Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c22.2

c22.2

A KNOWLEDGE of iron is of great antiquity in India; the metals gold, silver, iron, lead, copper, and tin were known in the Vedic period, and are mentioned in the Vedic literature. Megasthenes at a later period noted the occurrence of these metals, and states that they were "employed in making articles of use and ornament, as well as the implements and accoutrements of war." There is abundant evidence that the ancient Hindus were skilled in manufacturing and working iron and in making and tempering steel. "Indian steel has been celebrated from the remotest antiquity, and the blades of Damascus, which maintained their pre-eminence even after the blades of Toledo became celebrated, were in fact of Indian iron. . . . The ondanique of Marco Polo's travels refers originally, as Colonel Yule has shown, to Indian steel, the word being a corruption of the Persian *Hundwaniy*, i.e., Indian steel. The same word found its way into Spanish, in the shapes of *alhinde* and *alfinde*, first with the meaning of steel, and then of a steel mirror, and finally of the metal foil of a glass mirror. The ondanique of Kirman, which Marco Polo mentions, was so called from its comparative excellence, and the swords of Kirman were eagerly sought after, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, by the Turks, who gave great prices for them. . . . Arrian mentions Indian steel, as imported into the Abyssinian ports; and Salmasins mentions that among the surviving Greek treatises was one 'on the tempering of Indian steel.'"*