of his mates having running conversations in this art form, that nobody had a hope of understanding except the participants.

[ariel]

The vocabulary of old swordmakers all over the world was largely metaphoric. All those Sossun Pattas , Kirk Nardubans, Pesh Kabzes, Bichwas, Jamadhar Kataris etc., did not describe particular weapons in their dry engineering terms, but rather as esthetic/religious/poetic entities.

Without thorough immersion into their contemporary atmospheres ( further complicated by linguistic problems), one cannot fully understand the multilayered depth of meaning of the peculiar names given to old elongated and sharpened pieces of steel.

Even the names of such simple daggers as janbiya and shibriya do not signify "just a knife" :-)

The "name game" is not a useless exercise as some of us think: it is a window into the mind of old masters and warriors.

Through a glass, darkly.....

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Ian

... I would hate to try to master English as a second language...

Specially if you have to deal with British english and later struggle to converse in American english, "aggravated" by the diverse levels of education; this starting from a native language that has little or nothing to do with it. Still is fascinating when you learn all those by ear from the beginning, no school involved, just trying to express yourself with what you have at hand. Needless to say that the range of self learning resources is nowadays so much larger with the Internet.

Originally Posted by Ian

...Idiomatic use must be very challenging to the newcomer. It must confuse folks enormously when confronted with phrases such as: "take the bull by the horns" ...

Ah, we also use that one over here

[A. G. Maisey]

Ariel, I believe I can accept the blame for first coining the term "name game".

At least, I had never heard it before I myself used it, and I first used it perhaps 40 odd years ago.

The intent encaptioned in the term was not to denigrate the diligent research of those scholars who seek to interpret and understand the terminologies applied to weaponry --- and for that matter, other examples of the material culture of foreign places, but rather to illuminate the total and absolute futility of attempting to identify the "correct" terminology applied to any item in the absence of a good working knowledge of the culture, society, history and language of the place concerned.

Further, any terminology that may be perceived as being a probable "correct" terminology must be fixed in terms of time and place, for the very obvious reason that time distorts perception, and that which is accepted as accurate today has only about a 45% possibility of still being accepted as accurate in 50 years time --- at least this appears to be so in the field of medicine, and by extrapolation can probably be considered to be so to a greater or lesser degree in other fields.

The meanings of words change over time, as does the way in which constant meanings are understood, thus if it can be shown that a particular name is correct for any object, that correctness must at the very least be fixed within a framework of time and place.

For example, if it can be shown that the accepted name for a particular object was "Whatsit", that accepted name must be qualified in terms of time and place by the affixation of historical and geographic parameters. To do less than this is not simply sloppy, it is close to rabid stupidity.

Thus, our Whatsit becomes "an object known as a Whatsit during the 13th century in Shaftsbury, Dorset, England". Of course supporting references and/or evidence are provided.

As an example of the way in which meanings can become lost or can change I would like to use the case of the keris, variant spellings of creese, kris, cris, and a few more that do not readily come to mind. At the present time we have a number of other words that can be used to refer to the keris:- dhuwung, kadgo, curigo, wangkingan, cundrik, pusaka, and that is only in Javanese.

However in this same language of Javanese, prior to about 1600, it is probable that none of those names would have referred to a keris as we know it now. Good candidates for the "correct" name for the Modern Keris, and other keris-like objects , in pre-1600 Jawa were "tewek" and "tuhuk", but we do not really know with any certainty whether this presumption is correct or not.

So, I put it to you:- the "name game", when understood as I intended the phrase to be understood, is something worse than useless, however, diligent research into terminology by dedicated scholars is not the "name game", and must never be thought of as such.

[Mercenary]

You know if you study ethnic weaponry seriously than you have to join to one of serious disciplines: or history of art or ethnography. If you don't do it then you will be able to publish only beautiful pictures. There is nothing wrong but for what?

Without thorough immersion into their contemporary atmospheres ( further complicated by linguistic problems), one cannot fully understand the multilayered depth of meaning of the peculiar names given to old elongated and sharpened pieces of steel.

Many thanks Ariel again. This is what I consulted before with some serious ethnographers about. They advised me: you should not to make new "right" classification. It will also be bad as other ones. Just show how Indians looked at their weapons, what they felt and how they explained it. It is what I am working on.
The article we discussed here (thank you all, I saw how it was hard for some of you) is an article about military (warriors) practices of North India of 1600-1800. This article was reported (and published) at 5th International Science-practical conference, May 2014 in the Military-Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps (Russia, St.Petersburg). The second part of the article (about kinds and names of weapons) was reported at 6th conference, May, 2015. You know when you are researching in the fields such as of the using weapons it is very important to know what kind of weapons was used (while you have for it only the mix of names and languages).
Some of this information was published in "On the Use of Indian Terms for Identification of Weapon Types" in "Historical Weaponology" #1, 2015.

[ariel]

Alan,
There was no attempt to assign the blame for the " name game". In my defense, I didn't even know that you were the culprit:-)
But you have made my point very well: I qualified the requirements by mentioning " immersion in the contemporary atmosphere", and your example of "keris" names does it beautifully.
.
This is exactly the reason why IMHO the " name game" has to be played as part of the holistic approach to the overall study of weapons: it is a reflection of the societal view of them. We are in complete agreement.

And this is why it needs to be played by people like yourself, at least in the field of Javanese kerises.


Having read a boatload of books about ottoman-to-indian swords , I definitely know more about them than the rest of the University of Michigan faculty, students, their significant others and pets :-))))

However, I am completely unqualified to add anything new to the field beyond what can already be found in Stone, Pant and Elgood.

A rather silly example: I can proudly advance a hypothesis that Indian " kirach" or "kirich" is just a mis-pronounced Turkish " kilij", i.e. just a "sword". However, in the absense of even rudimentary knowledge of any "indian" language and phonetics such a "discovery" would be plainly laughable.

[A. G. Maisey]

Looks as if we're in agreement Ariel.

Your "kilij" is not an isolated example, SE Asian weaponry is full of such probable mispronunciations or misunderstandings.

Still, one thing continues to bother me, and that is the use of the term "name game" to refer to serious investigation, as well as to uninformed application of names for less than serious reasons by less than serious people.

Personally, I would much prefer the serious researchers to be carried in a separate bucket to that which contains people who want a name at any cost, so that the relevant item can be filed into the "correct" pigeonhole.

[Emanuel]

Hello,

Mercenary, leaving your "primary school little game" aside...

A variety of Sanskrit dictionaries define kattara as simply dagger:
http://spokensanskrit.de/index.php?s...e&direction=AU.

Kattara is not just the blade. In the 16th-17th Northern Indian context it appears to have been a court dagger worn in the sash with a narrow, piercing blade. This is also clear from the Ain-i-Akbari, which lists katara as a "long and narrow dagger".

I have not yet read your article, but here are additional sources to study.

The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (Memoirs of Jahangir) includes a number of references to the phul-kattara being gifted year after year at the New Year's feast. Sometimes it is noted as just a phul-katara, other times it is specifically qualified as a phul-katara studded with jewels.

The full text is accessible here in a variety of formats: https://archive.org/details/tuzukijahangirio00jahauoft and the text is searchable.

Some passages essentially repeating the same structure, with some variations:

This idea was a very good one, and on this account, on the 6th of Day, at the hour fixed upon, I despatched him in happiness and triumph. I presented him with a qaba (outer coat) of gold brocade with jewelled flowers and pearls round the flowers, a brocaded turban with strings of pearls, a gold woven sash with chains of pearls, one of my private elephants called Fath Gaj, with trappings, a special horse, a jewelled sword, and a jewelled khapiva, with a phill katdra.

Nur-Jahan Begam prepared a feast of victory for my son Shah Jahan, and conferred on him dresses of honour of great price, with a nadiri with embroidered flowers, adorned with rare pearls, a sarplch (turban ornament) decorated with rare gems, a turban with a fringe of pearls, a waistbelt studded with pearls, a sword with jewelled pardala (belt), a phul Jcatdra (dagger), a sada (?) of pearls, with two horses, one of which had a jewelled saddle, and a special elephant with two females.

The next day I sent a phul-katara (dagger) studded with valuable jewels to Burhanpur to Khan Jahan.

he waited on me, and presented as an offering 1,000 muhrs, 1,000 rupees, 4 rubies, 20 pearls, 1 emerald, and a jewelled phul katara, the total value being 50,000 rupees.

Additional translations of the text are available here:
http://persian.packhum.org/persian/m...0%26work%3D001

On Yādgār ‘Alī there were bestowed a horse with a jewelled saddle, a jewelled sword, a vest without sleeves with gold embroidery, an aigrette with feathers and a jīgha (turban ornament), and 30,000 rupees in cash, altogether 40,000 rupees, and on Khān ‘Ālam a jewelled khapwa or phūl kaṭāra (a sort of dagger) with a pendant of royal pearls.

My fortunate son, Shāh-Jahān, sent with him the brother of Afẓal K., his Diwan. As Qubu-l-mulk had shown attachment and desire to please, and repeatedly importuned me for a portrait, I presented him, at his request, with my likeness, a jewelled khapwa, and a phūl kaṭāra. 24,000 darb, a jewelled dagger, a horse, and a dress of honour were also given to the aforesaid Mīr Sharīf.

Elgood documented what was shown to him in Jaipur as phul katara. They are dagger with narrow piercing blades, with floral hilts. Some examples of these might have been jeweled, and some might have crucible steel blades.

I am well aware of the addition of a variety of plant material to the crucible loads to impart carbon to the iron. That does not mean flower dagger = wootz.

All the best,
Emanuel

[Mercenary]

))
THE JAHANGIRNAMA
Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India
Translated, edited, and annotated by Wheeler M. Thackston
FREER GALLERY OF ART ® ARTHUR M. SACKLER GALLERY
S}nithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
in association witFi
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York ® Oxford

jewel-studded khapwa with a phul-katara, p.148

jewel-studded khapwa with a phul-katara, p.154

a jeweled dagger with a phul-katara, p.180

a jeweled khapwa with a phul-katara, p. 293

a jeweled khapwa with a phul-katara, p.303

a royal dagger with a phul-katara, p.394

a jeweled khapwa with a phul-katara, p.429

Try more. Good luck!

[Mercenary]

Originally Posted by Emanuel

They are dagger ... with floral hilts. Some examples of these might have been jeweled,

I think that such daggers are very beautiful. Can I see some of them?
And be so kind what are you mean by "floral hilts"?