Indian sword for ID

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by katana

Hi Jim ,
we had a interesting sword posted by Ariel a while ago.... which seemed to be specifically aimed at injurying horses and was a common tactic employed in battle.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ight=hamstring

All the best
David

Hi David,
I had forgotten all about that thing! It was an anomaly to be sure, and certainly not commonly seen features on a blade for cavalry or for that matter any military purpose I can think of. While the terrible practice of deliberately incapacitating horses was certainly something done in the throes of combat, it was accomplished with conventional weapons, not specifically designed 'tools' as far as I know.

I recall when I first saw this, the curiously angled distal part of the blade and the serpentine section above it really defy all practicality toward combat use as far as I could see. Interestingly the blade profile did in degree remind me of the Nayar temple sword types as well as the earlier Barabadur type mentioned in my previous post (Rawson).

Since there seem to be at least two of these seemingly fanciful weapons, it would be interesting if anyone could present more on what these might have been intended for. Obviously the military was not likely to have weapons for the ritual type situations we are discussing, but perhaps these might have been implements for foragers, such as sickle type use to harvest fodder for the horses. It seems few references focused on cavalry attend to the more mundane aspects in campaigns, but it seems this idea for such a 'weapon'.

All the best,
Jim