A steel push-dagger (katar), India, Mughal or Deccan, 17th century

On loan at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University

M. Fraser, Selected Works from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection of Indian and Islamic Art, London, 2015, cat.20, pp.78-79

The katar, sometimes referred to as a jamdhar and a push- or punch-dagger, has a form which is unique to the Indian sub-continent. It was designed to be used in close quarter combat, with its cross-grip and extended arms of the hilt. The steel blade with its broad tip is able to pierce through armour.

The katar is usually illustrated as worn tucked into the cummerbund or patka around the waist. Although katars are mentioned in early literary sources, one of the earliest existing representations is in a late 15th century folio from a Jain Kalpasutra manuscript produced in Gujarat or Rajasthan, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.71.I.3; see Kaoukji 2017, pp.25, illus. pp.26-7). A few depictions of katar daggers occur in manuscripts produced quite early in the reign of the Mughal Emperor Akbar, such as the Cleveland Museum copy of the Tutinama which dates from circa 1560-65. It soon became a favoured weapon and was more commonly depicted in later Akbar-period manuscripts such as the Hamzanama, circa 1562-77. The katar steadily gained popularity during the Mughal period and continued to be used during the reigns of Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb in the seventeenth century. Several magnificent jewelled and enamelled examples are known from the period of Shah Jahan (see Welch 1985, no.178, p.271). Welch attributes the origin of the katar to southern India although katars were popular in the Mughal as well as the Deccani courts. 

For another comparable 17^th century Mughal steel dagger, in the collection of the National Museum in Copenhagen, see Skelton 1982, no.425, p.132.