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

[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.