Karud: the weapon that did not exist:-)

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by ariel

" Arms and Armor from Iran" by M. M. Khorasani: #260. I think nobody would argue with his mastery of Persian language and arms :-)
He also mentions that locally Peshkabz with straight blade was called " shotorkosh", camel killer ( p.237)

Ariel, karud daggers come from India, Afghanistan as well as Persia (I do not remember ever seeing an ottoman karud), what is the Indian name and what is the Afghan name, and why should we in the west be confined to what some native many years ago supposedly called a certain weapon if it now has a currently used and accepted name. On the other hand, if a particular weapons proved to be different enough to have an individual name and it ws not already named this would be a different matter entirely.

[ariel]

Eric,
You are missing the point again.
Kard, just like choora is just a " knife" in Persian and "Hindoostanee" respectively. Here Gilchrist was 100% correct.
Nobody with a minimal knowledge of weapons from that area would confuse kard with peshkabz ( or even karud, if you want it). Two immediate differences just jump out at you: peshkabz has a sudden narrowing of the blade next to the handle and also has a T-spine.
But all of them are just knives.
Perhaps, you should look at the references I cited and let all of us know why they are NOT peshkabz ( es?).

Overall, I take my hat off to you, if you think that all the abovementioned authors ( including Mohamed, Pinchot, Kobylinski, Hales, Buttin, Holstein etc.) were mistaken, and you alone are correct.


In one thing you are unquestionably correct: Persian peshkabz with recurved blade , Central Asian and Indian "Karud" ( you see how accomodating I am?) with straight blade and Afghani Mahsud choora all belong to the same family, with just ethnic variations.

As to Khyber knife, this is yet another example of the European domination of printed word in general and weapon literature in particular. Over here somebody mentioned long ago the work of a Latvian knife aficionado Denis Cherevichnik: he found an old Pashto-English dictionary in which this weapon was locally called " selawah". This is the origin of the pre-"Khyber knife" European moniker Salawar Yataghan: Selawah mutated to British transcription Salawar, and yataghan possibly was added because of a similarity of the recurved profile of some "khybers" to a more familiar Ottoman weapon.

Here is the reference ( took me some time to find it in old archives):

Raverty, H. G. (Henry George). A dictionary of the Pukhto, Pushto, or language of the Afghans: with remarks on the originality of the language, and its affinity to other oriental tongues. Second edition, with considerable additions. London: Williams and Norgate, 1867



________________________________________
سیلاوه selā-waʿh, s.f. (3rd) A large and long knife, a formidable weapon about two feet long or more, used by the Afg̠ẖāns. Pl. يْ ey
(Raverty, 1867.P. 1143)

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by ariel

Overall, I take my hat off to you, if you think that all the abovementioned authors were mistaken, and you are correct.

I go with what my eyes tell me, how many times have I heard people say the "Stone was wrong". Just because a certain writer has some credibility does not always mean that they are right.

[estcrh]

(double post)

[estcrh]

The use of the term 'karud" goes way back, is it any wonder that people have accepted and use the term now, George Stone used in it 1934. That is over 70yrs I believe, and you suddenly want to eliminate the term because....can you explain again, I still cant quite figure out why we should stop using it.

A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor: in All Countries and in All Times, by George Cameron Stone, 1934.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by ariel

Perhaps, you should look at the references I cited and let all of us know why they are NOT peshkabz ( es?).

I have already SHOWN why, the images I posted show a straight bladed karud dagger, a pesh-kabz is curved bladed, unless you really believe there is absolutely no difference and they are exactly the same dagger and that the makers of these daggers believed that they were making the same dagger, but then if that were true why bother to make a straight bladed dagger and a curved bladed dagger?

Not to long ago you were the one arguing that certain swords that appeared to be shashka were in fact not actually shashka but just happened to look like shashka.

Now you are arguing that two daggers that look completely different are actually the same...humm....

[ariel]

Perhaps, you should re-read my original post and look at Fig.2. Everything you just said in your multiple posts was already there.
I do not think there is any reason for me to continue arguing with you: you either not reading or not comprehending.
Please feel free to use any word you wish.
I am going to bed.
Best wishes and good night.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by ariel

Perhaps, you should re-read my original post and look at Fig.2. Everything you just said in your multiple posts was already there.
I do not think there is any reason for me to continue arguing with you: you either not reading or not comprehending.
Please feel free to use any word you wish.
I am going to bed.
Best wishes and good night.

Ok, run off, but as for your post #2, it is blurry and you did not say were it can from or the date. Sorry you are unable to handle any type of disagreement with your theory but that is what people do on forums, disagree, argue and put their best research forward for others to judge.

I was just giving any interested people some visual proof that the word karud has fairly widely used for a long period of time. You are the one who out of the blue suddenly decided that we should completely stop using the word.

[estcrh]

Mughal weapons in the Bābur-nāmā, Gayatri Nath Pant
Agam Kala Prakashan, 1989

[A. G. Maisey]

I do believe that it has now been established that the romanised spellings "kard", and "karud" both represent the same object name when that name is written in the original script.

In fact, in language of origin, both these spellings refer to the same object.

Can anybody explain to me why it is that both spellings cannot be accepted, and used equally?

My field is not kards, karuds, khards or anything similar, but those of us who play with keris have exactly this same situation, there are innumerable ways of spelling "keris":- kris, cris, creese, are the most common, then there are the terms used in keris bearing cultures, words which bear no visible relationship to "keris".

But when Players with Keris talk amongst themselves, it doesn't seem to matter what word is used to refer to the object, we still understand one another.

In this Forum, and nowhere else to my knowledge, an artificial distinction has been drawn between the spelling "keris" and "kris". Keris refers to the dagger form, "kris" refers to the sword form, mostly from the Southern Philippines. Both these forms are by any academic definition keris --- or if we prefer "kris" --- but for purposes of discussion here we have this artificial, but useful, distinction, useful, because it has been decided that the sword version really belongs in the Forum that discusses swords. Let's call it an administrative decision.

When we look at the English language, we find one major spelling variation, that is between American English and British English, some words have two, or sometimes more, different spellings, but they are still the same word and still carry the same broad meaning, although, admittedly, meanings can vary according to specific societal usage, especially implied meanings.

There is a great deal of flexibility in the way language is used. Does it really matter if I spell a word using the UK spelling, and somebody else spells it using the American spelling?

It is general practice in English, and in many other languages, that where there are variations within a category of object, that variation is identified by use of an adjective. Kards and karuds are the same object but can possess a variation, thus in accord with general usage of the English language we would normally add an adjective to identify this variation.

Why is it that both spellings of this word cannot be used equally and the adjective added if that is thought to be necessary?

I simply cannot see the problem here.

[estcrh]

Here is what Ariel had to say on the subject of karud, 2013

[estcrh]

Here is a reference to "karud", 1843



Cabool: A Personal Narrative of a Journey To, and Residence in that City, in the Years 1836, 7, and 8, Sir Alexander Burnes J. Murray, 1843

[estcrh]

Here is a mention of a "karud" knife, 1825.


Hindoostanee Philology: Comprising a Dictionary, English and Hindoostanee; with a Grammatical Introduction, Volume 1, John Borthwick Gilchrist, Kingsbury, Parbury, and Allen, 1825.