Sasurako khukuri parhar ko halt

Traditionally it was, and in many cases still is, the basic utility knife of the Nepalese people. It is a characteristic weapon of the Nepalese Army, the Royal Gurkha Rifles of the British Army, the Assam Rifles, the Gorkha regiments of the Indian Army, and of all Gurkha regiments throughout the world, so much so that some English-speakers refer to the weapon as a "Gurkha blade" or "Gurkha knife". The khukuri often appears in Nepalese heraldry and is used in many traditional rituals such as wedding ceremonies.While some western authors conjecture that the kukri was based on similar European weapons and brought to South Asia by Alexander the Great, researchers give it a much longer history tracing back to the domestic sickle and the prehistoric bent stick used for hunting and later in hand-to-hand combat.[1] Richard F. Burton ascribes this semi-convergent independent origin to weapons from several regions such as the Greek kopis, the Egyptian khopesh, the Iberian falcata, the Illyrian sica, the Dacian falx, and the Australian tombat. In India, it has also been hypothesized that the kukri was the origin of the kopis, rather than vice versa.[citation needed] Similar instruments have existed in several forms throughout South Asia and were used both as weapons and as tools, such as for sacrificial rituals. Burton (1884) writes that the British Museum housed a large kukri-like ancient Nepal falchion inscribed with writing in Pali. Among the oldest existing kukri are those belonging to Drabya Shah (circa 1559), housed in the National Museum of Nepal in Kathmandu.The kukri came to be known to the Western world when the East India Company came into conflict with the growing Gorkha Kingdom, culminating in the Gurkha War of 1814–1816.[citation needed] It gained literary attention in the 1897 novel Dracula by Irish author Bram Stoker. Despite the popular image of Dracula having a stake driven through his heart at the conclusion of a climactic battle between Dracula's bodyguards and the heroes, Mina's narrative describes his throat being sliced through by Jonathan Harker's kukri and his heart pierced by Quincey Morris's Bowie knife.1