A sword is a weapon. It is often said that, of all historical weapons, the sword is the only one which is specifically designed to be used only against other humans. All other weapons also double up as tools. A knife, an axe, a spear, a staff, bow and arrows, all of these are tools, which can be repurposed or “specialized” to be weapons. Even a serrated blade can be used as a saw. If you put a sword on top of a staff, the staff stops being a tool and gets relegated to being a weapon; as in the case of the glaive, naginata, kwan dao and such. Even if the sword blade is made long and flexible, it is only a weapon and not a tool, like with the aara or urumi, unless one can consider that wearing it as a belt (as it apparently was at times in history) is its use as a tool!

But then, if one changes the blade shape and makes it extremely curved and top heavy, or very wide and specialized for chopping, the sword takes a different name, a sickle in the former case and a machete in the latter. Of course, this name can differ with cultures. Either way, in this avatar, a sword does indeed become a tool, but it no longer is unambiguously just a sword anymore.

This being said, there is a very definite case where a sword becomes a tool. Consider all the very beautiful and ornate swords in the world. I do not mean the swords with very ornate, or bejeweled scabbards or hilts, made of precious materials, be it gold or silver or a combination. Hilts made of jade, quartz or rock crystal with jaw dropping carvings are also very prevalent.

The beautiful swords I consider here are the ones which have fully functional blades and can cut perfectly well but can also be considered as works of art at first glance. These might be swords that have blades with a mirror polish, blades with elegant “Damascus” (Wootz) patterns, blades with blue and gilt, and all the blades with intricate engravings, or all the blades with various combinations of the above.

Marry this sword art with the magnificent but functional hilts that bear elegant scroll work in gold or silver and then the shine of an enameled scabbard, and the sword transforms into a tool, Yes it is now undoubtedly a work of art, but it is also a tool.

This is the kind of sword that is gifted to a fellow king, a vital aristocrat or an opposing party at the signing of a treaty. This is the kind of artwork, once given as a gift, shows the honour that is being bestowed upon the recipient, for this is a sword that is one in a million, that took efforts and resources far beyond the ordinary to create (not make, but create). Add to the sheer beauty the fact that it can be used a weapon, and it is a weapon that is to be preserved and passed on an heirloom, something that comes to define the prestige of a family or clan!

Once this value is established in terms of honour and prestige, the sword becomes a tool. It is a tool that buys you an army, an alliance, or peace! This is not me stating it; I am borrowing a part of the above sentence from Ilya Alelseyev, on the “That Works” YouTube channel. Yes, you can call it currency since it “buys” you something, but then, it really is not. It is like a bottle opener, which opens the bottle of jointmanship, maybe camaraderie and even friendship. Thus, a sword becomes a tool through the realm of art. Perhaps when a blade smith works with a gold smith, the weapon becomes a tool. Perhaps this tool becomes a path to peace! An army or an alliance or a treaty acquired might lead to the prevention of or to the end of a conflict, by tilting the scales heavily in one’s favour, and discouraging another from considering a violent solution. And thus, the sword becomes a tool for peace. And this has been true for so much technology and art across human evolution. This perhaps is also the purpose of a sword. To be a tool for peace.

All the above images are created with Jasper AI