the big one:
shrii 3 cha~ndra - garaao 3197
lit., 'honoured 3 moon - ? 3197' (I'll have to look up garaao)
the 2nd one:
shrii jiig [jag?] 7146 shrii 3 chandra
lit., 'honoured ? 7146 honoured 3 moon' (i'll have to work more on this one word jiig/jaag).
my readings seem to be close to Yangdu's, but not exactly the same. The main difference is in the 3 words following the numbers for the smaller one. She reads 'shrii 3 panch'. This bit is somewhat hard to read, and is rather crudely executed, but I am certain it is (or is meant to be) 'shrii 3 chandra'. If one looks closely one will see the beginning akshara is not a 'pa', but a 'ca'. Anyway, the reason I am sure beyond this is that this phrase 'shrii 3 chandra' appears on all of the kukris from the AC horde which have nagari inscriptions on the spines.
for the meaning. The recurrent phrase 'shrii 3 chandra' is somewhat difficult to know its exact reference. Literal translation is no problem, it should be something like 'thrice honoured moon'. But I am almost certain it is actually a name, but whether a name of a regiment or a person, I don't know. The formula 'shrii 3' used to be part of the Rana Prime Ministers' title (the King's was, and still is, 'shrii 5' - five times honoured). 'chandra', literally "moon", is a fairly common male name-element. So it could refer to a prime minister, or maybe a general, or perhaps it is the name of a regiment or other military division.
The numbers, I don't know. Obviously some sort of cataloguing, but of what?
the final remaining word on both of these, 'garaao' (or 'garu') and 'jiig' (or 'jaag' or 'jang' or 'jing'?) has so far been different on each of the AC kukris I have seen. It seems again either to be a personal name or the name of some smaller military division. Though the 2nd possibility seems increasingly unlikely as I have yet to see 2 of these kukris with exactly the same word.
I'll try to make out what these words 'jiig' (or whatever it is) and 'garaao' mean, and let you know.
For some other examples of these, I have substantial comments on this thread (where are some photos of other inscriptions too):
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=271213
edit: p.s. on your question about the standard-ness of these inscriptions. These kukris from some cache that AC is selling are the first kukris I have seen with devanagari inscriptions of this kind. I think also JP (the kukri expert) said that he has never seen this sort of thing on kukris before either. So it doesn't seem to be standard. But there may be more caches of kukris (whether they still exist or not) which would tell us a different story.
the meaning of the inscriptions (beyond the literal meaning) is somewhat obscure to me still. essentially each seems to bear 2 names (one is always the same, 'shrii 3 chandra', and one is different) and a 3 or 4 digit number. so it is some sort of catalogueing I assume, whether for use or storage or something else, I don't know.
best,
B.
