Sinhala / Sri Lankan Swords?

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Gustav

It's, how should I say... "gargoyling" also at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kastane

Salaams Gustav... For what its worth I have never seen two descriptions the same... and for that matter no two Kastane the same ...Here are a few from important museums collectors and specialists but there are scores more all placing into the rich descriptive mixture a host of different images. I think the description at your reference is fairly near the artistic licence required to balance the equation. It ought to be as it took me a while to write !

The Victoria and Albert Museum.
Vand A;The kastane is the national sword of Sri Lanka. It typically has a short curved single-edged blade, double-edged at the point. The hilt comprises a knuckle-guard and down-turned quillons, each terminating in a dragon's head. The swords were intended to serve as badges of rank; the quality of ornamentation depending on the status of the wearer.The establishment of European trading contacts with South Asia by the late 16th and early 17th century led to these swords becoming fashionable dress accessories among European gentlemen.

St Petersberg 1850…Mounted in heavily cast and chased silver-gilt, the hilt in traditional Sinhalese style elaborately decorated with guilloche, fluting and panels of engraved foliage and florets, with the pommel and quillon formed as the stylised heads of lions and the ogee-shaped knucklebow emerging at the quillon from the mouth of a beast and terminating at the pommel in the stylised head of a dragon, the eyes of all the beasts on the hilt formed of cabochon-cut garnets or rubies.

Chrispties ~A SINHALESE SWORD (KASTANE) SRI LANKA, 18TH CENTURY
With curved single-edged inscribed blade with single fuller along the back-edge on each side, the decoration with foliated scrolls, the wood and bronze hilt with applied silver and brass panels, the guard of characteristic form with openwork head of a mythical beast, the grip carved with scrollwork and with dragon's head pommel.

Robert Elgood. From The earliest kastane of this form that can be accurately dated was taken to Japan in 1630 where it still exists. The form scarcely changes over the next two hundred years. The pommel is invariably decorated with the snub-nosed Sinhalese lion while the lion-like serapendiya is found on the quillon and guard ends. Most kastane blades were made locally but some utilise cut down European sword blades. Kastane were symbols of rank and later examples take the same form but are covered in sheet silver and inset with precious stones whilst the blades become ornamental.

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.