Archaeology and the Mahabharata (Study)

by Gouri Lad | 1978 | 132,756 words

This study examines the Mahabharata from an archaeological perspective. The Maha-Bbharata is an ancient Indian epic written in Sanskrit—it represents a vast literary work with immense cultural and historical significance. This essay aims to use archaeology to verify and contextualize the Mahabharata's material aspects by correlating epic elements w...

Part 11 - Evolution of ancient Indian Weaponry—Introduction

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A comparison, rather a concurrence of the various weapon types that occur in the Mahabharata and those that occur in

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other ancient literary works produces interesting results. First and foremost comes the Vedic literature. It is mainly the Rgveda and the Atharvaveda which provide the relevant information on Vedic warfare. Very few of 535 the Vedic weapons have survived in the Mahabharata The bow and the arrow no doubt dominate the Epic scene as much as they do the Vedic, but at the same time the Mahabharata has almost doubled and trebled its strength. The range of arrows is now very wide, reflected in many different shapes, numbering nearly 30 to 40 different types, each with a unique identity and name of its own. The quiver too has metamorphosed from the small wicker-work isudhi tied to the back, to the larger tuna and tunira carried on elephants and in chariots. case of spears and lances too is identical. There are The about 11 types in the Epic of which the Vedic rsti is the least conspicuous. Then there are the various metal and wooden spikes and bars and bolts, unknown to the Vedas. Another striking absence in the Vedas is of the mace, gada. No doubt the Vedic vajra was the prototype of the later gada but in the Mahabharata it has become almost obsolete. Some kind of a body armour was known to the Vedas but in the Mahabharata it has grown in sophistication, with different components to protect the different parts of the body. Thus as far as weapons are concerned the Mahabharata is undoubtedly a great leap forward from the Vedic Period. This evolution of weapons, this acquisition of

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= 536 new types, this proliferation of new shapes, this utilization of fresh raw-materials and in general this breaking of new ground could not have come about all of a sudden. The process was probably spread over a long period of time, over generations and centuries. Can this evolution then be traced through the literary and artistic expressions of the ancient Indians ? An attempt in the direction is made here. evident The Vedic period came to a close around 600-700 B.C. The next important literary evidence comes from Panini (500-600 B.C.). Here two new types are at once the dreaded spear of the car-warior sakti and the battle-axe parasvadha (Agrawala 1963:423). Both are prominent weapons in the Epic. The Vedic axes parasu and kulisa are retained in the Mahabharata but more for cutting and felling wood, while parasvadha emerges as the battle-axe proper. These two important new types immediately forge a chronological link between Panini and the great Epic. No sooner do we step into the next period of hectic literary activity, into the realm of Buddhist Pali literature, a great change comes over the scene, which is further reflected in the evidence of Kautilya's Arthasastra. The extent of the change can be gauged by the fact that at least about 50 of the Mahabharata weapon types have parallels either in the Pali literature or the Arthasastra, who between them share about 18-19 of these. Some of these

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= 537 weapons are ofcourse a legacy from the earlier period, but the rest are absolutely new types on the scene. There are two categories of them in the Epic. To the first belong those which are quite unimportant as far as actual action in the Mahabharata war is concerned. They occur most of the time in groups, often herded together rather indiscriminately either in descriptions of fierce battle-scenes when every possible weapon was sent showering down upon the enemy, or similar descriptions of an abandoned battlefield littered with all kinds of weapons. This was probably the simplest mode of inserting new types into the body of the text without tampering heavily with the original narration. was a kind of a retouching on the frills. lances like bhindipala, karpana, kunta and kanaya and Spears and It spikes, bars, bolts and clubs like sula, mudgara, musala, parigha, danda and sthuna are a typical example of these. There are also a few other types like the wheeled asanis and sataghnis, the huge cakras and various yantras or mechanical contrivances which are associated more closely with fortified than open warfare. All these weapons by reason of their not being involved in the actual action and because fortified walls are a late phenomenon, must have entered the Epic at a slightly later stage, although as weapons they may not be necessarily of late evolution. To the second category belong those weapons which have become an integral and inseparable part of the Epic

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538 warfare. These are the prominent arrows naraca and ksurapra, the quivers tuna and tunira, the spears sakti, tomara and prasa, the heavy spike pattisa and the sword and the sheild now known more and more often as khadga and carma. An Epic battle would be meaningless without these. This time the retouching is not restricted merely to the periphary, but has touched the very core. In fact it is not a retouching any more, it is a remoulding of the Epic material. And this remoulding must undoubtedly have taken place somewhere between 500-200 B.C. The Pali Nikaya and Pitaka texts which were formulated immediately after the Buddha's death are supposed to be sure guides for the period 6 th to the 4 th century B.C., the Jatakas from about 4 th century B.C. onwards, while the Arthasastra is believed to reflect the conditions of the 2 nd 1 st century B.C. Thus, however much we would like to believe that the great Mahabharata war took place in some hoary antiquity, the compulsion of the evidence forces us to conclude that in its present form it can not go beyond 500-600 B.C., at the earliest. There will be much in it which goes back to 600 B.C. but much also that will be as late as 100 B.C. It has now become almost impossible to separate these elements although divided by a chasm of centuries. Armed with these literary facts certain conclusions become inevitable. But they are not the last word on the subject, not hard and fast rules, but more in the nature of

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generalizations, trying to corelate the literary evidence with the historic and the archaeological one in an attempt to build a chronological edifice, however loose, where the different phases of the development of the war and its equipment can be spel out somewhat more distinctly.

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