The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s5.604.2

c2.s5.604.2

Of this perfect silence in regard to the use of guns and cannon on the part of the poet Oppert gives a very naïve explanation. He says of the use of gun-powder, that it ‘was so common that it was not worth mentioning.’ Finally, it is positively against the use of these arms as described to explain them as fire-arms. A good conclusive instance is found in the use of the word that Oppert takes to mean a gun—really one of the barbed arrows we saw so frequently used. The barb called the ‘ear’ Oppert cleverly explains as the lock, trigger, etc.; but when we read ‘they cannot draw the arrow of speech out of a man’s body, although they draw out barbed reed arrows and iron arrows,’ we refuse from the connection alone to think that ‘barbed reed arrows’ has already passed into the meaning ‘guns.’* To take these weapons in order: the ‘fire-weapon’ or ‘fire-wheel’ I have already shown to be a divine weapon, and the fire transferred to the ordinary discus, which is constantly used as a common hand-projectile. The *nālīka*, *karṇinālīka*, constantly in connection with *nārāca*, the ordinary iron arrow, is nothing but the genus to a species called ‘boar-ear arrow’ (*varāhakarṇa*), and is used by knights standing in their chariots shooting with their bows.† The *çataghnī* (or *-ghni*) has often been noticed in the groups of projectiles. The gunpowder-champion assures us that it is a rocket or something of the sort in late literature, or even a cannon, and must be the same in the Epic.