Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c5.275

c5.275

OTHER METALS. The word *Kammāra*, though it may mean a worker in any metal thus corresponding to the English word “Smith,” should properly refer to “Blacksmith,” so far as our stories are concerned. For we have distinct mention of *Suvaṇṇakāras* and *Maṇikāras*.¹⁵ These workers in metal supplied agriculture with ploughshares, spades and similar implements.¹ Iron posts and chains are also mentioned.² Household materials such as pots, pans, and bowls were prepared of copper and brass (*tamba : kaṃsa*) and bronze³ so that amalgamation of metals was known and practised. Indeed there is a distinct reference to copper rust washed in some acid (*ambiladhotam viya tamba malam*).⁴ Iron was converted into steel and made into tools of various crafts such as axes, spades, hangers, hammers, saws and chisels, pegs, forks, iron-staffs, barber's tongs, and so on.⁵ Various weapons of war and coats of mail were also prepared on a large scale.⁶ But they also did finer and delicate work, for instance in the shape of fine needles (*sūci*) of great lightness and sharpness⁷ and strings of musical instruments (*tanti*).⁸ There is a fine description—and a minute one—of an *usukāra* or the maker of arrows who heats a piece of steel in a pan of coals (*aṅgārakapalle*) and wets it with some sour rice-gruel (*Kañjikena*) and then, closing one eye and looking with the other sideways, makes the arrow straight.⁹