Persian inscription- Late 18th century Shamshir

[kwiatek]

Originally Posted by KharaghdariSingh

Hello everyone,

I have bought this Late 18th century Shamshir a while ago, with a Persian inscription on the inside of the hilt's knuckle guard. The Shamshir, from what the seller said, and what I've seen myself in the past, is from the late 18th century, from Punjab. The blade is composed of Dark Wootz(Irani Kara taban) The floral pattern on the hilt, I've seen on other hilts belonging to Punjab in that era. I was wondering if anyone is able to decipher the Persian inscription on the hilt?

I think it's not really Persian, but more likely Hindustani or Panjabi in Persian/Arabic letters. I'm not very experienced in reading this type of inscription, but the first word looks like کهندراو "Khanderao", which actually sounds more Maratha. There's a samvat date at the end - it says sam[v]at, with a date above it, the only numbers of which I can see are 2 and 7, which doesn't help that much. I supposed it could be Vikram Samvat [18]27, which would be 1770.

All the Sikh inscriptions I've seen on pieces of this type say akal saha'i ('may the Immortal One protect ...") followed by the name of the owner. This clearly isn't the same formula, however