208 



ON THE WEAPONS USED 



elephants, or are driven in carriages. Then follows a descrip- 

 tion of the various kinds of soldiers, and afterwards a descrip- 

 tion of the animals and conveyances used for army purposes 

 This is succeeded by a classification of the arms used in 

 warfare and such arms are described. Among these are 

 mentioned firearms and a full account is given of the manu- 

 facture of gunpowder. 81 These two subjects will be discussed 

 at large hereafter. After the description of weapons is 

 finished, the different modes of warring, marching, and treat- 

 ing are gone into, and the political conduct of the king is 

 described at length. No undue preference is given to any 

 peculiar subject in particular, and this, if no other proof had 

 been forthcoming, speaks for the genuineness of the work. 



It is hardly imaginable that a work, which contains so 

 many important revelations about the ancient state of the 

 civil and military administration of India, and which is, 

 as we have seen, often quoted by works of undisputed 

 antiquity and genuineness — quoted too in a manner which 

 precludes forgery, as the quotations are seldom quite literal — 

 should have been written for the sole object of braggadocio, 

 in order to prove to Europeans the mental superiority of the 

 ancient Hindus by ascribing to them the original invention 

 and manufacture both of gunpowder and firearms, and 

 that the very object of the forgery, its raison d'etre, should 

 have been frustrated afterwards by keeping the work so 

 zealously secret that except to a few initiated pandits, it was 

 totally unknown to the public ! 



On the other hand would it not be a subject worthy of 

 investigation for those who doubt the authenticity of the 

 Sukraniti to prove its spuriousness, and to refute the state- 

 ments brought forward in favor of its genuineness ? Mere 

 assertions do not possess any scientific value. 



81 Gunpowder and firearms are incidentally mentioned also in other parts 

 of the Sukraniti ; but in this chapter both are described fully. 



