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A Concise History of Science in India c9.s8: Gunpowder and Pyrotechnics

A Concise History of Science in India c9.s8

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Gunpowder and Pyrotechnics

c9.s8.1

There is evidence to indicate that guns and gunpowder were in use in Bengal in the beginning of the fifteenth century a.d. It is well known that at the beginning of the Moghul Period (sixteenth century a.d.) gunpowder became an article of warfare. The *Śukranīti*, a Sanskrit treatise attributed to Śukrācārya, gives a description of how the gunpowder can be prepared using saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal in different ratios for use in different types of guns. One such composition, as stated in the text, consists of five parts of saltpetre, one part of sulphur and one part of charcoal, the last to be obtained from the *arka*, *snuhi* and other plants, cleaned and reduced to a fine powder. To the mixture is added the juice of the plants named above and, after thoroughly mixing, it is dried in the sun. It is finally ground into a powder which now becomes gunpowder.b *Agnicūrṇa* and *nāḷāstra* are the names given to the gunpowder and gun respectively.

c9.s8.2

Probably a century or two earlier, Indians possessed the knowledge of manufacturing specific fireworks, since the basic ingredients of the gunpowder constitute the components of mixtures used in the fireworks. By the seventeenth century a.d. fireworks became common in several parts of the country, particularly in Orissa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamilnadu and Kerala. It is believed that the Indians obtained the knowledge of pyrotechnics from the Chinese who had certainly developed pyrotechnics even as early as the eleventh or twelfth century a.d.

c9.s8.3

The literary sources dealing with gunpowder and pyrotechnics are in Sanskrit, Marathi, Tamil and Malayalam. Of the Sanskrit works, *Kautukacintāmaṇi* by Gajapati Pratāparudradeva of Orissa (fl. a.d. 1497–1539), *Ākāśabhairavakalpa* (c. fifteenth century a.d.) and *Śukranīti* (c. sixteenth century a.d.) are important. Ekanātha’s *Rukmiṇisvyamvara* (sixteenth century a.d.) and works of Rāmadāsa (seventeenth century a.d.) are the noted Marathi works, while *Bānaśāstram* and *Bogarsutiram* are well known among the Tamil works. *Vetikkampavidhi* is a manual of fireworks in Malayalam written by one Nilakantha who was also the reputed author of several works on Sanskrit literature. In addition, there is also a treatise on fireworks in Persian, by Zain-ul-Ābidīn, the Muslim King of Kashmir (A.D. 1420-70).

c9.s8.4

a *Āin* (2), pp. 73–82.

c9.s8.5

b *ŚN.*, 4, 7.

c9.s8.6

The word ‘*bāṇa*’ in the sense of a rocket finds a place in the Sanskrit work of Pratāparudradeva mentioned above. The authorship of the important works on pyrotechnics in Tamil is generally attributed to one Bogar or Boganathar who is among the eighteen Siddhas of Tamilnadu and who, according to the local tradition, had contacts with China. The Tamil works on pyrotechnics describe three principal types of fireworks, viz. those which pierce through air (rockets), those which produce sparks of coloured fire, and those which blaze with various colours and end with explosions. Saltpetre, sulphur, charcoal, iron powder, bamboo tubes and flats, mercury, cinnabar, copper salts, camphor, rice paste, arsenic substances, pulp of castor seeds and wicks are among the important ingredients mentioned in these works for the preparation of different fireworks. Several formulae, 98 in number, for the manufacture of some 20 types of fireworks, are found in considerable detail in these Tamil sources. Of particular significance is the fact that the metal dusts (of copper, iron or steel, lead, brass and zinc) are used for producing sparklings of different colours. The date of the works attributed to Bogar is uncertain. On the basis of some internal evidence found in the text, its probable date is twelfth to thirteenth centuries A.D.

c9.s8.7

Spectacular display of fireworks was a common feature in marriages and other ceremonies in medieval India. In the fifteenth century A.D., various kinds of fireworks were displayed at Vijayanagar during festivals. Even foreign travellers like Barbosa in the sixteenth century A.D. have given vivid descriptions of the display of fireworks in certain parts of India. Bernier has given an account of ‘*bannes*’ in warfare and how they used to be thrown against the enemy as a sort of grenade attached to a stick, and *cherkys*a thrown to explode with a view to separating fighting elephants.

Cites (2)