A katar is a katar till......

[Nihl]

Excellent overview Jim! Unfortunately that summarizes my knowledge of the form as well. I did a little bit of looking around online and found an example that has the more usual two-bar grip instead of a single bar, though it's most likely an outlier and not some big subcategory or anything.

Back to the topic of leafs & blades briefly, my simple contribution is the leaf-bladed sword category itself. This is a style (that I'm sure everyone's familiar with) that is double-edged and has a slightly swollen "belly" or midsection that then tapers back down to a point (like a leaf), found all over the world.

[Jim McDougall]

Thank you Nihl!
This 'Garsoe' topic has got me going and I saw a post of mine from 2012 where I asked (rheotorically) I wonder what that term means?

I found a post by Jens about that time, where he had found a coin from 1871 with an image of a katar with distinctive curved ends on the side bars.
This is atypical for katars (as are the scrolled side bars on 'garsoe'), and the coin is from Nawanagar on the Kathiswar peninsula in Kutch .
It is noted that the suffix 'GAR' (=fort).

In Kathiwar (also in Gujerat) the Kuttee people hsve a key affinity for the katar and regard it as a symbol of honor, to the point that any agreement, oath or contract is signed with the mark of the katar. Any breech of said contract is considered dishonorable and requires 'traga', often simply a cut by the katar but is even more dramatically suicide (seldom carried out).
There are talwars which have a katar marked on the blade, which we presume from these regions.

It would seem that the katar has an unusually key significance in these regions of Kutch in a traditional and symbolic manner, and clearly a certain application of 'design' seems afforded the weaponry there.
The 'garsoe' and this other Kutch form with upturned side guard noted (as pictured) seem to reflect such design features of these regions.

The note on 'GAR' meaning fort gives a clue, that perhaps the design for the garsoe might be attributed to an armory (?) in a local fort in Kutch, where such design was fashioned for someone in the princely retinue, or other person of standing

Going through references, this is what I can find thus far. The entry by Jens where he matched the coin to the shape of the katar hilt illustrates the kind of astute research he carries out on these weapons. Amazing!

While speculative, perhaps tenuous, these factors are worth considering.

[Mercenary]

It is very likely that the “garsoe” is a highly distorted “plow-shaped”. Plows which look like a handlebar of Harley-Davidson's chopper are much more common in South India, but even single-lever plows often have a curved handle.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Mercenary

It is very likely that the “garsoe” is a highly distorted “plow-shaped”. Plows which look like a handlebar of Harley-Davidson's chopper are much more common in South India, but even single-lever plows often have a curved handle.

That is a most interesting observation (love the Harley analogy! back in the day they called those 'monkey hangers' on their choppers).
It is true many weapons were formed after various tools and implements, but not sure on these distinctively curved bars being so fashioned.

Im more curious on what in the world 'garsoe' means, and where Egerton got the term. As I noted the suffix 'gar' means fort in dialects in Gujerati areas, but hope linguists here can offer some insights.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Sorry for the late reply, but I have been away for a few days.
Jim shows a katar and two coins, but it is known that the curwed side guards can be seen in the Hamza - so they go back for centuries.
The katar shown in Holstein and in Jim's post no 31 is a drawing. Only after I pubished the article How Old is the Katar? I found a photo of the katar in Hindu Temple art of Orissa, vol. III by T.E.Donaldson.



I have a funny feeling that Pant used the name Jamdhar like we use the name Katar. To him it seems, as if all these daggers were Jamdhars, although he seems to have added some other dagger to this group - see below.


Studies in Indian Weapons and Warfare, p. 159.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

Sorry for the late reply, but I have been away for a few days.
Jim shows a katar and two coins, but it is known that the curwed side guards can be seen in the Hamza - so they go back for centuries.
The katar shown in Holstein and in Jim's post no 31 is a drawing. Only after I pubished the article How Old is the Katar? I found a photo of the katar in Hindu Temple art of Orissa, vol. III by T.E.Donaldson.



I have a funny feeling that Pant used the name Jamdhar like we use the name Katar. To him it seems, as if all these daggers were Jamdhars, although he seems to have added some other dagger to this group - see below.


Studies in Indian Weapons and Warfare, p. 159.

Jens, welcome back! and as you can see, we have needed you here to facilitate our look into these katars in discussion.
As you note, the curved side bars are quite likely to have existed in other than the 'garsoe' termed versions, and even earlier, however not that I have been aware of, which is the objective of my query, to become aware of others.

The plate you show of these daggers is most telling, and ironically Pant seems to have fallen into the same 'trap' that Egerton did in the 'cross use' of a term. Pant had emphatically rebutted the use of 'katar' for the transverse grip dagger he claims was initiated by Egerton, and actually describes the 'jamadhar' .
Here clearly he includes 'bichwa' and another curious baselard looking dagger which has normally configured hilt with 'H' shape, all as 'jamadhars'.

Given the suggested definition of jamadhar as 'tooth of death' or to that effect, there does not seem to be any qualification to a dagger with a distinctive 'transverse grip'.

Could the inclusion of these other daggers in a plate identified as 'jamadhars' be an editing error with publishers? or was it indeed an interpolation by Pant himself?

Is Pant's effort to rebut Egerton's work perhaps too arbitrary? and possibly the jamadhar term had been more broadly used than thought?
That does seem to be the case with vernacular use of words and terms in many cases, and the name game ever plagues historians.

[Mercenary]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

and possibly the jamadhar term had been more broadly used than thought?

If we try to understand what meant these terms by using secondary sources I can say that this is a completely useless exercise, a waste of time and repeating other people's mistakes.

From an etymological point of view, I already wrote before: in sanskrit "jamdhar" meant just "double edge" weapon. But for thousands of years, not only the form of words, but also their meaning and using often change.

So these are different tasks of trying to understand what Pant or Egerton meant, what did it mean in the 19th century, in the 16th or 10th.