ON THE WEAPONS USED BY THE ANCIENT HINDUS. 167 



VII. 



ON THE WEAPONS, 

 ARMY ORGANISATION AND POLITICAL 

 MAXIMS OF THE ANCIENT HINDUS, 

 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE 

 TO GUNPOWDER AND FIREARMS. 



CHAPTER I. 



ON THE WEAPONS AND WAB IMPLEMENTS OF THE ANCIENT 



HINDUS. 



Our knowledge of the history of the ancient Hindus is very 

 limited, and there is not much hope of our becoming better 

 informed, as the most important factor for providing such 

 knowledge, i.e., a historical literature or a sufficient number 

 of authentic records is not existing in India, in fact seems 

 never to have existed. While we possess ample material to 

 reconstruct to some extent the history of the ancient Egyp- 

 tians, Assyrians, Hebrews, Persians or Greeks, the Hindus 

 have left us no sufficiently trustworthy records of the past, to 

 enable us to do the same with respect to Indian history, 

 that has been done to the history of other ancient nations. 



The combined influences of climate, geographical position, 

 political circumstances, education, religious belief, and habit 

 have conspired to destroy any taste for historical researches, 

 even if such had existed formerly. Internecine wars, all the 

 more cruelly conducted, as they severed the links of previous 

 relationship and friendship, either undertaken for the sake of 



