Khukuri Hisorical Review!

mohd

mohd

Joined
Jun 3, 1999
Messages
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Excerpt from the Introduction of Khukuri FAQ:
... I believe the blade form descended from the Greek kopis which is about 2,500 years old, thus making the khukuri one of the oldest blade forms in the history of the world -- if not in fact the oldest. I believe that the blade form was carried to the sub-continent by the troops of Alexander the Great and was copied by local kamis ...
Click to expand...
I just read National Geographic Magazine March @ April edition about Alexander. One thing that confuse me is that Alexander or his troop were never reached Nepal or the surrounding area (North India) - they just reach the Indus Valley (Pakistan nowadays)! NOW ... how sure that Khukuri got something to do with Greek Kopish or Machaera? Is there any findings ie. old relics etc that support this claim?

Kopish or Machaera are weapons - while historically Khukuris were basically made for tools. It is quite weird to say that those ancient Kamis were copying the shape of Kopish or Machera wich are weapons into Khukuris which were meant mainly for agricultural tools and for other purposes as well!

My wild guess is that Khukuri is actually invented by Nepalis Kamis themselves! Khukuri got nothing to do with whatever Kopish or Machaera! The idea of linking Khukuri with Kopish or Machaera lineage is just a mere hypothesis to justify the idea of Kopish's or Machaera's credibility!

Forumites.

Now I believe that Khukuris are genuinely the very creative idea of ancient peoples of Nepal ie. Kamis themselves! They developed it from time to time to the perfect current shape as we can see nowadays! What do you say ... ?

NEPAL HO!
 
Mohd, what you say is possible, but considering that the boundaries of present day Nepal did not exist back then, I would favor the Greek origin theory.

Perhaps one of the historians can give us more information on this.

Harry
 
Mohd,
As usual you have posed an interesting and thoughtful question. But in discounting the kopis>khukuri connection because of supposed dissimilarity of purpose, you are forgetting something you wrote just a little while ago:
"I guess a status of tool and a status of weapon in Khukuri is actually a mix and a changing status depending on various conditions of time, place, environment, personal mind setting, locally accepted view etc ... etc!"
As far as historical and geographical objections to the connection, there is no break in the possible chain of advancement of the forward-curving blade design from the Indus to the Gorkha kingdom.
Although Alexander never made it past the Indus valley, he left victorious, with Greek generals and Indian allies in command of the entire area as far east as Delhi. Those Indian allies became the Gupta rulers, who continued to expand eastward, while Greeks under Menander remained in India till 102AD. Recorded Nepalese history begins with the Lichchhavis, who migrated from northern India c. 250AD. So there seems to be ample opportunity for the transition from Macedonian weapon at the Indus to agricultural implement in the Terai 500-600 years later.
What seems to me to be unique to the khukuri and most likely Nepali in its origin is the design of the handle, with its central ring and flaring butt, which has nothing in common with the kopis or any earlier weapon/tool I'm familiar with.
Any thoughts?
Berk
 
Nice post, Berk. I think that handle shape took on some sort of religious significance but nobody can say what for sure. Have heard campfire tales about it that are interesting.

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Blessings from the computer shack in Reno.

Uncle Bill
Himalayan Imports Website
Khukuri FAQ
 
I happen to think that the khukuri shape is sort of like the wheel - it is a "best design" that was created (or discovered) because its structure lent itself very well to its function. Just like the wheel, which developed spearately and isolated, in different parts of the world due to constants like gravity and the pursuit of human leisure, so the khukuri shape may have developed independently in two or more cultures. Of course, the Alexander connection is still a valid hypothesis that is not without merit.

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Craig Gottlieb
Gurkha House
Blade Forums Sponsor
 
This is from P.S. Rawson's book "The Indian Sword" (1968).
The Royal Armouries and the V&A Museum both use this as one of their references to khukuris:
...most probable that throughout the middle ages Nepal, under her Rajput rulers, shared in the sword traditions of Northern India and that after the Islamic invasions...the isolation of (Nepal) ensured the continuation of old Hindu traditions of swordcraft.
Despite the fact that in modern times the kukri has come to be regarded as the national weapon of the Gurkhas, it's form shows that it is a weapon of purely Indian descent, related to the Kopis-bladed sword
of Ajanta and the modern Rajput Sosun Pattah. The kora is the true traditional Gurkha weapon.
The kukri...was fundamentally an implement for cutting through the dense jungle of the Terai and the Himilayan slopes...no matter how ornate...the (kukri) retained its functional form and utilitarian qualities.
The ridge-ring and band invariably found on the hilt look very much like survivals of what were once functional features at an earlier stage of development when the tang of the hafting was secured into the handle with a plaited cane band and an iron ring, which have survived as reinforcements to the grip, fitting between the fingers.

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JP
 
The flared butt of the khuk has parallels all over the world, starting in ancient Egypt, including the 'broadsword' types used by the Philistines, and found as far away as the wooden swords of Samoa.

One of the dominant forms of butt found on the machaera or copis was a hook - essentially, the back half of a knuckle-bow - which seems to be a different solution to the same problem (ie of the sword/khuk slipping forward out of the hand) Machaeras were also fitted with a conventional pommel and crossguard.

The machaera is interesting becasue it's one of the earliest known single-bladed or 'backsword' varieties of sword. The Bronze and Iron Ages tended to be dominated by the double-edged leaf-blade, 'rapier' or 'griffzungenschwert' types, at least in Europe and the middle East.

The ancient writers Xenophon and Polybius held that the machaera was introduced into Greece from the East, by way of the Persian empire - which raises the possibility that the connection between the machaera and the khukuri may have gone the other way, and conceivably that the concave-edge sword originally came to Greece from the Indian subcontinent. Modern scholars tend to discount these references, however, taking the view that the machaera was well established in Greece before the rise of the Persian empire. It's worth noting that in Greek art, the machaera is often associated with 'barbarians' - usually Scythians (ie nomads from southern Russia), Thracians (from northern Greece and the Balkans) and Amazons; it was also the weapon of Harmodius, one of the great national heroes of Athens. Alexander was, of course, a Macedonian, and his army contained a very large number of Thracians.

If the machaera originated in the Caucasus, and the design permeated West to the Scythians, Thracians and ultimately the Greeks, it could well have travelled East at the same time, to India and Nepal, so that both machaera and khukuri may share a common 'missing link' ancestor.

The likeliest hypothesis would seem to be that the machaera is either the descendant of the Egyptian kopesh or a logical development of the mid/northern European leaf-blade sword of the Bronze Age; the latter theory would fit well with the Thracian connection, since the leaf-blade type appears all over the West, from Britain to the Levant and Greece, at more or less the same time, suggesting an origin somewhere in north central Europe.

I'm not aware of any tradition of concave-bladed swords in India prior to Alexander. I don't remember what shape of sword was used at Harappa or Mohenjo-Daro, but I don't think it was a concave backsword.
 
Just my humble opinion, against none of experts comments above.
Hinduism, Devanagali, caste, all had moved from west to east all the way to Nepal. Why not khukuris? Anyways they were neighbors...

I forgot to say thanx for this very enlightening thread. Thank you!

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Did you enjoy today?
\(^o^)/ Mizutani Satoshi \(^o^)/

[This message has been edited by WrongFriend (edited 05-26-2000).]
 
The forward curving blade may well predate Alex in the Indus Vally. After all, some Aryans went east and some west from from plain of Pashmir, or Pamir, long before. Bill said that the Newari were of Aryan orgin. I wonder when they arrived?
I heard that some new Sanscrit works had been translated.
I doubt that the story has been all told in English, which is the one scholers, who wish to be read, use now.
I find the ring to be a
help in retention.
The archeology, and etomology folks may have changed their minds since I took the class.

[This message has been edited by FNG (edited 05-26-2000).]
 
Mohd
You did it again another great thread.This is the best forum anywhere, it stimulates and encourages thought and passes on usefull info.
I don't know anything about the spread of the khukuri or that type of blade,I think Satoshi is on the right track.

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Ray
 
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