The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.349

Language: English

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**Materials of Bows:** Of the material of which the bow was made, little is said in ancient works, except that horn was sometimes used for the purpose. But the *Agni Purāṇa*, which in its chapters on archery and arms, and on regal administration, is, according to Wilson, distinguished by an entirely Hindu character, and must have been written long anterior to the Muhammadan invasion,¹⁸¹ supplies the deficiency. In its chapter on arms it gives the following: "Bows, O best of the twice-born, are formed of the three things, to wit, metal, horn and wood; and the string of the bow is likewise made of three substances, viz., *śaṇa* fibre (*Crotalarea juncea*), hemp (*Bhāṅgā*, *Cannabis sativa*), and skin or hide. The most appropriate length for a bow is four cubits, three and a half cubits being middling, and three cubits inferior: it is to be so prepared that there may exist no unevenness from its centre to the extremities; the middle part should be joined with a spare piece of wood, so that it may be firmly held. The ends of the bow are to be made thin and tapering, so as to resemble the eye-brows of a handsome woman. Metal and horn bows should be made either of pure iron, or horn separately, or of those two substances conjointly. The horny bow is to be formed of a good shape and decorated with gold. Bows which are crooked, or have cracks or holes in them, are not good. The metallic bow is to be made of gold, silver, copper and black iron.

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The horny bows made of the horns of the buffaloe, the Śarabha and the Rohisa are good. Bows are also made of sandal wood, ratan, the *sāl* wood, the Dhavana, (a kind of *Hedysarum*) and the Kakubha (*Pentapterā arjuna*). But the bow made of bamboos which grow in the Śaraṭ or clear season of autumn, and which are cut and taken at that time, is the best of all. Bows and scimitars are to be worshipped by repeating *mantras* capable of fascinating the three regions Svarga, Martya and Pātāla". The most remarkable fact in the above extract is that the elastic bomboo is most extolled. The black iron was probably steel, and the other metals were used as ornaments; they are too inelastic to form a bow themselves. The horny bow was greatly esteemed, and Viṣṇu claims it as especially his own. Homer refers to the horny bow in the 110th verse of the 4th book of the Iliad, and Arnold thus explains it: *Kai ta men—têkton*. The horn worker wrought (*a'skisas*) the horns, and fitted (*i'rare, aro, apto*, D.

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84.) the two lower ends of them to each other, so that they now made one bow".¹⁸² [ 119 ] The size approved, four cubits, is nearly the same as that of the Egyptian bow, which, according to Wilkinson, measured from five to five feet and a half in length;¹⁸³ and among the materials for bow strings we have mention of hide, which was likewise used for that purpose by the Egyptians, as well as the Greeks of the time of Homer.¹⁸⁴ The *Agni Purāṇa* does not mention the *Murva*, (*Sanseviera zeylanica*), as a fit plant for yielding the finest and strongest fibres for bowstrings; but other authorities, mostly older ones, are full of praise of that plant as a source of valuable fibre for the purpose, and Manu especially assigns it as well suited for girdles for warriors. From specimens to be seen in sculptures, the ancient bow seems to have been of the same shape as the modern Indian arm, made either of bamboo or horn (*sāraṅga*), and provided with a strip of deer skin, or a *murva* cord for string. At Bhuvaneśvara, a specimen (Illustration No. 203), has the body of the bow strengthened by knots tied at short intervals; but at Sāñcī and Amarāvatī nothing of the kind has been seen. Some Indian bows have an inward bulge in the middle, so that their shape includes segments of three circles,—the "triple bent" bows of the *Rāmāyaṇa*; their counterparts were not unknown in Egypt.

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In ancient Greece, the tips of the bow, according to Homer, used to be mounted with stag horn, but the sculptures in this country do not make them apparent. The manner of carrying the bow was ordinarily to sling it from the left shoulder, or to bear it aloft in the left hand. In stringing the bow, one end of it was placed on the ground, the inner side of the middle resting against the knee, and the upper part pressed inwards with the left hand, while with the right hand the loop of the string was slid to the notch at the upper end. This is exactly the process which the Egyptians followed in former times, and the Hindus still practise to this day.