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 15 - Weapons during Phase IV (200-400 A.D.)
This phase is represented in the Mahabharata by an exclusive weapon of Krsna, the Sarnga or the horn-bow. One of the earliest references to a sarnga is found in the Arthasastra. Kautilya refers to 4 types of bows karmuka of palmyra wood, kodanda of bamboo, druna of some durable wood and dhanus of srnga or horn (Date 1929 :13). Kodanda and druna do not occur in the Mahabharata but karmuka and dhanu are very common. On the authority of Kautilya we can conclude that the dhanu of the Mahabharata was of horn and the -E
574 karmuka of tala or palmyra wood. But this might be a hasty conclusion. The dhanu was an ancient Vedic bow and from all the descriptions in the Vedas scholars are led to believe that it was made of wood and bamboo. Panini too refers to a dhanu (III.2.21) as also to a karmuka (V.1. 103), but makes a separate note of a 'talad dhanusi' or 'talam dhanu' (IV.3.152) (Agrawala 1963:424), a bow made of tala or palmyra wood. The Mahabharata too refers to a 'talamatra dhanu' (Y.26.23, 158.25; VIII. 48.13 ). neither the Vedas, nor Panini writing in the 5 th century B.C. were aware of horn-bows. The eredit of tapping new raw-materials should, therefore, go to Kautilya. However, Thus Their evidence around the same time or even earlier than Kautilya the Pali Jatakas often refer to bows made of ram horns (Chakravarty 1941:153; Singh 1965:103). combined with that of Kautilya points to the induction of the horn-bow into India before the begining of the Christian era. In the light of this evidence the Sarabhanga Jataka contains an interesting story of how the Bodhisattva was sent to Taksasila to learn archery and there acquired from his teacher a quiver and a bow of ram-horns among other things. The quiver and the bow-case were deftly joined together, so compact that he could conceal them both beneath his under-garment when he appeared for an archery competition and emerged superior to all the archers of Varanasi (Cowell 1957:III.66-67). Now a similar bow-and-quiver-compact is
575 portrayed attached to the saddle of a king on horseback on some Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian coins of the 1 st century A.D. from Taksasila (Smith 1972:38; Gardener 1966: 91-93, 116 ). Thus it appears that it were the ScythoParthians who were responsible for introducing the hornbow first to North-West India and then to the rest of the This deduction seems the most logical sub-continent. since it is well-known that the compound horn-bow was made famous by the steppe nomads, the various Scythian tribes of Central Asia. The horn was a typical steppe material, easily available amongst a cattle-and-sheep rearing people, whereas wood, bamboo etc. were scarce in the treeless steppes. The use of horn, two well-curved pieces joined together by a short piece of wood, automatically reduced the size and the flexibility of the bow, so that it was much shorter and stiffer than the wooden and the bamboo one. But there can be no dispute about its strength and hardness. It was notably short for its great power, but wonderfully suited to the swift-riding horsemen of the steppes, who would otherwise have been greatly inconvenienced dragging a long bow. Very often its case was combined with the quiver, compact, made of wood, covered with leather and metal and easily suspended from the waist band of the rider, leaving his hands and legs completely free to manipulate the horse, in the days when stirrups were yet to be invented.
576 The Scythians, however, were not the first inventors of the composite horn-bow though they are known to have used it from the 6 th-7 th century B.C. The bow was no doubt an invention of the Asian steppes but it was used much before the Scythians appeared on the scene by Minoans in Crete, by the Egyptians of the 19 th Dynasty and by the Assyrians in the 1 st millenium B.C. Its use in all these three cases synchronised with the use of the warchariot, for just as its size made it handy for a horseman so also for a chariot-riding archer (Singh 1965:93). The same appears to have been the case in Homeric Greece too. But in this early period these bows, probably costly and difficult to make, were usually seen in the hands of nobles and princes, while the rank and file carried the simple bow of wood. The proud challenge of Penelope to bend the famous bow of her husband Odysseus merely stresses the comparative novelty and rarity of these bows. With the Scythians taking to the horse the situation was completely altered. Now every horseman needed a composite and a compact bow. With their powerful bows and intrepid riding they became the world's most feared raiders. The credit of popularising the composite horn-bow through nations and continents certainly goes to them. The first contacts of the Scythians in India were somewhere around the 2 nd century B.C. when they started making inroads through Afghanistan and Baluchistan into the lower Indus Valley.
By the 1 st century B.C. the first Indo-Scythian and IndoParthian kingdoms had been established in Gandhara with its centre at Taksasila. The evidence of the Arthasastra and the Jatakas points to the same period when the sariga bow was most likely introduced through North West India. However, it took a long time for it to percolate through the length and breadth of India, and its use became widespread only from the 4 th century A.D. onwards as seen from the testimony of the Agni Purana (5 th century A.D.) in which the Sarnga emerges as the true sa compound bow made of horns and iron conjointly. Horns of 577 the buffalo and the rohisa and sarabha deers constituted the main body joined together in the centre by a piece of metal or wood (Chakravarti 1941:154). The steppe bows were generally made of ram-horns and so were the ones in the Jatakas. Sturdy sheep and ram are more a speciality of the North West than India proper. Hence probably the comparative novelty of the ram-horn bow which Bodhisattva had fetched from Taksasila. With the passage of centuries and probably a lot of experimentation, the Indians had come to evolve a sarnga bow of typically indegenous material like buffalo, rohisa and Sarabha horns. Since then the sarnga has been in general use with most members of the royalty. Sculptural and numismatic evidence supports this view. The double-curved compound bow was of rare occurence in early Indian art, whereas a late group of Ajanta
= 578 frescoes, depicts a fine example with two well-curved halves and a staff centre-piece (Dhavalikar 1973:105). The coins of the Gupta kings portray a variety of royal bows, prominent among whom is a double-curved bow. Some of the specimens are quite short, with two finely-curved halves, a centrepiece, either straight or curved and often ringed, beaded or decorated, and two thin and tapering, evidently flexible extremities (Vidya Prakash 1960:284). This powerful bow is seen in full action on the 'lion-slayer' variety of the Gupta coins. By the 6 th century A.D. the term 'sarnga' had become synonymous with a bow. To turn to the Mahabharata again the sariga in the Epic None of the Epic heroes weild a is a divine weapon. Sarga. It is Krsna and Krsna alone! The earlier references to the sarnga in the Arthasastra and the Jatakas are entirely secular there being no trace of Krsna anywhere. Then at what stage did the sariga become an exclusive weapon of Krsna ? The first to voice such a connection was probably the poet-dramatist Bhasa. In his drama Balacarita based on the childhood of Krsna he refers to Visnu-Krsna as 'Sarngin'. The date of Bhasa is controversial, though many scholars would place him between the 1 st century B.C. No the 1 st century A.D. Many of Bhasa's plays are based on the episodes in the Mahabharata and it is quite likely that the new trends deifying Krsna and indentifying him with Visnu were set in motion around this time. By the 4 th century A.D. and
= 579 'Sarngin' is a regular epithet of Visnu in the Amarakosa ( I. 19 ) while the inscriptions of the late Gupta kings speak of temples raised in honour of Visnu-Krsna as 'Sarngin' or 'Sarngapani (Hultz 1925: Corpus III.53). Mahabharata evidently reflects this phase when the Sarnga had become crystallized as an exclusive attribute of Krsna The A word about the legend of Krsna's rivalry with Mura would not be out of place here. It was a great event in Krsna's life and he is said to have obtained the Sarnga bow after defeating and killing Mura. If we believe the Jane sarnga to have been introduced by the Scythians it could be that the Krsna-Mura fight is a legendary memory of • They are some actual battle between the invading foreigners and a local cheiftain or princeling. We are also told that along. with the Sarnga Krsna acquired as booty a pair of jewelled ear-rings and lots of precious stones. This is again highly suggestive of Scytho-Parthian connections. reputed to have been extremely fond of gems and precious stones and the art of gem incrustation on metal, as in the case of manikundalas obtained by Krsna, was another of their introductions into India. There is, however, one snag in the story. The battle between Krsna and Mura is supposed to have taken place at the city of Pragjyotisa, which is generally located in eastern India, in modern Assam, far away from the scene of action of the Sakas in the North West. But at the same time theme seems to be
The Mahabharata too locates the same city somewhere in North-Eastern India (II.23.17-19). If some day the exact identity of Mura and Pragjyotisa is established it will probably throw some interesting light on the legend of Krsna as a whole.