Indian sword stamp seeking translation assistance

kwiatek · 7th February 2021, 07:04 PM

I think this contains a form of the ubiquitous legend

banda-yi shah-i vilayat ...

'Slave of the King of Trusteeship (i.e. 'Ali)', found in association with the name of one of the Safavid Shahs.

As I'm sure you know these were found on numerous swords, most often anachronistically, over a period of hundreds of years from both Iran and India, sometimes along with attributions to Asadallah Isfahani or Kalb-'Ali. I do not think the person who made this knew what he was copying however as some of the letters are joined up oddly and there is missing the name of one of the shahs which you would normally expect.

I would need to see the inscription more closely but I think you can see at the bottom most clearly the word بنده (banda), above this you can see the یت (yat) of the word vilayat, the لا (la) of which is at the end of the next line up, oddly joined to what looks as though it should have been the word شاه (shah). The letter و (v) of the word vilayat is above this.

If this is correct, then the form in which it appears is different to that on most swords were it is clearly legible, inlaid rather than stamped, and in conjunction with the name of one of the shahs.

kwiatek · 7th February 2021, 09:17 PM

I may be barking up the wrong tree, but is that not a very small trisula in the point of the cartouche? I wonder if this is not a hybrid stamp made by a Hindu artisan/for a Hindu patron but inspired partly by Islamic designs. I have seen stamped, Devanagari inscriptions that have been purposely made to resemble Persian inscriptions before, but do not ask me where ...

RSWORD · 10th February 2021, 01:30 AM

Hi Kwiatek,

Thank you for having a look and providing some very helpful information. I'll see if I can get a better picture of the stamp and maybe a good close up of the upper half and lower half and see if that helps any. I'll also take a good hard look and see if I see a trisula.

7th February 2021, 07:04 PM	#1
kwiatek Member Join Date: May 2019 Posts: 153	I think this contains a form of the ubiquitous legend banda-yi shah-i vilayat ... 'Slave of the King of Trusteeship (i.e. 'Ali)', found in association with the name of one of the Safavid Shahs. As I'm sure you know these were found on numerous swords, most often anachronistically, over a period of hundreds of years from both Iran and India, sometimes along with attributions to Asadallah Isfahani or Kalb-'Ali. I do not think the person who made this knew what he was copying however as some of the letters are joined up oddly and there is missing the name of one of the shahs which you would normally expect. I would need to see the inscription more closely but I think you can see at the bottom most clearly the word بنده (banda), above this you can see the یت (yat) of the word vilayat, the لا (la) of which is at the end of the next line up, oddly joined to what looks as though it should have been the word شاه (shah). The letter و (v) of the word vilayat is above this. If this is correct, then the form in which it appears is different to that on most swords were it is clearly legible, inlaid rather than stamped, and in conjunction with the name of one of the shahs.

7th February 2021, 09:17 PM	#2
kwiatek Member Join Date: May 2019 Posts: 153	I may be barking up the wrong tree, but is that not a very small trisula in the point of the cartouche? I wonder if this is not a hybrid stamp made by a Hindu artisan/for a Hindu patron but inspired partly by Islamic designs. I have seen stamped, Devanagari inscriptions that have been purposely made to resemble Persian inscriptions before, but do not ask me where ...

10th February 2021, 01:30 AM	#3
RSWORD Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Greensboro, NC Posts: 1,086	Hi Kwiatek, Thank you for having a look and providing some very helpful information. I'll see if I can get a better picture of the stamp and maybe a good close up of the upper half and lower half and see if that helps any. I'll also take a good hard look and see if I see a trisula.