Your chillanum is from the 17th c.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Mercenary

because the miniature school itself appears in India in the second half of the 16th century

Good point Mercenary, I had not realized that this particular convention in art had not begun in India until then. So feasibly the dagger form may have existed earlier in degree.
You have noted a variation in term khapwa and chilanum. Where exactly do these terms come from? and are they terms actually in local dialects or contrived as we have seen in some other terms for weapon forms?

[Mercenary]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Good point Mercenary, I had not realized that this particular convention in art had not begun in India until then. So feasibly the dagger form may have existed earlier in degree.
You have noted a variation in term khapwa and chilanum. Where exactly do these terms come from? and are they terms actually in local dialects or contrived as we have seen in some other terms for weapon forms?

Many thanks. Before the Mughal paintings there were others: Jain, Deccan miniatures and of course wall paintings. But if we are talking about images of weapons, we need to take into account that only from the first half of the 16th century Indian miniatures become more objective.
"Khapwa" is old Indian term used for dagger and originated from "to kill", "to destroy". So far no one has found Indian term "chilanum" for dagger. There was verb "chilana" but not for dagger or weapons but apparently for household things: "to pare", "to shave", "to scrape", "to peel". I think we have deal with misunderstanding as in the case of "karud"