Iron in Ancient India c4.3

c4.3

The revival of iron industry in modern India under the auspices of the Bengal Iron and Steel and the Tata Iron and Steel Companies leads naturally to the question whether the present industry, which promises so much in the near future, is entirely a new venture in India or is a revival of past ventures in this direction. India is known to the West primarily as the abode of an ancient civilization rich in ethical and philosophical doctrines, but the fact that Indian civilization was rich in material progress also is slowly but steadily being brought to the notice of the world at large. So far as the present subject is concerned, a careful study of the available literature and archaeological evidence will easily convince any student that India had always been in the past, as it promises to be in the near future, a rich iron-producing country. Well has Sir John Hickshaw said in his presidential address to the British Association Meeting at Bristol in 1875 that "the supply of iron in India, as early as the fourth and fifth centuries, seems to have been unlimited. India well repaid any advantages which she may have derived from the early civilized communities of the West if she were the first to supply them with iron and steel." Shaw maintains that "the hardest tools in ancient Egypt, such as drills for working the granite obelisks, were made of Indian iron" and it was again from India, as will be shown later on, that the Persians and afterwards the Arabs and the Europeans learnt the tempering of steel, the best specimens of which were the famous Damascus blades of the Middle Ages. Roscoe and Schorlemmer in their well-known "Treatise on Chemistry" have written "it appears probable that iron was first obtained from its ores in India." They further say "the word iron, which is identical with the Scandinavian 'iarn' (instead of 'isarn') and German 'eisen' (adjective 'eisern') appears to be connected with the Sanskrit 'ayas' (Latin 'aes'), and this, according to Grimm, is an indication that bronze was in use amongst the Germans at a much earlier date than iron."