Iron in Ancient India c6.s7.1

c6.s7.1

Dr. P. C. Ray in his History of Hindu Chemistry has written "The wrought-iron pillar close to the Kutub near Delhi, which weighs ten tons² and is some 1500 years old; the huge iron girders at Puri; the ornamental gates of Somnath, and the 24 feet wrought-iron gun at Nurvar are monuments of a bye-gone art and bear silent but eloquent testimony to the marvellous metallurgical skill attained by the Hindus." The Delhi pillar and the Puri girders certainly bear 'silent but eloquent testimony' to the metallurgical skill of the Hindus, and the wrought-iron gun also does so in a certain sense, as though guns were introduced by the Mahomedans into India after the Moghul conquest, the workers in iron, as will be shown later on, were mostly Hindus. As regards the ornamental gates of the celebrated temple of Somnath carried away by Mahmood to Ghazni in 1026, the iron in the gates however cannot be regarded as a specimen of Indian iron. Fergusson says that the original gates of Somnath were made of sandal-wood and microscopic examination of the wood of the present Somnath gates, triumphantly brought back by Lord Ellenborough at the conclusion of the second Afghan War and now deposited in the Agra fort, reveals the fact that they are made of Deodar wood. Prof.