Thank you so much for your excellent response in kind!!! I really appreciate you going into detail with your very well placed observations, and think you are pretty much on target mostly. I am not too sure about the khanda though, I think the early examples seen iconographically are open hilt, but I do agree the knuckleguard seems likely pre European contact or outside that particular influence. The said influence may have reinforced the use of this element already in place, but more specific research needed.
Very good points on the Portuguese fencing styles in comparison to that of Indian, and the point that even with shields used to receive blows, the dynamics of close combat would invariably result in blade to blade contact. In that case, one certainly would need some protection.
Possibly the open hilt talwars were intended for court wear? But then even these occur in munitions grade, fighting use weapons.
I think what you say on the angle of the langet, and of course it might have been rewelded as you suggest, these weapons were often 'in the shop' during thier working life!
Ward, I agree with your note that this is a 'generic' example, but what I had noted was that was the beauty of it, its a good example of a sword not suggesting having been 'worked over'. I believe it would be good to use disgression on the price. I actually learned to favor these weathered and worn examples for thier integrity, but I admit a lot of it was my budget too!
To me having a sound representative example that would not have been worthy of tampering was what I needed for study. These I viewed as solid pieces of history.
All best regards,
Jim