On the Use of Indian Terms for Identification of Weapon Types

Mercenary · 15th June 2022, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ariel

I found it: : Russian journal “ Studies of historical weapons” #1.

No. It was published as
Kurochkin A.Ju., Malozemova E.I. "Royal" daggers of Jahangir. HISTORICAL ARMS AND ARMOUR IN MUSEUM AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS, v. 1, pp. 67-88. Moscow. The Moscow Kremlin Museums Publ., 2018. 352 p. in Russian.

(Курочкин А.Ю., Малоземова Е.И. «Царские» кинжалы Джахангира // Историческое оружие в музейных и частных собраниях. Выпуск 1. 67-88. Москва: ММК, 2018. 352 с.)

Sorry, I couldn't find the PDF file online. I don't even have that edition on hand right now. But it's not a problem to buy books of this series in Russia. The third volume will be published in this year.

Mercenary · 15th June 2022, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mercenary

The third volume will be published in this year.

Maybe it will be interesting. In the second issue there is an article about the talwar and its handle: when and where did it arised and what does the word "talwar" mean. In the third issue there should be an article about when, where and why straight karud-peshkab acquired a double bend. In Russian of course.

ariel · 15th June 2022, 11:16 PM

And all these articles will be written by the very same type of people you are describing in your previous post :-)))
All soft sciences have a good percentage of their results, discussions and conclusions based on personal prejudices, fantasies and wishful thinking. They also employ highfalutin’ words, convoluted sentences and manipulative arguments.
They are incapable of dissociating from personal tastes and ambitions and cannot employ the main scientific instrument,- the experiment. All historical sciences in the best possible case have at their disposal a bunch of quotations from the sources of unknown veracity and objects of uncertain age, origin and significance. Two different academically-minded individuals will easily produce three mutually exclusive conclusions .
In a way, they are akin to psychiatry, the last frontier of medicine. Having very limited sources of objective information, they rely on the external appearance and subjective “complaints” : how can we be certain, for example, that a patient suffers from borderline personality and not from bipolar illness? Psychiatric DSM, already in its 5th reincarnation, is a classic example of “glossary” with constantly changing subjective diagnostic criteria of diagnoses.

Egerton was the first one to compile a glossary. But he was in India for a short time and only in a small part of it. He knew absolutely nothing of anything outside its NW region, of the influence of, say, South on Deccan, of Deccan on NW and vice versa, the rest of Indian history and ad infinitum. He was simply the first, and as such poorly informed.

Stone was the next, and his Glossary is still a tremendously important but not perfect educational instrument.

Elgood stand heads and shoulders above them. His glossaries were researched to the hilt, but he repeatedly reminds the readers that much is not known yet.

Still, all three are perfect examples of earnest and honest attempts to systematize our knowledge. Their input was and is priceless. So, the word “ glossary” should not be viewed with derision and sarcasm.

All my objections to the soft side of “ weaponology” address ignorant and self-adoring publications, from articles and books , pretending to be called “ research” , resorting to omission or fabrication of what is already known, in short ,- ignorance married to deception.

I have nothing against color albums: they are better than black and white:-)

But if one wants to be engaged in real science, let him become a chemist, a physicist, a molecular biologist or an engineer. Science is a full time job. Otherwise, one should keep study of ancient weapons as a hobby and do not pretend to be a specialist. That is what I do and am happy about having a relaxing “vacation” from real science that demands from me brutal objectivity and is by definition falsifiable:-) One may be permitted to assemble examples and advance hypotheses for their potential use by the professionals. These publications may be accepted and cited, or conversely , ignored, critiqued or thrown into the garbage pile by the true knowledgeable and dedicated researchers.

Mercenary · 17th June 2022, 10:34 AM

Linguistics is an exact science. History is also an exact science, if historians do it, and not politicians or populists. Ethnography is generally reality itself. These three sciences are essential in the study of traditional weapons especially oriental ones.
All sciences are exact sciences if they are practiced by professionals. If physics, chemistry or molecular biology will be dealt with by art historians and other connoisseurs of beauty (or dealers in chemical reagents, synchrophasotrons or microscopes trade), then these sciences will immediately cease to be exact sciences.

Mercenary · 17th June 2022, 10:40 AM

"The Indian Sword" by Philip Rawson is the only book in the field of Indian weapons research that can be called a scientific work.

ariel · 17th June 2022, 03:01 PM

Rawson has my respect: his book was the first one dedicated specifically to Indian arms.
But to call his book “…the only ….scientific work…” is rather funny. Rawson was never interested in arms history. This book was an assignment given to him to describe the collection of the V&A Museum. He never ventured outside of it and was not even certain whether other similar collections existed elsewhere, India not even mentioned. As a result, he assigned names to different objects simply by their percent-wise representation of labels on which they were listed in the V&A archives. He was lumping mechanical damascus and wootz together: Fig.6: “ watered mechanical damascus of the Kirk Narduban pattern”, pp. 19-20 describing 4 patterns of Persian damascus: Kirk Narduban, Bidr or Qum, Begami and Sham, all of which were allegedly produced by a “method of mechanical damascus/ pattern welding” etc, etc, etc. His bibliography list doesn’t even mention books by Buttin and Stone. In short, while sorely needed in the 1960’s as the “first”, this book outlived its purpose because of not being “right”.

Having finished his assignment, Rawson published nothing more in the arms history field, concentrating instead on Oriental erotic art. The only conceivable connection between them is his repeated mention of the “ phallic energy” of Indian swords:-)

Mercenary · 17th June 2022, 06:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ariel

The only conceivable connection between them is his repeated mention of the “ phallic energy” of Indian swords

That is why swords and any other weapons are used in puja ceremony. The "phallic energy" - this is in short form for Europeans, so as not to explain for a long time. By the way, I'm going to explain this in detail soon. In Russian, of course.

15th June 2022, 11:16 PM	#3
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	And all these articles will be written by the very same type of people you are describing in your previous post :-))) All soft sciences have a good percentage of their results, discussions and conclusions based on personal prejudices, fantasies and wishful thinking. They also employ highfalutin’ words, convoluted sentences and manipulative arguments. They are incapable of dissociating from personal tastes and ambitions and cannot employ the main scientific instrument,- the experiment. All historical sciences in the best possible case have at their disposal a bunch of quotations from the sources of unknown veracity and objects of uncertain age, origin and significance. Two different academically-minded individuals will easily produce three mutually exclusive conclusions . In a way, they are akin to psychiatry, the last frontier of medicine. Having very limited sources of objective information, they rely on the external appearance and subjective “complaints” : how can we be certain, for example, that a patient suffers from borderline personality and not from bipolar illness? Psychiatric DSM, already in its 5th reincarnation, is a classic example of “glossary” with constantly changing subjective diagnostic criteria of diagnoses. Egerton was the first one to compile a glossary. But he was in India for a short time and only in a small part of it. He knew absolutely nothing of anything outside its NW region, of the influence of, say, South on Deccan, of Deccan on NW and vice versa, the rest of Indian history and ad infinitum. He was simply the first, and as such poorly informed. Stone was the next, and his Glossary is still a tremendously important but not perfect educational instrument. Elgood stand heads and shoulders above them. His glossaries were researched to the hilt, but he repeatedly reminds the readers that much is not known yet. Still, all three are perfect examples of earnest and honest attempts to systematize our knowledge. Their input was and is priceless. So, the word “ glossary” should not be viewed with derision and sarcasm. All my objections to the soft side of “ weaponology” address ignorant and self-adoring publications, from articles and books , pretending to be called “ research” , resorting to omission or fabrication of what is already known, in short ,- ignorance married to deception. I have nothing against color albums: they are better than black and white:-) But if one wants to be engaged in real science, let him become a chemist, a physicist, a molecular biologist or an engineer. Science is a full time job. Otherwise, one should keep study of ancient weapons as a hobby and do not pretend to be a specialist. That is what I do and am happy about having a relaxing “vacation” from real science that demands from me brutal objectivity and is by definition falsifiable:-) One may be permitted to assemble examples and advance hypotheses for their potential use by the professionals. These publications may be accepted and cited, or conversely , ignored, critiqued or thrown into the garbage pile by the true knowledgeable and dedicated researchers. Last edited by ariel; 16th June 2022 at 06:24 PM.

17th June 2022, 10:34 AM	#4
Mercenary Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Moscow, Russia Posts: 428	Linguistics is an exact science. History is also an exact science, if historians do it, and not politicians or populists. Ethnography is generally reality itself. These three sciences are essential in the study of traditional weapons especially oriental ones. All sciences are exact sciences if they are practiced by professionals. If physics, chemistry or molecular biology will be dealt with by art historians and other connoisseurs of beauty (or dealers in chemical reagents, synchrophasotrons or microscopes trade), then these sciences will immediately cease to be exact sciences. Last edited by Mercenary; 17th June 2022 at 10:44 AM.

17th June 2022, 03:01 PM	#6
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Rawson has my respect: his book was the first one dedicated specifically to Indian arms. But to call his book “…the only ….scientific work…” is rather funny. Rawson was never interested in arms history. This book was an assignment given to him to describe the collection of the V&A Museum. He never ventured outside of it and was not even certain whether other similar collections existed elsewhere, India not even mentioned. As a result, he assigned names to different objects simply by their percent-wise representation of labels on which they were listed in the V&A archives. He was lumping mechanical damascus and wootz together: Fig.6: “ watered mechanical damascus of the Kirk Narduban pattern”, pp. 19-20 describing 4 patterns of Persian damascus: Kirk Narduban, Bidr or Qum, Begami and Sham, all of which were allegedly produced by a “method of mechanical damascus/ pattern welding” etc, etc, etc. His bibliography list doesn’t even mention books by Buttin and Stone. In short, while sorely needed in the 1960’s as the “first”, this book outlived its purpose because of not being “right”. Having finished his assignment, Rawson published nothing more in the arms history field, concentrating instead on Oriental erotic art. The only conceivable connection between them is his repeated mention of the “ phallic energy” of Indian swords:-) Last edited by Ian; 19th June 2022 at 02:25 AM. Reason: Removal of off-topic and argumentative material

17th June 2022, 10:40 AM	#5
Mercenary Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Moscow, Russia Posts: 428	"The Indian Sword" by Philip Rawson is the only book in the field of Indian weapons research that can be called a scientific work.