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Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
It is always exciting to me to see interest in the fascinating world of Indian arms and armour, and especially a genuine interest in not just collecting them as types or forms, but learning from them.
This is a wonderful example of what is most properly termed a 'Hindu basket hilt' as Miguel has described. The term 'firangi' is actually a sub classification which has been widely debated as to application but generally refers to a 'foreign' blade mounted in an Indian hilt. The term has typically exceeded its original use and become figuratively used by collectors more broadly to these type hilts.
It is queried how old and what group might have used this sword.
Typically the Hindu basket hilt is with a straight blade, usually double edged and characteristically has the bolsters at the forte reinforcing the mount .
As foreign blades began to enter India, the term firangi became emplaced accordingly. These account for many of the single edged (backsword) examples found later.
In this case, the blade does not appear 'foreign' (lack of fullering and blocked ricasso suggest non European), thus not 'firangi' (technically but colloquially of course either might be used).
It appears to be of good age, but highly cleaned (overcleaned in my view), note the shadow around the bolster where patination remains. This suggests the sword has been intact for some time, certainly into 19th century (perhaps earlier in the century)
So who might have used this?
Would it have been Maratha (often translated Mahratta) or Rajput?
The Marathas are known to have used the 'khanda' type hilt very early (the basket is believed post European contact) but they favored straight blades, as with the pata as well.
The Rajputs, to the northern regions were absorbed largely into the vast Maratha Empire of 1674-1818 .
Maratha warriors typically used straight blade khandas (firangi) or pata, but the Rajputs of course, while using the khanda notably, also favored the more well known curved sabre, the tulwar.
So the question is.......which would seem most likely?
We would look to the standard references ,Egerton, Pant, Rawson, Elgood etc. but might not find the exact answer, but by looking into the history and character of Rajput vs Maratha as warriors and favored style of fighting etc we might find answers.
Looking into the vast archives here would reveal many clues, and even online sources such as Wikipedia may be used in degree as benchmark for further study and review.
Not intending to play 'professor' here, but simply wanted to illustrate some of the factors to be considered in learning more on these weapons. To truly study them is fascinating and exciting, and brings new dimensions to collecting!
My notes here are mostly to reach the many readers out there, and I appreciate the forbearance of the many well seasoned and extremely knowledgeable contributors among our ranks.
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Hi Jim,
Thank you for your interesting comments. Even though this sword has been through the mill and seen better days I love it for the images it invokes in my imagination, sorry about that.
I had already done some research on it using Stone, Egerton, Paul and the Internet but still found it difficult to decide. I eventually found in favour of Rajput mainly because I found more images of them having back curved blades than the Marathas although the latter did have two types of sword with a back curved blade, one that was straight for most of its length before curving whose name I cannot remember and a Talwar type called Ahir neither of which are very common. Incidentally the back curved blade was not seen in India before the 15 th to 16th centuries when it was introduced by the Persians (see Paul).
I also lean towards it being 18th century again because the state of the basket hilt resembles the state of the basket hilts shown in some references as being of this time or earlier but as you can see it is all supposition on my part and only more research is needed before I will be satisfied.
Thanks again for your reply.
Regards
Miguel