How old is the Kora, and from where does it origin?

[Gonzalo G]

Sorry for my posts out of phase. Sometimes I answer too quick, as I have but a few minutes on internet once or twice a week and I have not time to think better, and sometimes I bring the subject to home to answer, although delayed, to other posts. Now, about the nature of the gorkha group, I must insist in the fact that they were self-proclaimed descendants of a rajput clan. But the documental sources show otherwise. The photos, even the older ones from the 19th Century, show what it seems a more mongolic than indian presence among the gorkha warriors (when I writte ´mongolic, I mean the historical racial classification called mongolic or mongoloid which designates the type of several peoples sharing common features, as opposed to caucasian, negro or negroid, and so on, and NOT to the mongols) . Everybody can check the available documental sources to verify it. It is the same situation with the gurkha enlisted in the British Army. Who are those gurkha and from which ethnic group they came in the past? Are they gorkha warriors? Then, why many (maybe most of them) are mongolic? On other side, I have not yet seen a study about the ethic origins of the gorkha. Everybody repeats that the gorkha are descendants from rajputs, based on what they say, and somebody also mentions early brahmans, although the brahmans are not an ethnic group but a caste present in all India. And it is added that they are mainly from mongolic descent, as it was not a contradiction in terms with the above statement, because as far as I understand, rajputs are not mongolic, isn´t it?

Confronted with this information, it can be made temporarily the hypothesis, or at least, the conjecture, that the gorkha were not really an ethnic group from India, though some of its members most probably are. Among them, some or many of the members of the top elite group on the direction of the gorkha State in the time of the conquest of the Katmandu Valley. But as I said previously, for reasons of prestige all the gorkha self covered with this legend about their collective origins, though this is contradicted by the massive presence of individuals of mongolic descent, judging by the available documental sources.

On the other side, I saved the page from the other thread, linked above:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ght=kora+tibet

(Jens, why you didn´t mention THAT picture from B.I. of the indian sculpture?). That thread is very interesting, as it has the same subject of this one. For one side, the possible origins of the kora are mentioned. The pictures of the weapons nailed in the Bag Bharirav temple in Kirtipur (post No. 20 in that thread) makes me think. If this are weapons sized by the gorkha from their enemies of the Katmandu Valley, I see proportionally many koras there. If the koras were not used but rarely, why so many (again proportionally) of them? They are mainly seized koras, and not other kind of weapons. And if the koras were exclusive from the gorkha and the khukri a very extended weapon in all Nepal since then, why the gorkha seized koras from the people of the Katmandu Valley, and why only one of what it seems a kora handled khukri appear in this photos? Of course, there is the possibility that the photos maybe does not show all the weapons present on the temple, and they are selectively showed in this photos. Maby the persons who traveled to Nepal can explain.

I can reinforce my reasons to explain the possible absence of the kora in latter times, and the undeniable bigger proportion of khukris with this simple example: in other times, in México, there were used swords and sabers by many people. And also machetes, in bigger numbers, as the machete was a working people, and besides alwayas has been a cheaper tool-weapon and in México the poor people always has been the much bigger part of the population. Today, you can’t find swords and sabers in the towns of the country. Not even in private hands. They are not made or purchased anymore, and the survivors were sold much time ago to collectors. Mainly foreign collectors. In other times, we had mexican, spanish, french, german and USA swords and sabers by tons. But not anymore. Instead, you can find at least one machete in every house on the country, or in most of them. We can declare the machete a national tool-weapon, Most of the actual mexicans never saw a physical saber, but in pictures, even when we had a revolution less than one hundred years ago, and plenty of sabers were circulating in all the country. If a european comes to Mexico, he could think that only few swords and sabers existed here, and that mexicans fought only with machetes all his wars.

Simon, what gives a person good grounds and evidence for a statement about an antique weapon, is not the fact that he has traveled to the place in which those weapons were used, unless he also travels in time. Certainly he can pick up a lot of information looking at this weapons, and he can hear many testimonies, but that has limitations. MATERIAL evidence is needed. You need archaelogical proof, or at least probable cause, based on some facts and a good logical reasons. I have traveled, almost lived, part of my life in the USA. I have made some research about the origin of the Bowie knife, which is still made in this days. It is relatively a very recent model of knife, and it appeared in a society with some level of education. But nobody knows for sure the original design of this knife and from which designs evolved. Not even the historians have this information. The knife shown in El Alamo Museum, supposedly a knife from Bowie, is not a Bowie, but what it seems a bronze handled artillery sword with a modified blade. Many probabilities are open. The important thing is to recognize that, without material evidence, some of this probabilities will be open, including the descendency from a spanish-mexican knife. All the political statements about this subject are superfluos. And also, the fact that even for a more rececent historical model, the existing difficulties in identifying the source and original model of this weapon, and this without having the languaje barrier.

Is very problematic making dogmas in this conditions. If in Nepal there is a reaction agains the brahmanic doings there and this brings to political statements about the kora and the khukri as 'national´weapons, or about their origins, it is not our problem. Looking other threads, as the one linked here, I tend to concur with Jens. Yes, the kora and the khukri could be nepali weapons, but the indian influence on them (even their indian original SOURCES), seem to be very probable, and not only possible. I also strongly agree with the need to use the kind of sources Jens mentions. I can add that it seems a research about the origins of the khukri and the kora passes in an unavoidable manner throught the study of those indian sources, not to mention others. What we can make, is to search some of this sources and discuss them with some scientific approach.

Does anyone has seen or read about the way the koras were carried into battle? I need to confirm this point.

Gonzalo