Very Interesting Indian sword for discussion

[Jens Nordlunde]

Brian, I always thought it was Walt Disney/Carl Barks who invented Donald Duck, but I must be wrong .

[B.I]

not sure what you are implying, jens, but carl barks was a comic genius and if he intended donald to be anything other than a duck, it would have been obvious and history would be slightly different

[Jens Nordlunde]

I seem to remember that I have seen heads like the one on the pommel before, described as lion heads, but I have no reference – I am sorry.
As to the head on the hand guard. I have a feeling that it could well be a swans head, as I some time back read about swans – only I did not take much notice, and now I can’t remember where I read it, but it could have been in François Bernier’s ‘Travels in the Mogul Empire AD 1656-1668’.
The decoration on the hilt could be a geometrical pattern, or it could be stylized flowers. Flowers, like Lilies, Lotuses, Roses, Chrysanthemum Indicum and many others, were used a lot for decoration on hilts and in other places. When ordering a hilt, you went to a gold smith, where you from drawings on palm leaves, could chose the decoration you liked best.
What do you think the decoration on this hilt is, geometrical or stylized flowers?

[Radu Transylvanicus]

I leave Dr. Pant in the eye of the beholder, cert fact is that he is much deeper than Eggerton, which was quoted and used without problem and we all know what his background was.
B.i. I stick with Rajasthan and Gujarat (CW India) as I believe this to have much Mughal in it. As far as ,,ice-bird,, (swan,duck,peacock...) I reffered to it as actually Persian symbol (pardon me if I got you confused) not Indian but as a inheritance via Mughals, the Islamic half not the Hindoo half, the Hindoo half was rather reserved for the other beast head.
I left unmentioned yesterday but very pertinent i see Jens bringing the floral motif executed in ,,Islamic,, fashion, symililarities with Mughal tiles are more than striking...
Unless Pant was wrong mentioning relatively similar swords in his museum as being Gujarati, Rajahstani I sustain as being from that area, his involvement resumes to this.
Before we light anymore fuses and blow a spark just like in case of the yathagans its next to impossible to claim 100% apartenence to one small region, specially when artifacts come from a subcontinent so interactive like Hindustan and they look cloned regardless they were made one hundred or one thousand years ago...
P.S. nothing could be more hilarious than us pointing each other as working on ,,suppositions,, , B.I. do you not work based on that like I do ? Perhaps at times mines are more bold and some get touchy ...

[RSWORD]

Jens,

I believe the decoration is that of stylized flowers. If you look at the decoration around the border of the handle, it resembles very much that of the chrysanthemum. It is 8-sided. If you look at the inner decoration of the handle, it is smaller, also 8-sided and looks more like a snow flake to me and seems more geometric unless it is related to the larger, 8-sided chrysanthemum. In other words, perhaps the smaller decoration is the larger one not in bloom or something like that. There does appear to be small lines going through those smaller 8-sided snow flakes suggestive of a vine. There are also very tiny decoration all about that have no real shape and seem to be most closely related to "foilage". What is impressive is the quality and the condition given the age. Later, I will take a pic of the underside of the knucklebow. It has a "X" decoration that one finds in decoration from many cultures.

[B.I]

radu, yes i took what you said to hint at a more pure indian association rather than a persian one, which i kept coming across. virtually all my resources are indian, with some persian which is hard to avoid. it this search for this particular 'symbol', i struggled to find it at all in india, and yet it kept cropping up all over in the few persian books i have.
i think that we will continue to clash, whereas in reality, we probably agree. you do boldly state information, whereas i am a annoyingly cautious. sometimes it is better to throw yourself in the deep end as people may disagree, but you are at least provoking a response, which is never a bad thing. the whole indian thing is open, as it has always been. i tend to question everything, especially the known resources like egerton. if you look at his history, you'll find that he was in india for many years, but maybe being in one part of india during one period cornered his knowledge and left him dependant on the known information of that particular area, which no doubt differed to other areas. this is why there are contadictions in many of the 'known experts'. dont get me wrong, he still wrote the most important book on indian arms, even over a hundred years later.
the obvious answer is to try and back track information. this can be done with authours like rawson, as his references still exist and are accessable to those that have the time and inclination to spend researching. earlier authours are harder to track down as a lot of the information may have been widely circulated at the time, but were never written down. hendley spent more time in india and had a stronger passion for indian decorative arts, but still used egerton as a base, although there are still differences in opinion due to being in a different part of india and tapping into different resources.
i suppose there are no real answers. there are studies done in the last few years that have almost started again and tried to avoid the influence of earlier writers. elgood is a good example, although he has also fell victim to assumption of known information. i hold zebrowski quite highly, in that he pushed barriers and changed the way people think about indian art. not easy to do in a world full of experts! there are also many unpublished 'experts' whose knowledge may not be academic, but is just as important. there are some that have heavily participated in the collective world and in doing so, left a distinct mark without most people even realising it. for their own reasons (mostly personal or finantial) they spent many years in india studying the arms to a level that their academic peers reached many years before. this knowledge is as important, if not more so in this day and age, as they were present in the 'emptying of some major armouries.
i have discussed the floral thing with jens in the past and it is a hard subject to approach. the naming of flowers is almost impossible as it is down to artistic interpretation. robert skelton wrote a great article on the floral aspect of mughal art and yet there was no real conclusion. written history tells us shah jahans passion for the lotus symbol, but who is to say what the lotus symbol really looks like. i haave seen some very un-lotus looking lotuses
there are answers of sorts which can be tracked down through 19thC accounts. i strongly believe in symbolism being retained in a particular area. koftagari, as an applied art tended to be regional. this can be seen in hendleys great works, and also in watts exhibition catalogue. i approached this in parts years ago and although mostly shooting in the dark, i managed to produced slight results. i tracked down a style of flower inherant in lahore work, by finding pieces i know definately came from that area (bought brand new in the 1851 exhibition and the parisian exhibition a decade or so later. the same style of flower exhisted a century earlier in some pieces that reportedly came from the same area which bolstered this theory. also, the dalhousie connection with the courts and his 1991 sale couldnt stand on its own, but as additional ammunition confirmed many doubts i had.
also, another style of flower (un-named) which i found in the wallace reserves. this had a very distinctive cross within the central bud. the catalogue (written by opinion only) claims a kashmir and a rajesthan origin (two examples, virtually identical from different regions??) again, i found this flower in pieces with definate accession to the great exhibitions and a confirmed (from 2 different sources) origin of sailkot. i suppose this can be taken further, as with the lahore chrysantheum (??) if earlier pieces can be found. unfortunately, there are very few definate resources. the exhitions were great, in that they took time to display their wares by region and they were not selling antiques, but 'modern' examples of current decorative arts. hendly also is a great resource for this as his passion was the decorative arts of the time and he took the trouble to note the origins and names of the craftsmen. a lifetimes work with spurious results. but, as i said before, its all shooting in the dark.
i hope that ricks flower will be found on other pieces, as the quality lends you to believe that the craftsmen were talented, and so maybe produced other work of similar ilk.
the V&A is a fabulous source of information, as it was the original south ken museum, and before this, the east india company museum. the original pieces still hold relatively accurate accession notes and the pieces aquired before egertons catalogue can be quite accurately traced. many pieces were bought as 'brand new' and these can form some sort of stability in a shaky minefield of dis-information.
ok, back to the sword in question. look at the tigers head on this persian axe. it is more defined with a more distinct profile, but the similarities are there. it has the same open mouth, filled in with continuous decoration. if anything, it opens the mind to other sources for a 'tiger' motif away from mysore, which most people tend to assume too quickly.

[Jim McDougall]

While I am the first to defend the authors of books published on arms and armour, especially the venerable references that have served us for so many years, I am keen to defend only the material that maintains merit. That which has been either superceded or refuted serves only as dated material which reflects a benchmark in the progression of research, and is typically regarded as such by advanced students of arms & armour who recognize it as such.
I suppose this would be much like watching one of the classic old movies, the material is clearly dated, but the story remains well told and in perspective despite being viewed in a time with obviously much more advanced technology and environment. I still maintain that these authors deserve respect for having had the courage and tenacity to publish despite whatever flaws are inherent in thier work.

With Pant, Brian has astutely presented a caveat to this book as a reference and very gently noted the primarily business oriented ajenda which was one of the key forces in compiling this book. While Dr.Pant clearly brings in much of the data from earlier writers, he does make an effort to qualify and place in perspective much of the material he uses. One of the key problems with this work is that Pant attempts to abitrarily place indiginous provenance and typology on weapon forms and types without clearly supported evidence.
This problem as well as the dating of the various examples illustrated in the plates results from the museum cataloguing which relies on the period or region where the weapon was collected, often unaccurately and using presumed period attribution. Still these examples serve as outstanding references for experienced students of these weapons, who are well aware of the periods and characteristics which they actually represent.Those who are seriously pursuing the study of Indian arms at more of an entry level, would do well to use this book as a guide to further research, as a benchmark to build upon.

Radu, in the yataghan thread he has referenced, made the observation that these weapons were not just confined to limited regions, which was well placed. The same principle applies here, and it would be just as futile to assign a provenance to this sabre so finite as 'Gujerat/Rajasthan'. While seemingly a pretty safe statement, as well as the notation of Mughal attribution that corresponds supposedly to these regions, it is important to note the much wider scope of the Mughal Empire, which extended well into southern India. It would be quite easy to suggest Gujerat as a provenence for a weapon, since this was a key trade region, so many weapons would be presumed or noted as from there. It is the same with Rajasthan, which was a primary industrial region and in fact still produces swords there today.

I think Brian has well noted that these recoiled knuckleguards are not a particularly Indian characteristic, in fact the guard itself I would consider an indicator of European influence.The stylized motif on many of these does seem Persian, which of course did heavily influence Mughal India quite predominantly, as well as Central Asia, where this recoiled style guard also appears in degree and variation.

In our discussions, I think that presenting speculation and suppositions what this is all about, and using whatever resources or observations these are based on is essential. The idea is that any opposing or different ideas should be presented in kind. It's never about who is right or wrong, it's about learning together!! No finger pointing allowed!!!

All the best,
Jim

[B.I]

jim,
i know you are aware of the importance i put on my library, and the respect i have for the authors that occupy it. i feel all my books have a good reason for being there, whether as an academic minefield of information or just a great picture book.
my 'criticism' of references stemmed from trying to steer away from information that has been widely circulated but may have no real founding. i stick to my opinion of pant, feeling that he wrote some very helpful books on indian arms but he got enough wrong to classify them as good picture books and not academic resources.
i dont have a problem with radu's gujerat theory, as he clearly states it is supposition. if he takes this from pant, as well as his own experience then you can agree or disagree, but as this is no real information, it must be taken at face value.
with all the information i've tried to provide in influences, there were none to determine direct origins. yes, the north were heavily influenced by persia in the mughal courts, but so were the sultanates of the south.
as a feeling, with no firm support, i would think this sword hails from south india as, besides the persian influence, it has that feel. this opinion has no more, nor less grounding than radus gujerat and not something we can ever argue against. ths post has been very informative all round, in both the information provided and the opinions offered. as long as we clearly define the two, there can be no confusion.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Rick,
Maybe it is stylized flowers shown on your hilt, but I am not sure.
I would like to show you some examples, but I think I better do this in another thread, otherwise your thread will end up in a mess, and that would be a pity.
Jens