Let me see if I am understanding what people mean by the blade being modified. Are you saying that the blade was forged without the zig-zags, then sometime later they were added, either by grinding in the lines and reforging the blade flat or .... how? Forging little wootz bars onto the surface of the blade?
What catches my totally inexpert eye is that you can trace the watering pattern right through the lines, which are defined (at least to my eye) simply by a disturbance in the sworls. Would that change in the pattern happen with grinding? I can't envision how it could be done by adding metal.
Also, while I think everyone is agreeing that the surface of the blade is essentially flat and the pattern not raised, there is a slight pinching of the glare of reflected light in some of the photos (e.g., the first two below) that corresponds to the peaks and valleys of the zig-zag - it is not an even reflection along the blade such as you'd expect from a flat surface, in other words.
Final observation - some of the zig-zags are actually arcs (third photo below, right side). Does that mean anything? When I think grinder, I think straight lines unless you're using something more like an engraver, so making that turn strikes me as a tricky thing to do by grinding. Would the curve result from the post-grind reforging?
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