THE SWORD IN INDIA.
Unfortunately, India preserves no trustworthy Hindú records of the past. Although Herodotus called it the ‘most wealthy and populous country in the world,’ yet the absence of temples and other ruins suggests barbarism when Egypt and Assyria, Greece and Rome, were flourishing. While Buddhism is made to date from the sixth century b.c., and we have subsequent notices of Buddha’s chief worshippers,[698] there was evidently very little civilisation in the days of Alexander (b.c. 327). Nearchus made the Indians ‘write letters on cloth smoothed by being well beaten’; and Strabo (xv. 1) doubts whether India knew the use of writing. They derived their art and literature from Græco-Bactria, and they only degraded the former—Art in her highest form never travels far from the Mediterranean. The beautiful human animals and mauvais sujets who were the citizens of Olympus became in grotesque India blue-skinned, many-headed and multi-armed monsters—the abortions of imagination.
India’s two great epics (‘Mahabhárat’ and ‘Ramáyana’) and fifteen Puranas are mere depositories of legendary and imaginative myths, containing few of the golden grains of truth hid in tons of rubbish. All the anthropology we learn from them is that India had a primitive (Turanian?) race, called in contempt Rakshasas or demons. It was mastered by Brahminical attacks, typified in later days by Rama and other heroes, probably during the exodes of Hyksos and Hebrews from Egypt; and long subsequently arose Buddhism, to be followed by the rule of the Moslems and Europeans.[699]
The Dhanurvidya,[700] or Bow-Science, contains the fullest description we possess of the ancient Indian arms and war-implements, but the date of composition is exceedingly doubtful. The Hindú delights in vast numbers. Assuming the population of the earth at one thousand and seventy-five billions, his Aksauhini, or complete army, according to the Nitiprakáshika, an abstract Dhanurvidya by the sage Vaishampáyana, amounts to two thousand one hundred and eighty-seven millions of foot, twenty-one thousand eight hundred and seventy millions of horse, two hundred and eighteen thousand seven hundred elephants, and twenty-one thousand eight hundred and seventy chariots. The scale of salaries in gold[701] is equally liberal and absurd.
The Hindú mind—so far justifying the term ‘Indo-Germanic’—connects everything with metaphysics,[702] or a something that goes beyond physical phenomena. Hence it ascribes all arms and armour to supernatural causes. Jáyá, a daughter of primæval Daksha (one of the Rishis or sacred sages), became, according to a promise of Brahma, the creator, the mother of all weapons, including missiles. These are divided into four great classes. The Yantramukta (thrown by machines); the Panimukta (hand-thrown); the Muktasandhárita (thrown and drawn back) and the Mantramukta (thrown by spells, and numbering six species), form the Mukta or thrown class of twelve species. This is opposed to the Amukta (unthrown) of twenty species, to the Muktámukta (either thrown or not) of ninety-eight varieties,[703] and to the Báhuyuddha (weapons which the body provides for personal struggles). All are personified—for instance, Dhanu, the bow, has a small face, a broad neck, a slender waist, and a strong back. He is four cubits high and is bent in three places; he has a long tongue, and his mouth has terrible tusks; his colour is of blood, and he ever makes a gurgling noise; he is covered with garlands of entrails, and he licks continually with his tongue the two corners of his mouth.[704]
The Sword (Khadga,[705] As, or Asi) belongs to the second class. According to the sage Vaishampáyana it was a superior weapon, introduced especially and separately by Brahma, who produced ‘Asidevatá.’ This ‘Sword-god’ appeared on the summit of the Himálayas shaking earth’s foundations and illuminating the sky. Brahma entrusted the arm, then fifty thumbs long and four thumbs broad, to Shiva (Rudra), still its supreme deity, in order to free the world from the Asuras or mighty dæmons. Shiva, after his success, passed it on to Vishnu, the latter to Marici, and he to Indra. The Air-god conferred it upon the guardians of the World-quarters, and these to Manu, the son of the Sun, for use against evil-doers. Since that time it has remained in his family. The Khadga has a total of nine names: carried on the left side and handled in thirty-two different ways, the weapon became a universal favourite. Amongst the four arts to be studied besides the Káma-Shastra (Ars Amoris), women are enjoined by the Sage Vatsya (Part I. p. 26)[706] to practise with Sword, single-stick, quarterstaff, and bow and arrow.’
The Ili (hand-sword, p. 17) is two cubits long and five fingers broad; the front part is curved; there is no hand-guard, and four movements are peculiar to it. The Prasa, or spear, in some works becomes a broadsword. The uterine brother of the Sword is the Pattisha or two-bladed battle-axe. The Asidhenu (dagger), the ‘sister of the Sword and worn by kings,’ is a three-edged blade, one cubit long, two thumbs broad, without hand-guard, carried in the belt, and used in hand-to-hand conflict. The Maushtika (fist-Sword, stiletto[707]) is only a span long, and thus very handy for all kinds of movements.
Fig. 233.—Hindú Warriors
From memorial stones of Bijanagar, of which the Kensington Museum possesses photographs. The date of these monuments corresponds with our Middle Ages.