The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.409

v1.c10.409

**Daggers, &c. :** Of the short sword or dagger, the true war-knife and its varieties, the poniard, the stiletto, and the *kuṭhār*, the sculptures of Orissa and Sāñci, afford a great number of examples. Illustration No. 186, from the Great Tower, is very like a Nepalese knife. No. 185 is a broad, blunt-ended knife with a carved deer-head handle; and No. 184, is a knife of the same description, but with a lancet-headed point, taken from a male figure found under a banian tree near the Mārkaṇḍa Tank at Puri. Illustration No. 205 is from the temple of Gaurī. It is a triangular-bladed dagger or cut and thrust knife, which used to be held by the cross bar at the bottom. It belongs to the same class with the *kuṭhār* of the present day. Illustration No. 200, is also peculiar; it is from Bhuvaneśvara. In Orissa this weapon seems to have been a great favourite, and on the Great Tower several nude statues in amatory positions are made to carry it in their waist bands. The *sphyu* or sacrificial knife of the Vedic times was a dagger; but it was made entirely of wood.