The fascination of modern martial arts with flexible-bladed weapons is by no means a reflection of their effectiveness or lethality. Rather, it is largely the result of prohibitions imposed by government authorities on the possession of genuine weapons. It was precisely these restrictions that led to the emergence, in Indian and other martial traditions, of weapons with excessively flexible blades and grotesquely exaggerated dimensions.
The best-known and most iconic example is the urumi sword, which often possesses not one but several blades, each of which may itself be twisted into a spiral. When spun, such weapons rattle, whistle, and create an undeniably intimidating spectacle. The apparent record is thirty-two flexible blades mounted on a single hilt—and that is for one hand alone. Some surviving examples are several meters long, and training with them resembles exercises with rhythmic gymnastics ribbons far more than swordsmanship.
Despite the complete absence of historical evidence, the urumi is widely revered as an ancient and practical weapon. In reality, it is far more likely to represent a flexible-bladed sword concept carried to absurd extremes in an attempt to justify its supposed battlefield usefulness.
***
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in South India were marked by dramatic events triggered by the overconfidence and aggression of the East India Company, whose policies took little account of local realities. The response came in the form of wars and numerous uprisings, ranging from prolonged large-scale conflicts to temporary local rebellions. These campaigns are often regarded as among the longest, bloodiest, and most costly military operations the Company ever faced, inflicting heavy losses on both sepoys and European officers.
Fighting in mountainous terrain with extensive support from the local population took on the character of guerrilla warfare, and military measures especially in the face of the Indians’ fierce and at times fanatical resistance failed to achieve their objectives. As so often in colonial history, the most effective methods proved to be bribery, the destruction of the population’s economic base, and the colonizers’ favored practice of executing wealthy local rulers who refused to submit, followed by the inevitable confiscation of their property.
The hopelessness of the situation and the lack of meaningful military success are vividly illustrated by one telling fact. Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, who had been appointed commander of the armies of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, successfully concluded campaigns against the Marathas but was unable to achieve a decisive military result in Kerala despite his direct involvement in the conflict. In 1804 he declared that he was “tired and wished to leave India”. In biographies of the Duke, the events of 1800–1804 on the southern flank of his command are generally passed over with remarkable discretion.
How, then, did the Indians fight, when virtually every village possessed a kalari martial arts school? English-language newspapers in India, filled with letters from the front, lamented the deaths of numerous British officers who had been killed in action or wounded “in the most dreadful and barbarous manner”. One is tempted to imagine dark figures emerging from the shadows of the trees, wielding long, gleaming, ringing, writhing flexible blades in one hand or even both, accompanied by the terrifying cries of British cut down by some monstrous barbarian weapon. But that was not the reality.
The insurgents who opposed the British under the leadership of gurukkals went into battle armed with muskets, spears, and swords. Particularly noteworthy were the actions of archer units drawn from the mountain Brahmin tribes, which, surprisingly enough, inflicted some of the most significant losses on the East India Company’s forces. These Brahmins were also famous for observing the strictest standards of ritual purity, refusing physical contact even with other Brahmins. In 1812 they launched an uprising of their own after the British demanded that they pay taxes in money — a medium they had never previously known or used — and began confiscating their property when they failed to do so. To their credit, these Brahmins continue to venerate the bow and arrow to this day. That is what genuine martial tradition looks like, not the invention of chimerical weapons accompanied by useless techniques devised to justify them.
No other ancient weapons, exotic postures, elaborate movements, or characteristic acrobatic jumps were observed among the arms of the gurukkal detachments.
The most common, and often the only, weapon available to the insurgents was the so-called “Nair chopping knife,” a form of knife or short sword known as ayudha katti. Mortally wounded Indian fighters, when they could no longer remain on their feet, would often make one final desperate effort by hurling these blades into the faces of approaching enemies.
Although the term ayudha katti could refer either to a weapon or to an agricultural implement, in the cases described here it clearly denoted a dedicated fighting weapon with distinctive characteristics separating it from an ordinary tool.
These knives were later specifically banned by the British in Malabar, no less than twenty-four years before the principal arms prohibition enacted for the whole of India. The official justification was the alleged excessive aggression and lack of restraint of Malabar’s Muslim population, who were said “to slit people’s throats at the slightest provocation”. The real cause, of course, was not difficult to discern: a failed British land reform designed to facilitate tax collection had driven impoverished tenant farmers into rebellion.
In modern schools of Kalaripayattu, including Muslim ones, one will not find exercises with the ayudha-katti, nor even knives or swords remotely resembling it among the numerous weapons displayed on the walls. It is possible that the weapon known as otto (watta) preserves some distant memory of the ayudha-katti, but certainly not in terms of authentic combat techniques. This is readily explained both by the prohibition of the weapon and the large-scale confiscations carried out by the colonial authorities, and by the fact that during the reconstruction of Kalaripayattu in the 1930s–1950s, historical authenticity, genuine martial skill, and combat effectiveness were clearly absent from the list of priorities.