How did they measure sword blades?

[A. G. Maisey]

Indian and other general ethnographic weaponry is not my field, fifty years ago it was, but then I began to specialise.

I most humbly suggest that the modern Western European idea of measurement of a weapon is not the same, nor does it have the same objectives as the medieval and archaic idea of Indian measurement of a weapon.

As a collector, or even a student of Indian weaponry one may decide upon a method of measurement that will produce a number which relates to a universal standard. This will satisfy the objective of present day student or collector:- he wants to know how long the blade is.

Based upon transmitted medieval mores which still exist outside of India, and for all I know, perhaps within India as well, the objective of a medieval Indian when he measured a blade was not to relate the length of the blade to a universal standard, but rather to an esoteric standard, and by doing so ensuring that the weapon was suitable for his personal use.

In a field other than Indian weaponry I have very often offered the opinion that it is impossible to understand a cultural artifact (ie, weapon) in the absence of an understanding of the way in which the people of that culture thought at the time the cultural artifact was produced. I rather think that perhaps the same might be true of Indian swords.