On the Use of Indian Terms for Identification of Weapon Types

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Mercenary

Why only my master class? There were also Jim, Jens and others - all who really tried to understand.

Actually we are all in the same class.....here we learn together!!!
Mercenary, looking forward to your paper and hope you will keep us apprised. I congratulate anyone and everyone who puts 'pen to paper' and admire them wholeheartedly. It takes courage and stamina to publish .
It has been a most enlightening discussion.

[Mercenary]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Actually we are all in the same class.....here we learn together!!!
Mercenary, looking forward to your paper and hope you will keep us apprised. I congratulate anyone and everyone who puts 'pen to paper' and admire them wholeheartedly. It takes courage and stamina to publish .
It has been a most enlightening discussion.

Thanks a lot, Jim. The most difficult for the researcher is to admit own mistakes. I had been wrong the most part of this debate, but I was able to admit it publicly. Not everyone can do as well. You pointed to my mistakes and I appreciate it. I hope the most part of topics on the forum will be lead to new knowledge and the truth.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Mercenary

Thanks a lot, Jim. The most difficult for the researcher is to admit own mistakes. I had been wrong the most part of this debate, but I was able to admit it publicly. Not everyone can do as well. You pointed to my mistakes and I appreciate it. I hope the most part of topics on the forum will be lead to new knowledge and the truth.

I do too Mercenary!!! I very much appreciate the reply, and your courtesy as well as the courage to admit misperceptions or mistakes is exemplary.
Our learning here of course often extends beyond knowledge itself.

[Jens Nordlunde]

'The most difficult for the researcher is to admit own mistakes.'

No, not really, you just admit them. I have done it, and I will continue to do so. When you write something, it is with the knowledge you have at the moment, but maybe you later find out that it was wrong - so why not admit it? If we admit that we are all in a learnig session, these things will happen - even if some of the members are on a higher level than others, and that it is the members on a higher level, that are the most to make misrtakes - due to the level.

However, whichever level one is on, it should not leed to sarchasme towards other members, whichever level they are on.

[Jens Nordlunde]

I just found something about the Phul-dagger, or in this case a Phul-katar.
Wheeler M. Thackston: The Jahangirnama, Oxford University Press, 1999. page 469.
'Phul-katara..........phul means 'flower' and refers to ornate jewel-inlay work on the hilt, phul-kataras were mainly ornamental presentation items while ordinary kataras were used as weapons'.

By especially mentening jewel-inlay work, must mean that the author does not regard katars with chiselled/inlaid/koftgari floral decoration to this group.

[ariel]

Sitting in the hotel in Atlanta, waiting for a symposium that starts in 3 hours, re-reading old comments…..
Re. Posts 2,4, 29,123:

Ful-kattara is repeatedly snown in Hales ( and, I think, Elgood, but the books are far away from me at the moment) and designates a “flowery dagger”, i.e. just a dagger with a pommel depicting stone-carved bunch of flowers. No firm connection to wootz, jewels, carved blades etc.

[Mercenary]

Originally Posted by ariel

Sitting in the hotel ...

I'm sorry, but no chance. This was examined six years ago from the text of Jahangir-name (in Persian of course) and compared with illustrations depicting specific scenes. Almost all types of daggers and court gifts have been identified. Including the "phul katara", "khapwa" and even the "royal Mazendaran dagger".

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

I just found something about the Phul-dagger, or in this case a Phul-katar.
Wheeler M. Thackston: The Jahangirnama, Oxford University Press, 1999. page 469.
'Phul-katara..........phul means 'flower' and refers to ornate jewel-inlay work on the hilt, phul-kataras were mainly ornamental presentation items while ordinary kataras were used as weapons'.

By especially mentening jewel-inlay work, must mean that the author does not regard katars with chiselled/inlaid/koftgari floral decoration to this group.

As I have mentioned before, research in antique Oriental weapons requires expertise in two unrelated fields: weapons per se and thorough knowledge of languages in question.

Thackston is a well known and highly respected authority on Arabic and Persian languages as well on several other languages pertaining to the Islamic cultures.
However, he will be the first to admit that weapons as such do not fall into his area of expertise.

Elgood is by far the best current authority on Arab and Indo-Persian weapons. But he is very open about his insufficient level of linguistic expertise. Having recognised this shortcoming, he spent many years working shoulder to shoulder with professional Indian and Persian linguists.

This is why I put my trust in his conclusions.

And I fully agree with Jens: research is a risky business and wrong turns are inevitable. That is exactly why good professional researchers are very careful about their final conclusions, scour the literature and perform many control studies aimed at overturning their initial hypothesis. Only if the latter fail to negate their earlier results do they publish the final paper with conclusions. And if some colleague later on finds a way to disprove their conclusions, they freely admit it bruised egos notwithstanding.