The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.349.3

v1.c10.349.3

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.