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ariel · 11th January 2016, 04:45 PM

We need to be precise in our definition of the question: are we asking whether European bladed were USED of PREFERRED?

The USE is indisputable. The PREFERENCE is unprovable: it depended on personal circumstances of the owner ( individual or his sovereign). We cannot get into heads of people dead for 200-300 years. Limited number of individual opinions or testimonies cannot reflect prevailing attitude of the entire society. Moreover, such individual snippets are reasonably evenly divided between pros and cons. This is a dead end.

Were European blades POPULAR in India? But of course. Wre Indian blades popular among the Europeans? Not very. Was it because of their quality or simply because EIC or (later) The Crown supplied their British soldiers with regulation, British-made, weapons? Probably both.

The reference to Rawson re. Basket Hilt misses the point: it is a mix of a modified Old Indian hilt and a European D-guard. It is the latter that largely transformed the older version into a new pattern. Elgood discussed ~ 12th century ( have no book nearby) temple depiction of warriors wielding swords with D-guards ( i.e. well before the contact with the Portugese), but doubts them because there are no ancient actual examples. I am a bit uneasy with that, but can't argue with the fact: no similar feature prior to 16th century is known. In general, I would hesitate using Rawson as the final evidence: his book is full of statements that are no longer considered valid by the contemporary body of knowledge. Suffice it to say that he did not know the difference between wootz and mechanical damascus. He should get full credit as the author of the first systematic book on Indian swords, but his materials and conclusions are significantly outdated and cannot be viewed as 100% reliable without further confirmation. Well, this is the fate of almost every book :-)

11th January 2016, 04:45 PM	#41
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	We need to be precise in our definition of the question: are we asking whether European bladed were USED of PREFERRED? The USE is indisputable. The PREFERENCE is unprovable: it depended on personal circumstances of the owner ( individual or his sovereign). We cannot get into heads of people dead for 200-300 years. Limited number of individual opinions or testimonies cannot reflect prevailing attitude of the entire society. Moreover, such individual snippets are reasonably evenly divided between pros and cons. This is a dead end. Were European blades POPULAR in India? But of course. Wre Indian blades popular among the Europeans? Not very. Was it because of their quality or simply because EIC or (later) The Crown supplied their British soldiers with regulation, British-made, weapons? Probably both. The reference to Rawson re. Basket Hilt misses the point: it is a mix of a modified Old Indian hilt and a European D-guard. It is the latter that largely transformed the older version into a new pattern. Elgood discussed ~ 12th century ( have no book nearby) temple depiction of warriors wielding swords with D-guards ( i.e. well before the contact with the Portugese), but doubts them because there are no ancient actual examples. I am a bit uneasy with that, but can't argue with the fact: no similar feature prior to 16th century is known. In general, I would hesitate using Rawson as the final evidence: his book is full of statements that are no longer considered valid by the contemporary body of knowledge. Suffice it to say that he did not know the difference between wootz and mechanical damascus. He should get full credit as the author of the first systematic book on Indian swords, but his materials and conclusions are significantly outdated and cannot be viewed as 100% reliable without further confirmation. Well, this is the fate of almost every book :-)