The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c10.s5: V. Daggers and Knives

The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c10.s5

Language: English

V. Daggers and Knives

c10.s5.1

These were of various shapes and kinds, for each of which there was a separate name.

Kaṭār, kaṭārah, kaṭārī. This is a Hindī word, kaṭṭār (Shak., 1556), probably from the same root as the verb kāṭnā, to cut. The translator of the Seir (i, 549, note 53) thus describes it, “A poignard peculiar to India made with a hilt, whose two branches extend along the arm, so as to shelter the hand and part of the arm. The blade is very thick with two cutting edges, having a breadth of three inches at the hilt and a solid point of about one inch in breadth. The blade cannot be bent and is so stiff that nothing will stop it but a cuirass. The total length is 2 to 2½ feet, one half of this being the blade.” The hilt has at right angles to the blade a cross-bar by which the weapon is grasped, and it is thus only available for a forward thrust. It is named in the Āīn, i, 112, being N°. 10, and it is fig. 9 on plate xii. There the blade is slightly curved; Mustapha’s description corresponds perhaps more nearly to fig. 4 of the same plate, the *jamdhar*. There are about twenty five specimens entered in Egerton (pp. 102, 109, 116, 131) and five of these are shown on plates ix, x (two) and xiii (two). The blades are of various patterns, and the length varies from 9 to 17½ inches. One N°. 340 is forked or two-bladed. Yule, “Glossary” 815, refers to two from Travancore which had blades of 20 and 26 inches. Others of great length are described by Mr. Walhouse in the “Indian Antiquary,” vii, 193. The *Bānk* is called in Egerton, N°. 335, p. 102, the B. *katārī*, but the figure on plate ix shows it as being like a knife and without the handle characteristic of the *katār*. Stavorinus, quoted by Yule, “Glossary,” 816, speaks of a dagger, the name of which he translates as belly piercer. No one seems to know what Indian word was intended unless it were the *kaṭṭār*, which may be translated the “cutter” (quasi, “piercer”).

c10.s5.3

*Jamdhar*. This is N°. 4 in the *Āīn*, i, 112, and figure N°. 4 in plate xii. This figure has the same handle as a *kaṭṭār*; but the blade is very broad and straight, while the *kaṭṭār* is given a curved blade. On the contrary Mr. Egerton, p. 102, and plate ix, Nos 344 and 345, shows the *jamdhar katārī* with a straight blade and a handle to be held like one holds a table-knife or a sword. The etymology of the word as given by J. Shakespear, 1790, is *jam*, from the Sanskrit यम, death, and *dhar*, from धार, a sharp edge. But see also Yule, “Glossary”, 358, under “Jumdud” (*jamdad*).

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*Khanjar*. We are told by Steingass, 476, that this is A., for dagger, poinard. There are eight specimens in the Indian Museum, Egerton, 502 to 506 (p. 116), 626, 627*a*, 627 (p. 131): two are shown on plate x (opp. p. 114). Most of these have doubly-curved blades, and are about 12 inches long. The *Khanjar* is N°. 5 in the *Āīn*, i, 110; and on plate xii, N°. 5, it is shown as a bent dagger with a double curve in the blade and a hilt like a sword.

c10.s5.5

Figures Nos 5 and 7 on W. Egerton's plate vi (opp. p. 53) appear to be Khanjar. Mustapha, Seir, i, 152, note 114, says that "the Khanjar is a poinard, with a bent blade, peculiar to the Turks, who carry it upright and on the right side; but it is occasionally worn by both Persians and Indians, the latter wearing it on the left side and inclined." Our word "hanger" is derived from Khanjar (Yule and Burnell, 312). Then we have the

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Jamkhāk, Āīn, i, 110, Nº. 7, plate xii, Nº. 7. If it were not for the middle letter kāf ک, I would have suggested that this word was a misreading for chamkhākh چمخاخ, a battle axe (Steingass, 389), see ante, under iii, Battle Axes. The figure in the Āīn shows a dagger and not an axe. — Could it be intended for Chāqchāq, a kind of knife?

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Jhambwah, Āīn, i, 110, Nº. 9, plate xii Nº. 9 and Egerton 106 (p. 82), 486—9 (p. 116), 798—9 (p. 145). He also gives figures on plate i, Nº. 29 (p. 23) and fig. 17 on p. 79. The Jambwah is also mentioned by him on p. 124 in a note to Nº. 581. Steingass, 373, only gives jambīyah, "a kind of arms or armour." Shakespear, 789, has "a dagger." There are also some interesting remarks by Yule, "Glossary", 357, under "Jumbeea." He inclines to a derivation from janb, A., the side.

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Bānk, Āīn, i, 110, Nº. 8, and figure Nº. 7, plate xii; Egerton, Nos 480—1 (p. 115), and note to Nº. 581 (p. 124), figure 31 on his plate i, (opp. p. 23). The name evidently comes from its curved shape (बांक, a curvature, a bend, Shakes. 275a).

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Narsingh moth, Āīn i, 110, Nº. 11 and figure 11, plate xii; Egerton, fig. Nº. 30 on plate i (opp. p. 23).

c10.s5.10

All four of these weapons seem of the same class as the Khanjar, though varying slightly in form. The same may be said of the Bichhwā and the Khapwah. Bichhwā, literally "scorpion", had a wavy blade. It is mentioned by Egerton, 27, and there are specimens in the India Museum, Nos 490—8 (p. 116), 628 (p. 131), and plate x (opp. p. 114). The *Khapwah*, N°. 6 in the *Āīn*, i, 110, must have been some sort of dagger; there is no figure of it on plate xii, but Egerton’s plate i, N°. 28, shows it as almost identical with the *jambwah*. May it not mean “the finisher, the giver of the *coup de grâce*,” from the H. verb *khapnā*, to fill up, to complete, as in the phrase, *den khap-gyā* “the debt has been liquidated?” The Persian word is *dashnah* (Steingass, 527). In some manuscripts of the *Akbarnāmah* (near the end of the 17th year), it is said, as Mr. H. Beveridge has pointed out to me, that Akbar when drunk ran after Shāhbāz Khān of Mālwah, and tried to strike him “with a *dashnah*, called in Hindī a *khapwah*”, because he refused to sing.

c10.s5.11

*Peshqabz*. The word is from P. *pesh*, front, *qabz*, grip. It was a pointed one-edged dagger, having generally a thick straight back to the blade, and a straight handle without a guard; though at times the blade was curved, or even double-curved. The *Peshkabz* is not in the *Āīn* i, 110—112, so I presume that it was included under one of the other kinds of dagger, perhaps under *kārd*, a knife, N°. 34 and fig. 28, Plate xii. In Egerton I find twenty three examples: 346 (p. 102), 381 (p. 108), 382 (p. 109), 484—5 (p. 116), 617—625 (p. 130), 717—724 (p. 138), 760 (p. 144). Of these there are 7 straight, 4 curved, and 2 double-curved blades; the shape of the rest is not stated. On plate xiv (opp. p. 136) he shows four, and on plate xv (opp. p. 140) one of these specimens. Some of the hilts have guards to them, others have none. N°. 624 is like the *khanjar* in the *Āīn*, fig. 6, plate xii; N°. 721 something like the *jambhwah*, fig. 8, same plate, and the others, Nos 712, 720, 760, more like the *kārd*, or knife, fig. 28, same plate.

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*Kārd*. This was like a butcher’s knife and kept in a sheath. It was more especially the weapon of the Afghān. For an example, see Egerton N° 750 (p. 144) and the figure on plate xv, where the total length is 2 feet 6 inches, and that of the blade alone 2 feet. This was the sort of weapon with which, on the 8th October 1720, Mīr Ḥaidar Beg, Dughlāt, assassinated Sayyad Ḥusain ʿAlī Khān, Mīr Bakhshī, in the emperor’s camp between Fatḥpur Sīkrī and Amber (Jaipur), Mḥd Qāsim, Lāhorī, *ʿIbratnāmah*, I.O.L. Nº. 252, fol. 348. The author of the *Jauhar-i-Ṣamṣām*, fol. 138a, calls the weapon then used a *chāqchaqī-i-wilāyatī*. This word is related to چاقو, a knife, (Steingass, 386, from Turkish). We have also in the *Āīn*, i, 111, the *guptī-kārd*, or knife concealed in a stick (Nº. 35, and plate xiii, Nº. 29), the whip-shaped knife, *qamchī-kārd* (Nº. 36 and plate xiii, Nº. 30), and the clasp-knife or *chāqū* (Nº. 37 and plate xiii, Nº. 31).

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*Sailābah-i-Qalmāqī* was the name for the knife used by the men from Kāshghar; it was as long as a sword, had a handle made of a fish-bone called *sher-māhī* (lion-fish), and was worn slung from a shoulder belt, Ashob, fol. 172b, 178b.