Tulwar Hilt Types

[Jens Nordlunde]

Thank you Jim. It was nice of you to write, as no one else seems to be interested any more.

There are a few things, which I should have mentioned, but now I have the opportunity to do so. Seeing weapons in Indian armouries, or weapons marked in the different armouries, is most interesting, but you must be aware of a few things. The weapons could have been made at the armoury, but they don’t have to be, although marked at the armoury the reason for this are the many wars going on in India during the centuries, and with the wars came the looting, so the weapons may have changed hands many times, and come from many different places, before they end up in our collections.

An example could be the Raja’s of Bikaner, as many of them served in the Mughal army as officers and were highly decorated, as the soldiers of Bikaner were regarded some of the best. On Raja especially (sorry I can’t recall his name at the moment) participated in a lot of battles, often as a general, and ended up as governor of Deccan for twenty years. What he ‘collected’ after all his battles, we can’t know; but one thing is sure – what he collected of weapons he sent back to the Bikaner armoury, where it was dot marked. So in many of the Rajasthan armouries you will find weapons, marked or not, for a lot of different places in India.

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Jens,
It seems one of the unfortunate realities that some individuals seem to ask questions on very pertinant topics, and when responses are made, we have no way of knowing whether the efforts extended were of any use as they simply do not make note or courtesy responses.

I would think that out of courtesy, one would follow up on thier posts, and try to make a comment or thank you. Sometimes maybe they are having computer trouble or a hard time at work or who knows, in any case, it clearly is often disappointing.

I do know that most of my writing is often for my own learning , which comes from the research necessary to write on the topics I address, and I complete the posts to hopefully share what I have found with others. Despite the lack of response which is sometimes apparant, the information extended by those of us participating and shared is typically pertinant in some degree, and often serves for future research for those who do use the search functions here.

I always get excited when I see topics concerning Indian arms, as it does seem the subject becomes dormant frequently, and I am always hoping for new entries. Thanks again!

All very best regards,
Jim

[KuKulzA28]

I'd just like to say, please carry on... all this hilt variation and all is a bit confusing but I am reading and re-reading... thanks for being good researchers and fountains of knowledge.

[sta94]

Great info guys, highly appreciated. I'm just a beginner in the serious study of this subject matter (swords from South Asia and neighboring areas) and appreciate any relevant info. I find myself in India fairly often these days and am planning to look up museums with decent arms collections.

[Mefidk]

I too find this topic very interesting as a new collector of these arms.

What strikes me about the tulwar hilts that we commonly see is that there are a limited number of features which can be mixed and matched, but which somehow must provide some reliable information if only we knew the history of the pieces.
I wonder does anyone know if there has been anyone working on morphometric studies of these perhaps in a similar way to cladistics in taxonomy? Such an analysis would always be reliant on good provenence (and messed up by the kind of battlefield collecting and subequent armory marking mentioned by Jens), but given enough material might be able to create some generic rules. Maybe this kind of study has been applied to other weapon groups already? I would imagine it would work well for Indonesian weapons too since these seem to well understood in terms for form and tribal origins. Just an idle idea from a biologist

[Jim McDougall]

Thank you so much guys for the kind words and encouragement! It is truly heartening to see the interest in Indian arms and armour drawing new interest and while there has been a great deal of study done, there is clearly so much more to be done.

Mefidk, most interesting approach and extremely well placed suggestions!
It does seem that many weapon groups have been discussed and considered in these kinds of considerations, such as the development of the sabre; the flyssa of Berber North Africa; the Kastane of Sri Lanka and numerous other ethnographic forms.
As for European and regulation military weapons, the same types of taxonomical approach is often used in a sense by associating features and elements of hilts of various countries and looking for influences by comparison.
Often interesting examples of the joining of ethnographic and military forms are seen, which leads to fascinating examples.

In this regard, there are numbers of instances of this with tulwars for example with the Native regiments of the British Raj. I have seen examples of British made tulwars (by Mole of Birmingham) as well as regimentally marked specimens.

Getting back to the subject of classification, I have always been a firm believer in comprehensive study of many subjects in researching a weapon or group of weapons with certain similiarities, but find the suggestion of classification in biological terms absolutely intriguing. Up until now, I had only thought of that perspective in terms of convergent evolution

As is well known, the movement of blades cross culturally via trade, warfare or colonial presence, and combinations of all of these, has brought wide diffusion worldwide to them. The study of hilt forms is typically a matter of local preference, though certain influences transmitted in much the same manner as blades cannot be discounted.

There have been many efforts to try to establish certain classifications for tulwar hilt forms, pribably one of the most well known being the work by Dr. G.N.Pant, "Indian Arms and Armour". While the examples shown in this work reveal certain styles of hilts of tulwars having a degree of consistancy, the classifications assigned can probably be best described as somewhat arbitrary. The intense diversity of ethnicity, religions, cultures, languages, tribal warfare and colonial incursions of many world powers are just the primary dynamics which reflect the constant state of flux constantly present in the colorful history of this fascinating nation, ironically also presents many challenges in the study of her weapons.

While these factors offer exciting opportunities in researching these weapons, in many respects they present undeniable barriers as well.
The diffusion of hilt forms in tulwars is one of the ever present reasons why it is difficult to assign regional classifications to thier variations. The examples with known provenance in early works ,by Egerton for example, are noted by the region from which they were presented. This meant that these specific examples may well have been indiginous to the region from which they were brought...but then again, may have been collected from the battlefields as described, or perhaps had been gifts or holdings in the local armoury from elsewhere.

The only remedy for this conundrum is typically noting significant volume of like provenanced examples, which would establish the likelihood that a certain type or style of hilt actually was prevalent in that region. With this, the next hurdle is to determine the 'morphometrics' with examination of examples that might reveal progressive dates or periods to discover chronological development of the form.

Again, thank you guys for joining in here! And while many of you note you are new to this field of collecting, please remember here we are all students....and we learn together by sharing. Please submit any examples and questions openly so that we might all gain by discussing them.

All the very best,
Jim

[Jens Nordlunde]

In Memorials of the Jaypore Exhibition 1883, Hendley in vol. II, plate LVIII shows three hilts. From left to right, Gujarat, Jaypore and Gujarat. A hilt like the last one is also shown on plate LVII, but this one has a double hand guard, to protect the fingers and the hand.

Often the old authors would use the armoury labels when they described a weapon, and if a weapon was wrongly labelled they did not always notice it, so later authors who used the books, as a source would repeat the mistake, and sometimes the mistake would be accepted, as it had been repeated many times. In this case however, I think it is safe to accept Hendley’s statement as the hilts were sent to the exhibition, and at that time they were newly made.