Jan.30th,2021 World Antique Arms and Art Sale
Lot 18A:
Antique Sikh Indian Akali Quoit CHAKRAM Throwing Ring ~ Signed in Gurmukhi GOD IS ONE, WHO IS TRUE AND EVERLASTING. Diameter : 8 1/2".Chakram (Sanskrit: chakram; Punjabi: chakkar) is a throwing weapon from the Indian subcontinent. One of its major purposes is to protect the turban and the head from sword/melee attacks. It is circular with a sharpened outer edge and a diameter of 12–30 centimetres (4.7–11.8 in). It is also known as chalikar meaning "circle", and was sometimes referred to in English writings as a "war-quoit". The Chakram is primarily a throwing weapon but can also be used hand-to-hand. A smaller variant called chakri is worn on the wrist. A related weapon is the chakri dong, a bamboo staff with a chakri attached at one end. The earliest references to the chakram come from the 5th century BCE Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana where the Sudarshana Chakra is the weapon of the god Vishnu. Contemporaneous Tamil poems from the 2nd century BCE record it as thikiri (திகிரி). Chakra-dhāri ("chakram-wielder" or "disc-bearer") is a name for Krishna. The chakram was later used extensively by the Sikhs at least until the days of Ranjit Singh.Even in present days the Nihangs wear chakkar on their damalaas and is also in the uniform of Sikh Regiment worn on turban. It came to be associated with Sikhs because of the Nihang practice of wearing chakram on their arms, around the neck and even tied in tiers on high turbans. The Portuguese chronicler Duarte Barbosa writes (c. 1516) of the chakram being used in the Delhi Sultanate.The people of the kingdom … are very good fighting men and good knights, armed with many kinds of weapons; they are great bowmen, and very strong men; they have very good lances, swords, daggers, steel maces, and battle-axes, with which they fight; and they have some steel wheels, which they call chakarani, two fingers broad, sharp outside like knives, and without edge inside; and the surface of these is of the size of a small plate. And they carry seven or eight of these each, put on the left arm; and they take one and put it on the finger of the right hand, and make it spin round many times, and so they hurl it at their enemies, and if they hit anyone on the arm or leg or neck, it cuts through all. And with these they carry on much fighting, and are very dexterous with them.From its native India, variations of the Chakram spread to other Asian countries. In Tibet and Malaysia, the chakram was not flat but torus-like. Mongol cavalry used a similar throwing weapon with spiked edges.Chakarani is a name for flat steel throwing ring similar to the chakram and used by the Jubba tribe of central Africa.
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