Hunting Tulwar (Tulwar Shikargah)

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by mariusgmioc

…
For a blade to have good edge retention, it is very important to have an optimized mix between hardness and toughness. Hardness and toughness are inversely dependent. As hardness goes up, toughness goes down. If hardness is too high, the edge is prone to chipping. If toughness is too high, the edge is prone to bending.

Hardness is generally achieved through heat treatment, as raw blade steels tend to be rather soft (but tough)....

True, but blades can be differentially heat treated with tougher spines and harder edge. A hard edge steel can be inserted into tougher steel in the main part of the weapon too. Both done historically. A bent blade can be straightened in the field. A broken one cannot.

Carving pre-treatment would make that treatment rather difficult, as you note. Especially if the carvings come very close to the edge.

[Norman McCormick]

Hi,
Europe has a long tradition of depicting scenes of the hunt and of trophies of the hunt on weapons that are particularly designed for hunting. Perhaps it may be the case in other cultures?
Regards,
Norman.

[Jim McDougall]

FROM: "Arms and Armour at the Jaipur Court"
Robert Elgood, New Delhi, 2015
In this resoundingly important reference, it is noted that Shikargah was a Persian term for a Mughal hunting sword, and refers to miniatures showing the use of swords to hunt animals.

Naturally, we do not know that these swords for hunting were specifically designated and decorated with hunting or animal scenes, just that swords were indeed used for this purpose. As noted in my previous post, Blackmore states that swords used for hunting were the same as those in general use.

Elgood notes further that the shikargah term was "subsequently applied commercially, quite wrongly, to 19th century decorative swords with chiselled animals down the length of the blade,also referred to as shamshir shikargah.


He notes that the Kashmiri swords with animals and men (as noted by Egerton in 1880) with gold relief were made in the Punjab, and were decorative never made for use.
Apparently Mughal hunters considered that a true hunting sword should have dark hilt and mounts and that gold or silver were too conspicuous and would frighten the quarry.

In the footnotes in the text (#319) :
Akbar slaying tigers near Gwalior in 1561 (painted 1600) V&A museum
#320 Hendley, 'Memorials of the Jeypore Exhibition ' 1883, pl. X

These two examples of shikargah are as noted of latter 19th c. but are of far too high quality (in my opinion) to simply be decorative souvenirs.
Part of the diplomatic pageantry and ceremony during the Raj were the durbars of course, but the hunt was a much celebrated event. I would suggest these kinds of weapons may well have been presented in accord with these.

I looked into "The Use of Flora and Fauna Imagery in Mughal Decorative Arts" (Stephan Markel, "Marg", Vol.50, #3, March 1997) to see if there was anything specific to hunt scenes etc. but there was not. It was more to the allegorical and metaphorical aspects of various animals...naming lions (early 17thc) then horses, nilgai (blue grey Indian antelopes), camels, elephants, parrots, rams, and goats, with these referring to zoomorphic hilts.

From : By My Sword and Shield", E.Jaiwent Paul, New Delhi, 1995, p.110;
"......the custom of giving gifts at the durbar (court)of local rulers and at every public reception of a guest, has also contributed to the demand for ornamental arms. At the Mughal court the bestowal of weapons was a mark of high distinction and a beautiful sword or dagger at the belt of a courtier indicated his position at the court, signaling imperial approval".

[Nihl]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

"... subsequently applied commercially, quite wrongly, to 19th century decorative swords with chiselled animals down the length of the blade,also referred to as shamshir shikargah."

Hi all! Just popping in again to give what info I can here. First of all, in my opinion as someone who mainly studies indian arms, I believe this quote from Elgood (that I have quoted above from Jim's post) is the most important thing to keep in mind here. That is to say that, principally, these aren't hunting swords, or swords with some deep hunting-related symbolism behind them, but rather just swords that happen to have hunting scenes carved into the blades. Most of them were made simply as high quality tourist pieces, and indeed most seem to have succeeded to this point - even to this day westerners seem to get consistently ensnared by the concept that these swords were of deep importance, commensurate with the intensity of their carvings.

My intention here being not to tear down or disregard how cool or impressive the amount of detail in some of these swords can be, but rather just a message of warning not to conflate ultimately vapid tourist bait with those decorations that have legitimate spiritual/religious significance (ok I'll admit calling these swords "vapid" is a bit harsh, but I hope that you all get what I mean ).

Anyways, onto some new-ish information for this discussion, I'd like to point out some linguistic info. As the phrase "shamshir shikargar(h)" would imply, this phrase is likely of a persian or heavily persian-influenced origin (what with the use of the term shamshir as opposed to tulwar). Of note, however, is that even in modern hindi, the term "shikar" is most often used to refer to the action of hunting or a hunter, with "shikargar" indeed likely being an older/archaic term for the latter. The modern term in hindi for a hunter, meanwhile, is funnily enough even more persianized; "shikari". The "i" at the end serving the same purpose as the i in say, afghani, iraqi, punjabi, etc., i.e. designating that something is of/comes from that place. In the case of "shikari", this would mean they are a "person of the hunt", literally speaking. I would be willing to guess this is what the "gar(h)" at the end of "shikargar(h)" means as well.

One possible explanation for this relates to the root of the verb "to do" in hindi being "kar", which could potentially be misheard and colonially transliterated as "gar" instead, especially when spoken quickly by a native speaker (someone saying something along the lines of "(this is a) shamshir shikar kar" - a shamishir that one is to hunt with). This is also why I prefer using the spelling of "shikargar", as I feel "shikargah" is phonetically too vague and, likely, is the result of someone mishearing the last consonant of the original term.

Finally, however, I will note that all of this linguistics talk is pure speculation and conjecture. I am, compared to an actual, professional linguist, purely a "linguistic dilettante" of sorts, and though I find the area fascinating I am not at all fluent in Hindi or any other south asian language. Rather, all of this is built off of the 1 and a half years of hindi that I took while at university .

[Jim McDougall]

Nihl, thanks very much for these interesting insights. While I am far from being a linguist as well, I find these kinds of looks into etymology and transliteration fascinating.
What I found in Pant (op. cit. 1980, p.76) was the listing for SHAMSHIR SHIKARGAHA, where he notes (footnote 271) that G.C.Stone (p.553) wrongly spells it as 'shamshir shikargar'.

The Mughal courts were profoundly influenced by the Persians of course, and often did, in high station, carry shamshirs. Here I would note that the term 'shamshir' was of course quite collectively used in Persian for saber, much in the same manner that talwar was used in India for 'sword' in similar manner.
There are suggestions that the word tulwar is also of Persian root.

Many Indian tulwars (Indo-Persian hilt) are termed 'shamshir' (see my post #27 examples from Elgood), while there are shamshir style hilts (the one attached believed Deccani) which are termed tulwar.
In the Native cavalry of the Raj, even the British cavalry sabers carried by them were termed tulwars.

I take the opportunity here to correct my comment in previous post about "The Indian Sword" P.Rawson, 1969.......where I said there was no mention of shikargah......and later found this salient note on p.30;

"...all the sword forms known from the North-West, both from works of art and surviving examples,are versions of the talwar. Although during the late 18th c. the cities of the North-West passed under Sikh and Rajput rule, the sword made and used there remained the talwar.
In the ornament of the weapons however, the craftsmen returned to Hindu motives for inspiration. For example at Lahore, whereas under the Mughlas SWORD BLADES HAD BEEN CHISELED WITH ROWS OF ANIMAL AND HUMAN FIGURES IN PERSIAN STYLE, under the Sikhs the same type of chiseled work was carried on, but the figures were of Hindu origin such as avatars of Vishnu, or the planetary divinities".

This entry would suggest that swords with these chiseled scenes in the blades were indeed viable weapons as produced in these Punjabi regions under Mughal rule, and continued using Hindu motif under the Sikhs and Rajputs.

I found online an example of a 'kirach' stated from Lahore from late 18th c. with Mughal 'shikargah motif. The kirach is simply a tulwar with a straight blade which ticks forward at the tip.

Also, for further reference, which I have not yet consulted:
"Sikh Heritage: Ethos & Relics" by Bhayee Sikander Singh and Roopinder Singh, p.146
A tulwar of Guru Gobind Singh of 18th c. with hunting scenes, which seems contradictory to the previous note on Sikhs using Hindu motif.


Attached: Deccani tulwar
Lahore kirach with shikarga blade

[mariusgmioc]

A quite compelling argument that these tulwars with elaborately decorated blades were NOT actually used for hunting but were merely presentation swords is the condition of their edge.

All the blades of this kind that I have seen, as well as the examples presented here, do not show any traces of use and resharpening on their edges, but have the intact, original edge geometry.

[fernando]

Looks like is beyond doubt that hunting talwars are not meant to be an operational weapon for hunting but a 'show off' item decorated with hunting scenes.
Still one thing to figure out is, why the massive quantity of these blades depict animal versus animal hunting scenes and not animals being hunted by men, be them their chasers (shikharis and mir shikaran) or their mounted hunter lords. Would there be a motive for such strong tendency ?

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by mariusgmioc

A quite compelling argument that these tulwars with elaborately decorated blades were NOT actually used for hunting but were merely presentation swords is the condition of their edge.

All the blades of this kind that I have seen, as well as the examples presented here, do not show any traces of use and resharpening on their edges, but have the intact, original edge geometry.

I agree with this observation, in accord with the blades not being sharpened, but I cannot say that I have personally seen or handled these blades myself to concur. Mostly the suggestion that these were 'ceremonial' or diplomatic gifts in js my own opinion based on the cited material from references in my previous posts, as well as personal conversations with some of the authors of references on Indian arms who note that these were not for use in the hunt.

As I have tried to illustrate in previous posts, the use of animals in motif panels on blades in many cases were toward allegorical or metaphoric symbolism important culturally, not just representing hunting scenes.
As shown also previously, the themes changed in Lahore for example from animals and hunting with Mughal rule, to figures in Hindu deities with Rajput and Sikh takeover, but still in similar 'Persian' style.

The blades being decorated, again, as I noted earlier, the bestowal of highly ornate weapons was a keen distinction at durbars and welcoming events, and such weapons worn by courtiers signified status and regal approval (Paul, 1995).

In Europe, the custom of presenting elaborately decorated and sometimes ostentatious weapons as awards and for meritorious purposes to military officers is well known. As far as I have known, these were never carried into battle, let alone the regular dress swords worn by officers.

In European gentry, the hunting sword was often a fashionable item, which is why they have often been classified as 'court swords' (Dean, 1929). However the motifs vary and often were focused on talismanic and heraldic or regalia oriented themes.
Much as with durbars the hunt was typically associated with gathering and interacting of key figures where fashion and status were of utmost importance and weaponry was of course a means of signifying that.

With these kinds of arms, the themes and motifs are typically symbolic and decorative in my opinion, and not designs applied to a weapon to be specifically used for hunting. The themes were either toward cultural or perhaps even dynastic symbolism (Mughals) or religious as with the Hindi deities as noted. In many of the scenes depicted with animal vs. animal, these are possibly to be allegorically intended as certain animals have certain representations in ethnic cultures. In many cases, animals were trained, even to hunt, as with cheetahs in the Mughal courts.
The examples with elephants and humans tumbling obviously may represent mahouts and their matters with these, which ironically were often used in the hunt.

Tipu Sultan, who used the sobriquet, "The Tiger of Mysore", often was depicted allegorically as a fierce tiger, attacking and killing Europeans in various material work, and used 'bubris' (tiger stripes) to decorate most of his weaponry and uniforms etc.

In Persia the lion, and the mythical bird, the Simorgh, are used on blades in these stylings.

As always, the commercialism toward weaponry which seems to have originated in the Victorian period has severely clouded the history of these and many weapon forms.

[Cathey]

Hi Guys

Jens has suggested I look at these references but sadly I only have Volume 1, if anyone has Volume 2 of Memorials of the Jeypore Exhibition and can scan the following references I would be most obliged.

"Vol. II contains weapons, vases and other stuff. Vol. III only vases and other stuff.
Amongst the weapons in vol. II I found three of these hunting swords. The text is from vol. I.
Plate XXIII, no. 1. Hunting sword, Shikárgah. Steel. Figures of animals, birds, and foliage in high relief on both sides of the blade; hilt an knuckle guard steel. (Karauli Armoury).
Plate XXVIII, no. 4. Hunting sword, Shikárgah. The reverse of Plate XXIII, 1. (Karauli Armoury).
Plate XXIX, no. 4. Hunting sword, Shikárgah. or Sirohi gaj bail. Hunting scenes in high relief on the blade. (Ulwar Armoury).
Plate XXXIX, no. 3. Hunting sword, Shikárgah, with large curve. Covered on both sides, with figures of animals and birds in relief outlined in gold."

I have just received Fighting, Hunting, Impressing Arms and Armour from the Islamic World 1500-1850 and this does contain some information in relation to these Hunting Tulwar (Tulwar Shikargah). I still have 5 books on the way so hopefully these will asist.

Cheers Cathey

Cheers Cathey