Сlassification of Indian swords.

[Nihl]

Originally Posted by rumpel9

Finally, I did receive my long-standing purchase - an Indian sword, which I assumed could be called katti. Below you can see the photos. As Nihl pointed out quite correctly, the blade of this sword is made in the style of a Khyber knife. This sword can hardly be called katty.
But it is unlikely that this is the blade of a Khyber knife, with an Indian handle. The length of the blade is 73.5 cm . And at the base there is a brand - an Indian sign (by the way, no one knows what this sign means?).
How do you think this sword can be classified?

Rumpel, the mark on your blade is simply "po" (पो) in punched devanagari. This likely is an abbreviation of some kind of armory or other location (like how "bikaner" is typically abbreviated to just "bi").

In regards to its name, I very much agree with Ian's assessment of the situation. Too often people want a simple "name tag", of sorts, that they can apply to their items. In all reality, particularly with Indian swords, this approach rarely works, and a more descriptive name is required; one that gives a name to both the blade and the hilt.

As such, I would personally deem your new acquisition to (still) have a khyber knife style blade, but a standard tulwar hilt. It is somewhat tempting to categorize the blade as being sosun patta in style, given that, like a turkish yataghan, in the 19th century some sosun patta were made with t-back blades, however your example doesn't really have enough recurvature to warrant the name change IMO.
Also keep in mind, the tulwar hilt requires this sword to be used in a draw cutting fashion, so in function this sword would basically "work" the same as a standard tulwar, albeit maybe slightly better at thrusting.
Both components likely date to the 19th century.

[Mercenary]

The main problem is that in the Indian subcontinent, proper names, unlike European languages, were used only for significant things. For everything else, general generic concepts or derivatives from form, material, etc. were used. That is why most types of weapons have a name that is derived from the words "cut", "damage" and so. And, for example, "jamdhar" is simply “two edges.” I’ll write about “talwar” later, it’s very interesting, but long.
It is also need to take into account that the weapon although was of the same type, but the Mughals and Indians called it differently. But from these different names, it is necessary to highlight the names common to both the Mughals and the Indians, which are fixed in Urdu.
A complex example - "khapwa". This word was used by the Mughals, although it is Indian word. Babur called such daggers “kattara”. By the way, “kattara” and “chilana” (chilanum-parabellum ) come from “to cut.” But “khapwa” means "to kill".

[Mercenary]

I suspect that most of the swords commonly called as "patissa" and the like, known as "South Indian" swords of the 16th-17th centuries, came into collections as a result of the suppression of the Paika rebellion in Odisha (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paika_Rebellion) and their disarmament. The Paikas called these swords "khanda" (ଖଣ୍ଡା). Accordingly, these are khanda-swords from Odisha, 18th-19th centuries.