Poisoned pearls

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Mercenary

Sometimes I speak about it. The problem with the knowledge of Indian weapons began when the European men started "studied" traditional Indian weapons in 19th. They were not ethnographers, art historians or culturologists. Just the brilliant British men who were interested in something curious from a mysterious distant country.
They were not in Japan. So we have genuine knowledge of Japanese weapons and excellent classification. They did not study diligently and did not classify Chinese weapons. Thank them for that. So we can something understand in Chinese weapons too.
You know on what kind of sources Pant was based. It is not interesting. His books are good as encyclopedias, not more.
Jauhar, jouhar, johar - a pearl, shine of pearl, essence (soul), quality, worth.
In poetical texts "jauhar blade" was not "waved" or any "high-carbon" steel :-)
We must remember that those people had another understanding about their weapons. They did not treat arms like just a piece of iron for murdering. They had many meanings for weapons, and a murder was the last of them.

Jauhar. This is a more complex concept than just some kind of steel. But without a proper understanding of this word we could never understand what pearls are doing inside blades.

Oh.. Indian word for self immolation in Persian was written the same way.

Very well explained Mercenary, and you are very right about the importance of striving for better understanding of ethnographic arms in their cultural context. Early writers for the most part did see the many forms and unusual styles of weaponry, but mostly as 'colonial' curiosities and souveniers to line parlors.
Much of this derived from the Anglo-centric attitude, well seen in the writing of Sir Richard Burton. However writers like Egerton brought at least well documented observations and cataloguing of weapons classified into the areas which seemed to be the predominant regions of use.

Burton as I have understood, regarded Professor Oppert, who was indeed interested in anthropology, as a bit over the top as he 'regarded too much toward the Indian arms as from metaphysical perspective'.

Other writers followed suit, and stuck pretty much to categorization and arbitrary classifications, avoiding any deeper view into symbolism and meaning. this remained the case, until scholars like Jens entered the scope of study. Actually Jens was involved in the printing of one of the seminal modern works on these arms, "The Indian Sword" by Philip Rawson, 1967.
This was actually a catalog work of classification study of the arms in the Victoria & Albert Museum.
While this was 'more of the same', Jens wanted to move to the next level, and sought the answers to the ever unanswered deep questions that had been ignored by collectors and writers, who simply wanted classification.

As his work continued, in 2004, Robert Elgood brought forward the outstanding reference, "Hindu Arms and Ritual", which at last placed in print the very perspective in which these Indian arms should be studied. While others had published articles which also did have that in degree, this reference pretty much 'put it on the map'.

The Pant reference (1980) is as noted, with its flaws, but for some time had stood as a key reference, though its attention to more subjective aspects was also deeply lacking .

It is quite well known that the Western inquisitiveness often, perhaps too much so, invents or contrives almost fanciful notions of how many unusual weapons are used in these native contexts. However, in many cases, these may not be as far off as we think, as in many cases, certain traditional , superstitious or even metaphysical concepts are represented in designs, motif and other elements.
These, as you note, can only be well recognized by the true knowledge and understanding of the people who used the arms we study, and what THEY believed.
This is what we know as the STUDY of ethnographic arms, not just collecting and cataloguing them.

Good notes on the linguistics, and clearly there are transliteration issues, which constantly plague the efforts of those who involved in these studies.
By discussing, as here, we achieve a broader view of the words or topics considered and can better understand the appropriate perspective.