Indian Edged Weapons in the Prince of Wales Museum

[Moin.]

Sheild made from Rhino Hide

[Moin.]

[Moin.]

Wah! Wah! Moin
What an incredible job.
Thanks for taking the time to take and share those images with us.

Thanks so much Xl .

Regards
Moin.

[Moin.]

Wounderful stuff rMoin, been there so often but never had such a detailed insight. They also have a small collection of T'subas (hope I got that right) which are the guards on the samurai swords.

Thanks Bruno. Yes there are 2 Katanas, one of them is really hideous, presented to some high ranking british official by the 17th Maratha Light Infantry if memory serves me right. There are a few tsubas too. These looked too out of place among these priceless Indian treasures, so did not post a pic here.Will email you the pics of the katana...

Regards
Moin.

[Moin.]

My dear fellow, you have truly outdone yourself! This should be made a sticky, and you Mumbai wallas should get him a keg of beer ( Or whatever he drinks ).Or get him something nice.

Mods - Do you still hand out poster of the month awards? Now would be the time.

Thank you so much Skyman....

Regards
Moin.

[Moin.]

Katana is currently travelling.
He shuld be online day after.

Thanks AB...

Regards
MOin.

[Moin.]

Some of the swords r Saif ,goliya and khandas the khukri type r known in many names .Khukri type I was offered in Patiala similarly original tegha and Khanjars r awesome in spears one big blade spear is Karpa Barcha nagani spear u can find in plenty in Anandpur Saheb .Emperor Aurangzeb was known for skills in use of Golya or circular type sword this was known as royal sword as was worn by high offcials and kings it was a purely Mughal weapon .Khanda seems to be Rajput Khanda while sikh Khanda is always broader.Karpa Spear or wrist shaped spear r same but snakeshaped spear is chense or mangol weapon it is very lethal.Katars r purely Rajput weapon but agin sikh katars r broader these r differences.

Thanks Dsingh.

Regards
Moin.

[Moin.]

Done with the pics. Hope you gents enjoyed watching them as much as I did seeing and photographing them in person.

Thanks for going through the thread.

Regards
Moin.

[brihacharan]

Hi Moin,
> I truly admire your patience and the trouble you've taken to document these treasures.
> They were not only a visual treat but information / knowledge that many of us were either not aware of or had the opportunity to know.
> I think it would be worth your while to cut a CD with appropriate titles & notes - that would serve as a 'Teaching Tool' to students of history in schools & colleges. This would be like bringing history alive

> If I may humbly suggest to our MODS - Both Moin & Slingshot deserve to be honored with the "Poster of the Month" award.
> Moin for his contribution on "Indian Edged Weapons" & Slingshot for his contribution on "Birds in our Backyards". Two remarkable & painstaking posts that snowballed with responses from virtually every IFGian.
Briha

[surajshuresh]

Hi thanks a lot for sharing this moin...Never knew about this museum only... I have to visit this place once...

[brihacharan]

Arigun Novice wrote:
Hence the translation would throw some light on the shield's history - in short, back to Auntyji's 'sharan' unless Brih-charan-ji springs up a surprise by displaying his grasp of the Farsi.
(I would not be surprised if he does )

Hi All,
Akbar’s Shield
The inscription within the Star of David (In fact it’s the primordial symbol of Shakti – the upward triangle being ‘Male’ & the inverted triangle being ‘Female’ – the very embodiment of ‘Creation’).
The script is Urdu which is very akin to Farsi. Although in later years the Moghuls replaced Urdu with Farsi in all official documents.
The Persian / Farsi language has been written with a number of different scripts, including the Old Persian Cuneiform, Pahlavi, Aramaic, and Avestan & Cyrillic alphabets. After the Islamic conquest of the Persian Sassanian Empire in 642 AD, Arabic became the language of government, culture and especially religion.

Modern Persian appeared during the 9th century. It is written in a version of the Arabic script and is full of words of Arabic origin. There are also two methods of writing Persian / Farsi with the Latin alphabet.

Under Mongolian and Turkish rulers, Persian / Farsi came to be adopted as the language of government in Turkey, Central Asia and India, where it was used for centuries.

Persian / Farsi is a member of the Iranian branch of Indo-European languages spoken by about 130 million people, mainly in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. There are also significant numbers of speakers in many other countries, including Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, Azerbaijan, Israel, Turkmenistan, Oman, Yemen, the UAE and the USA.

In Afghanistan Persian is known as Dari or Dari-Persian, while in Tajikistan it's known as Tajiki.

Back to the inscription it reads “Buland Iqbal Shah-en-Shah Akbar – San 106/7 Hijri” which means

Buland = Exalted, Iqbal = Blessed / Noble / Fortunate, Shah-en-Shah = King of Kings
Hijri = Islamic calendar year (coincides with the migration of Prophet Mohamed

Hence “Buland Iqbal Shah-en-Shah Akbar” = “Blessed be the Exalted King of Kings - Akbar”

From the look of it when seen in totality this incorporation of the Star of David + the inscription appears to be a later addition.

There is story about this shield – A Rajput armourer approached Akbar and requested that he be appointed as the official armourer to his army. The reason being that he can make ‘Shields’ that no sharp weapon could pierce & spears that could penetrate any shield.

(Birbal who heard this asked the Armourer – “If so your spear can penetrate your Shield” to which the Armourer replied – Yes indeed but the enemy wouldn’t possess my Spear!)

Asked to produce a sample of his Shield the Armourer showed his ware – Akbar liked it and kept it as his personal Shield. This Shield came with the Zodiac design (protection from the ruling Gods of the planets) – The Sun in the centre represented the belief that Rajput Kings belonged to the “Surya Vansh”.
Now having acquired the Shield the Inscription was subsequently added to create an exclusive identity as it belonged to Akbar.

Briha

[TC]

Done with the pics. Hope you gents enjoyed watching them as much as I did seeing and photographing them in person.

Thanks for going through the thread.

Regards
Moin.

Bravo Moin dear..... cant find words to thank you

BRILLIANT JOB

TC

[TC]

Brihaji,

You are great

Thank you

TC

[airgun_novice]

[SNIP]
> If I may humbly suggest to our MODS - Both Moin & Slingshot deserve to be honored with the "Poster of the Month" award.
> Moin for his contribution on "Indian Edged Weapons" & Slingshot for his contribution on "Birds in our Backyards" . Two remarkable & painstaking posts that snowballed with responses from virtually every IFGian.
Briha

Both of then highly deserve that recognition. I second

[essdee1972]

Request Mods to look into Brihaji's suggestion. I third.