The Jamdhar is a typical Indian push dagger. Its peculiarity lies in the H-shaped handle which is made of two parallel bars connected by two or more cross pieces. The jamdhar is used as a thrusting weapon. It was a weapon of war as well as self-defense. It was popular in 16th-17th century A.D. as evidenced by the miniature paintings of this period. The word jamdhar is also mentioned in the Ain-i-Akbari.

The blade of a jamdhar is very thick with two cutting edges and solid point. The blade cannot be bent and is so stiff that nothing will stop it but a cuirass. Thus it seems that this weapon was mainly intended to peirce the armour.

The typical handle is made of two parallel bars which are connected by a roundish crosspiece to give a good grip over the dagger. The handle is beautifully decorated with koftgari in gold. This is the art of gold and silver wire inlay on iron objects. The technique involves encrusting one metal onto another. The metal surface is roughened, heated and naturally cooled. Silver and gold wires are inlaid into the metal and the surface is flattened with a moonstone. The designs consist of floral and shikargah motifs. It depicts scenes of elephant fights, tiger killing a deer, tiger attacking an elephant and others. At one place a horse rider is chasing a wild boar. Conventional trees and creepers are interspersed indicating the forest environment.

The etymology of the word as given by J. Shakespear, 1790, is jam, from the Sanskrit yam, which means death, and dhar, which means a sharp edge. Thus it seems that the weapon is native to India. Interestingly, the British at first couldn’t understand as to why Indian soldiers wore heavy armours, given the hot climate of the country and the vast distances that they had to travel. Probably they didn’t understand this was done to protect themselves from the Jamdhar. Another point to note is that to do the work of Koftagiri for the decoration of the dagger, metal workers (Lohars), polishers (Sikligars) and silver or gold smiths (Sonis) worked together.