The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.430

v1.c10.430

The picture, however, is ideal, and portrays what the poet thought had been the attire, some twenty centuries before him, of a military student in his noviciate, long before he had earned his spurs. It cannot be accepted as a safe guide for any historical conclusion. The great *Śatarudrīya* hymn of the *Vājasaneyī Saṃhitā* of the *Yajurveda*, which dates from a much earlier period, is, however, precise on the subject. It addresses Rudra as girt in "cotton-quilted cuirass", and "iron-mail" and "armour".²¹² The *Rāmāyaṇa* and the *Mahābhārata* are more positive on the subject, and state the *Kavaca* to be an iron armour, though they are silent as to whether the form was that of beaten plates sewed on cloth or leather, or of chain-mail. In the latter, some mail coats are described to be of iron plated over with gold; others white and lined with steel, and studded with a hundred eyes. ²¹³ Sanskrit lexicographers are, likewise, universally of opinion that the *kavaca* was made of iron; but they too afford no positive information as to its make. Judging from the prevalence of chain-mail among the Marhattas, I am disposed to think that a shirt of mail formed of small iron or steel rings interwoven was preferred to solid breast-plates; but leather was not altogether rejected. The Marhattas used mail with inlaid plates; and coats of rhinoceros or buffaloe-hide boiled in oil were also common.