Nepali Khukuri.

Khukuri is the national knife of Nepal.An ancient blade-form: khukuris of five hundred years or more hang from the walls of Nepal's National Museum, dating back to the Malla period. Some have suggested that khukuri design is linked to the ancient Greek kopis knife and that the form was introduced into the Indian subcontinent by Alexander's Macedonian army, which invaded north-west India in the 4th-century B.C. If so, then the khukuri is perhaps also linked to the ancient Egyptian kopesh blade, likely the model for the Greek kopis, as well as to the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian seax. However, it is also possible that the khukuri is simply a design native to the hills of the Himalayas, perhaps originating from an agricultural tool (as which it continues to serve to the present day).



 This seems to be the view of Lord Egerton of Tatton, who writes: '[the Gurkhas'] national weapon is the Kukri , originally a kind of bill-hook, for cutting through small wood in the dense low jungles of the Teraí and the Himalayans' (pg. 100). The Nepalese also use a larger knife, or sword, called a kora, which also has an inner cutting edge like the khukuri. The blades of koras show an expansion near the point, weighting the tip to provide a more powerful downward blow. Koras are generally ceremonial, and as Egerton remarks, 'those who use it skilfully are enabled to cut a sheep in two at a single blow' .