A visit to Bikaner, Rajasthan

[Emanuel]

P5

[Emanuel]

P6

[Emanuel]

P7 - last one

[Gavin Nugent]

Outstanding!!!

Thank you!!!!

Gavin

[Emanuel]

What Bikaner has in raw, practicality, Jaipur has in sheer bling and luxury. The weapon rooms at the Jaipur palace are an Ali Baba's cave of armed delight. Pictures are unfortunately not allowed, but that collection has everything in the books. The loveliest examples of every Indo-Persian weapon imaginable, decorated with every known permutation of precious metal and stone and...wootz...the stuff is literally blinding!

All the pieces are very well maintained and well etched. Supposedly the Maharaja's trust is working on a catalog of the collection, to be released sometime soon.

The part of the collection open to visitors spanned 3-4 large rooms, but behind a little closed glassed door could be glimpsed "the private stuff" and what I could see is simply indescribable.

Anyway, put Rajasthan on your bucket list. Take a good two weeks at least and take a look at this "Land of Kings" it's worth it!!

[A.alnakkas]

Wow thanks Emanuel! One day you will come to visit Raja Abdul's palace in Kuwait and take such photos (a man can dream :-) )

[Berkley]

Emanuel, thank you very much for sharing your photos with us.

[Shimmerxxx]

Amazing, they have an astonishing collection there, and I particularly like the arrangements.

Shame some of the swords are obscured, but I expect they've had some thefts in that's a necessary security measure.

There are a few weapons types that I can't readily identify, especially in the below section. Could some kind soul be good enough to enlighten me?

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Emanuel,

Thank you for showing these pictures, they are very interesting, and show a very big range, when it comes to shapes and quality – but that is how it is, and how it should be.

The big diversity in quality shows us, that weapons of almost all shapes and quality were used, but knowing, as we do, that every armoury had weapons from other parts of India, in a bigger or smaller number – looted or bought – we also know, that weapons found in any armoury/museum may come from quite another place than where they are now.

When I see one of the chiselled katars I always wonder how much it would cost, to have one made today in such a quality – likely the ransom of a king – maybe a smaller one, but still. At the same time I ask myself what the price would have been then, compared to their standard of living. I know that you can't compare this, but it is an interesting experiment of thought.

Jens

[Emanuel]

The Indian arsenal is indeed quite something. The sheer variety of bladed instruments is mind-numbing. It shows the immense level of artistic expression inherent to arms and armour. While part of my education included as specialization in fine art history, I was saddened that the art and craft of weaponry was entirely disregarded. Strange that such an obvious component of fine art was ignored.

Jens I met a few fellows here in Hyderabad that collect high quality newly-made Indian weapons and the cost of a nicely chiseled pesh-kabz type of dagger with pattern-welded steel blade can run into the thousands of dollars. Basically the price of a low-mid range car. A custom-made dagger or sword in North America is also in the four digits so not accessible to anyone. In olden days these finely crafted weapons were for the elite only.

Shimmer, the swords along the bottom are better seen on one of the other pictures. Basically rapiers and narrow two-handed swords. There is a blade of a bullova axe just above them and at the top there is what I think is a signaling standard, similar to the two brass ones next to the "draco" standard. The chopper on the left is similar to Curg or Malabar types.

It's too bad I couldn't get any pictures from Jaipur. Jodhpur also had a good collection with some swords attributed to the Mughal emperor Akbar, but the rooms were undergoing renovation and the display cases were empty.

Emanuel