Ancient, armed Indian from Kabul

[Jens Nordlunde]

In a reprint from ‘Musée de Tzarskoe-Selo ou Collection d’Armes’, 1835-1853, plate 54, I have found the picture below. The text under the plate is short: ‘Ancient armed Indian from Kabul’.
Notice especially the sword.

[Rick]

Hi Jens , He is described as an Indian rather than an Afghan . Was Afghanistan ever conquered and occupied by India ?
My history is weak on this subject .

I'm having some trouble equating the Katar with Afghan martial culture , but again I am admittedly a novice in this subject . The round pommelled sword is interesting and resembles those of Bokhara . I know the date is mentioned , but what century would you guess the actual subject to be from ?

[Aqtai]

Afghanistan was never part of India, but Babur, the first Mughul Padishah of India originally ruled a small state in Afghanistan. Futhermore, going back further I think the Ghurid Sultans of Delhi originally came from Afghanistan as well. Of course many Afghans also served as soldiers in the Mughul army.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Rick,

Don’t let the katar bother you, the history is a bit defuse here, but I would say yes, the Indians, from ancient time, ruled over, at least, a big part of Afghanistan, or maybe you could say that they had a very heavy influence over a big part of the country. Had it not been like this, you would not find Afghan governors in places like Sind and even in Bengal, which is a very long way from ‘home’ for the Afghans.

True the katar is not normally a weapon you would expect to find in Afghanistan, but the text says that it is an Indian, so the rulers of India at the time could/would, most likely, have had one or more Indian garrison in Afghanistan, most likely in Kabul and Kandahar, to make sure the Afghans would not do anything the ruler would not like – or what is just as likely, to keep the Persians, and other ‘friendly’ neighbours at bay.

The ‘catalogue’ does not say anything about the age, and when they reprinted it, they photographed the whole thing down, so the text is rather small. One other thing you must keep in mind is, that old catalogues mostly lack a lot of information, and even some of the information they do give, must be taken with half a handful of salt. When it comes to the age I would not like to guess – but maybe someone else will.

The sword and scabbard are strange, if it is an Indian soldier showed, but I think that so much to the north you would be able to find many different kind of mixtures of weapons.

Hi Aqtai,

The Indian rulers were smart, they had different armies, which were used according to whom they were fighting at the moment, like a Muslim army would not be the best against the Persian king as they regarded him as their spiritual leader, so here they might use a Hindu army, and so on.

[Rick]

Many thanks to both of you for the information .

[RSWORD]

What strikes me about the sword depicted is that it looks a lot like a Dha. The shape of the scabbard, the ball pommel and the grip structure and it is too bad his hand covers the guard to see how the hilt butts against the scabbard but it certainly seems non-Indian, Afghan or even Central Asian for that matter in style but more closely a Dha.

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

The sword and scabbard are strange,

Not to my eye, Jens.

I think Rick's onto something. To my eye, that's a dha. Even without a complete view of it, it's apparant there is no cross-guard, or even a disc guard of any size. In fact, I think the subject's hand is covering the middle of a long handle's grip, and we're shown a flared ferrule below the hand, leading to the top of the scabbard which, itself, is clearly that of a dha. The squared tip and segmented appearance from the retaining bands are conspicuous.

Thanks for sharing this with us!

[B.I]

hi,
i think we ought to remember the date of the image in order to reason the description/ensemble. the Musée de Tzarskoe-Selo ou Collection d’Armes was started in 1835, which means its one of the first 'books' on oriental arms. meyricks study, which opened the doors of academia and studied thought on arms was written in 1854. egertons tremendous study, which was the basis of all other studies on indian arms was written in 1880. so, in the 1830's, there was very little written records to fall back on, except provenance and eye witness accounts.
the tzarskoe selo catalogue was a first of the time, and it was a collection being compiled from previous holdings, as well as new aquisitions.
all this means that the descriptions could be wrong, or at least assumed wrongly at the time. the artist was of a high standard, and illustrated individual pieces well, but his 'artistic licence' was a little astray when grouping arms onto a costumed figure.
mark mentioned the artist studio, which was often the case in 'orientalist' images. however, this was a catalogue and so each piece actually existed in the collection, but obviously not all from the same source, as hinted in the image.
the sword looks very dha-like and am happy to agree with the dha experts, who we can all assume will recognise one of their own instantly.
if there were no records with the dha in question, there is no reason why an artist with no knowledge of arms would not throw it on an armed indian figure for dramatic effect. i've attached another image which shows the same careless abandon (look at the helmet!)
the arms in jens' image are all indian, and kabul was indeed a staging point and a place of importance in moghul history. but, thats about as accurate as it gets.
i believe the chainmail shirt is 'modern' at the time of the illustration, or at least not that old. this pattern and style was a 19thC concoction, although the use of patterned brass/copper butted links goes back to the late 18thC. the pattern indicates a lahore origin. the 1851 exhibition at crystal palace displayed shirts of this kind. although the displays showed both collections and artistic crafts made for sale, the catalogue of the time and the few surviving images (see attached) show the pieces by their location, and the industrial arts of both lahore and sailkot were well displayed. egerton shows this pattern on helmets bought at the exhibition, and the V&A hold other pieces bought at the time.
similar dispays were held in paris a decade later and both these exhibitions were a good benchmark for the arts of the time. also, decosson illustrates a zirah of the same style in 1881 (see attached image) which he describes as modern sikh work. his was a good study, with som einnacuracies but i'm sure he wouldnt state 'modern' unless he had good reason to do so.
the artist also shows both a zirah and a khud worn together. i can assume this was done as the mail decorations were similar (or the same) and he thought they went together.
also, does anyone have any thoughts on the lance. the piece does not look eastern (oriental) to me at all. the grip/lance shoe shows a european style. i know that this style didnt exist in india, but am guessing it doesnt follow with rest of the east. anyone?

[Aqtai]

Lord Egerton of Tatton's 'Indian and Oriental Arms and Armour' has a plate with a similar armour, also from the Zarkoe Selo collection. The mail camail in particular has a strong resemblance to the one above.

[Radu Transylvanicus]

B.I. quote: "also, does anyone have any thoughts on the lance. the piece does not look eastern (oriental) to me at all. the grip/lance shoe shows a european style. i know that this style didnt exist in india, but am guessing it doesnt follow with rest of the east. anyone?"

There are planty of bi-headed lances in the Indian history, it was mostly the Mughals influenced by their Timurid origins that head two heads while Hindus preffered a simple stopping ball if anything at the lesser end of their traditional lances. Also the hair tuft is likely an evolution from the Timurid-Mongol proto-tugra of the stepe warriors that were part of the nobility ancestry. Also the Naga had large spears with hair tufts but shaped differently and I would say have no connection to here,
Places to see such spears are the Mughal miniatures, I am looking over a reprint of Babur-Nama manuscript drawing from 1597 of the Delhi Museum. If it wouldnt be for the exact tufts of hair (whom would hardly survive the passing of years anyhow) there are many Mughal lances like this one.
Lord Egerton's "Indian and Oriental Arms and Armour" from where Agtai posted the previous gravure, has a denominational plate of many weapons at pages 22 & 23 where he introduces the double headed lance (spear) as named tschehouta.
In the minibooks from the Men-at-Arms series in the "Mughul India 1504-1761" plates B & C or even on the cover have examples of the Mughal cavalry carrying hair tufted lances. Horse tail tufts, died or not were popular ornamentsand readily available inthe horse culture.

[B.I]

it is not the head, nor the hair tufts that i have a problem with. it is the lance 'shoe' which gived the impression of a 'hilted' grip, which is not an indian design at all. this seems european, but am happy to hear any other theories.
i agree, the only true source to start with is miniatures or sculpture, and the miniatures i have seen show a spear (held in the middle), as apposed to a long lance. the lance butts of the south are well known in form, and depicted well in sculpture and images. also, the moghul style is the spear, with a similar 'ball and spike' shoe, or in some cases double ended. we can all agree the artist
is of merit, and so the depiction accurate. to my eye, the bottom of the spear could be carved wood and made to be held there. if there are 'many mughal lanced like this one', i'd appreciate a scan for i am not aware of them.
keen for more opinions and possible back up.

[Radu Transylvanicus]

B.I. the dilema is with the artist not with the spear itself. He (the artist) was not Indo-Persian or nor has he ever seen a live Mughal rider ever but he had likely seen many Cossack cavalrymen and their lances, its a Tsarskoe-Selo gravure not Mughal artistry (besides the lance I see much imperfections on the helmet, on the mirror armor plates and then there is the sword, which I wont even go there...) The drawing you reproduced from Lord Egerton is a perfect example of how a armorial depictions should be like, compared they are like like a race car in two different images: one drawing in action of a good street artist and one draft from the studio, made by an engineer.

[B.I]

i think you misunderstand my original enquiry. i was asking where people thought the lance came from. the lance is not a figment of the artists imagination, it exists in the collection, as do all the pieces illustrated in the catalogue.
if it is misrepresented in the image, it is down to the artist's lack of knowledge of arms. my question and enquiry still remains. does anyone think this could be oriental, and are familiar with this style of shoe butt on eastern weapons.