Iron in Ancient India c6.s8.12

c6.s8.12

up to the thirteenth century and zinc only found a place amongst the metals in *Madanpāla-Nirghaṇṭu*, and other alchemical works of the fourteenth century and later. I am afraid Prof Benoy Kumar Sarkar in his "Hindu Sociology" has laboured in vain to explain away the arguments adduced above, which jointly show that the work could not have existed in its present form before the sixteenth century. Moreover Prof. Sarkar has conveniently forgotten to explain the frequent mention of guns and cannon in his eagerness to establish the antiquity of the "Sukra cycle of philosophers."