Small Katar

[Mercenary]

Never in the past or even now in authentic Indian martial arts there are not any fingers outside the grip. The ricasso is only for keeping by second hand in the case when it is necessary to strengthen the blow - then two or three fingers of second hand are out of the handle and overlap the ricasso.

[fernando]

Well Jens, you being a 1,90 tall Dane, will find it rather difficult to try on a number of your katars & talwars ... even patas, if you had some.
So it seems the guy in the video doesn't look so easy trying on his examples .

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[fernando]

Originally Posted by Mercenary

Never in the past or even now in authentic Indian martial arts there are not any fingers outside the grip. The ricasso is only for keeping by second hand in the case when it is necessary to strengthen the blow - then two or three fingers of second hand are out of the handle and overlap the ricasso.

You are obviously correct;and Jim already made it clear (#31) that his previous approach (#27) was towards different angles.

[Mercenary]

Originally Posted by fernando

You are obviously correct;and Jim already made it clear (#31) that his previous approach (#27) was towards different angles.

Thank you. I'm sorry, I was not attentive

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Mercenary

Thank you. I'm sorry, I was not attentive

Nothing to be sorry

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Mercenary

Never in the past or even now in authentic Indian martial arts there are not any fingers outside the grip. The ricasso is only for keeping by second hand in the case when it is necessary to strengthen the blow - then two or three fingers of second hand are out of the handle and overlap the ricasso.

While this is a bit off course toward the discussion of an unusually small gripped katar, I have to say I had never heard of a tulwar used as a 'two hander'. It has been difficult to reach any agreement on the idea of the forefinger extended around the quillon to strengthen a striking blow.....but the idea of a second hand to accomplish this is most concerning. I am wondering what becomes of the shield in such instance.

The khanda, as used by Marathas and Rajputs, did seem to have a stem extending from the pommel which was ostensibly for use in a two hand strike, and I have seen tulwars with a similar type stem.

As I was suggesting earlier, the practice of the forefinger wrapped around the quillon or the little finger outside the guard on the katar, were incidental situations and not of any martial arts dogma in India.

The 'Indian ricasso' as far as I recall from various discussions through the years, seemed likely to prevent injury from a finger around the quillon, but I had honestly never thought of it providing a blade area for grasping with a second hand. The sweep of a draw cut using a tulwar as a two hand sword seems unlikely and in my view would be deeply impaired. I would rely on you and those here with martial arts expertise to help me better understand this.


From P.S. Rawson, "The Indian Sword" 1969, p.21, note #64
"...no Persian blade is known to have a feature which may be called the Indian ricasso. This is a short flattened section at the root of the edge which is shouldered into the bevel of the edge. The reason for its existence may have been to safeguard the index finger, which art shows to have been SOMETIMES hooked around the front quillon of the hilt in India".

#64 cites that this info was personally noted to Mr. Rawson by Mr. B.W. Robinson of the V& A museum metalwork dept. in London.

[corrado26]

This is a very interesting and helpful discussion, but until now I do not know wether my katar has been made for a child or an adult Indian.

The fotos attached show the width of the grip between its bars and show that it is impossible to get more than three fingers into it. The size of my gloves is 7,5 to 8 what I believe is a rather small size for an average European. But as the foto shows my "small" hands and the ones of my wi8fe are much too wide or broad for this katar. I cannot believe that there have been adult Indians with hands smaller than 5,5 cm which would be a dimension that would fit comfortably for this katar.

If this katar with this size would really be for an adult, than there must also have been in existence tulwars which such narrow or small grips but this I never have seen until today.
corrado26

[fernando]

Udo, i would say yours is definitely for an adolescent, not for a small handed man. I once had one with an (also) extremely narrow width between bars (6 cms), which was sold to me by someone alledgedly with enough knowledge to tag it as such.

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[corrado26]

Thanks Fernando, that's was what I wanted to know!

[Jens Nordlunde]

Corrado, as you can see from the posts above no one can really ansver your question, but why would a weapon smith make a katar hilt more narrow than the hand it should fit?

[fernando]

Jens, you should know better than me ...
Does the Indian man go the smith's workshop and chooses a ready made katar that fits his (or his son's) hands, or orders the smith to forge them according to their size ?
... or more probably the common man fits the first case and the wealthy noble the second one ?

[Jens Nordlunde]

Fernando, I think it worked both ways.
The katars in the armouries were of a general size, but the ones with some money would have had it made to fit the hand.
Now, I also think that the Indian smiths at the time were quite clever, they would have made the pre made katars at the size of the average hand - and if he did not, another smith would.
Bernier writes that it is quite common for people with some money, to burry some, should they be reborn into a poor family, so they still have some money, to buy a nice kaktar or so, (the last part is added by me). What he does not write is, how a man reborn into a poor family would find the money.

[fernando]

No wealthy reborn ... no new katar .

[bsingh2311]

I used to own a katar just like this. The seller told me, these smaller katars were used by Rajasthani women.