The Rashtrakutas and their Times c19.s1.t3.1

c19.s1.t3.1

It is to be regretted that the weapons of war should have been nowhere mentioned in our records in the manner of the Allahabad Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta.⁴¹ Historians of Mahmud of Ghazni mention swords, spears, bows, arrows and maces as the weapons used by the opposing Hindu forces.⁴² These were also the principal weapons of fighting in contemporary Kashmir. It is, therefore, clear that these must have been the weapons mainly used by the Deccan armies of our period. Stone-throwing-machines are mentioned in the Mahābhārata; they were used by Alexander the Great and the Muslim invaders of Sindh. But neither epigraphical records, nor Mahomedan writers refer to the use of such machines by the Hindu forces of the time. They were, however, used by the Kashmir armies, and were known as ‘yantrotpala’ i.e. machines (to throw) stones.⁴³ It is, therefore, not unlikely that the use of these machines may have been known in the south as well. The rules of fighting as laid down by Manu prohibit the use of poisoned arrows; it will be soon shown that not all these rules were observed in our period and we know that in contemporary Kashmir, arrows used to be besmeared with a certain ointment in order to set ablaze the camp of the enemy.⁴⁴ It is, therefore, not likely that the arrows used were always pure and unbesmeared. It was customary in Kashmir to supply the soldiers with heavy armours⁴⁵ to protect them while fighting; we may well presume that similar protection was available to the soldiers in the Deccan of our period.