Mughal Kard?

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Battara,



As no one else has answered you as yet, let me try, although I doubt you will be satisfied with my answer.

Only very few authors comment on the flowers used for decoration, 98% write floral decoration, which is a very safe way to describe it. It is a most interesting and very difficult area, as some of the goldsmiths were more artistic than others, some wanted the decoration to look like the real flower while others wanted it to be more stylistic. Another thing is, that I don’t have the names of all of the flowers most used, as far as I know – but I am working on it. Amongst the flowers used is Chrysanthemum Indicum, notice that this is a different kind than the one used in China and Japan, as this is a plant with a lot of small flowers, and can be found in many colours, where as the flower used in China and Japan are very big flowers, although both flowers have many petals, they are quite different. One of the flowers, which often are the easiest to recognise, is the poppy, but you should not concentrate on the flower alone, you should also look at the leaves, as these can help you in the search. I can not, at the moment, tell you what flowers are shown on your knife, but, as I said I am working on it, and when I know more I will return, one other thing you must remember is, that any decoration on Indian weapons were not only decoration, they had a symbolic meaning, and sometimes they show flower buds, which could be almost from any flower.

Have a look at the two pictures, they are from the same tulwar, but the floral decoration shown is different on the over and underside of the disc. I think the flowers, shown on the underside are Chrysanthemum Indicum.

It is a very nice knife you show. It looks very slim but also very long, how big is it?

It is hard to tell from a picture, but I would say it is late 18th or early 19th century.