Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.104

c14.104

Chariot warfare in Aryan India shared with that of most of the Orient the use of the bow as the essential weapon of attack; in Homeric Greece the spear and in Iron Age Europe the long sword became the chosen weapons of the warrior. We know from the *Rigveda* that the bow was kept relaxed until needed, and then strung; the bow-string was a cow-hide thong and it was pulled back to the ear (not, as in Homeric Greece, to the breast). The arrows were tipped with metal, and may have been barbed, and the left wrist was protected from the recoil of the bow-string by a wrist-guard or bracer. But we cannot find decisive evidence of the type of bow - whether in fact it was simple or composite.