THE NITIPRAKA§IKA. 



13 



All these last-mentioned weapons are deposited in the 

 second foot of the Dhanurveda. 



The third class is divided into Sopasamhdra and Upasam- 

 hara weapons : of the former there are 44, of the latter 55 

 specimens ; 26 all these rest in the third foot of the Dhanurveda. 



^TJ^TFT *TT^Ttf^t- VidyaranyasvamI in his Taittiriyaveddrtha. 

 prakdia says : ^ ^[f^q} ^ ^1 ^ ^<WT3rft 



The surml being described in the Veda as a weapon with which the gods 

 kill the Asuras, it is surprising that in the otherwise so excellent Sanskrit- 

 Worterbuch von BUhlingk und Roth it should have been described in part VII, 

 p. 1172 as ein rohrenartiges Gefdss ah Leuchter dienend (fur Oel oder Talg) , 

 i.e., a tubular vessel serving as a candlestick for oil or tallow, and karnakdvati 

 as mit Oehr und Handgrip verse hen provided with an ear and a handle. Such 

 an interpretation gives no sense in the context, especially if the surml as 

 candlestick is likened in the same verse to the sataghnl. In extenuation of 

 this wrong explanation it may be assumed as certain that the commentaries of 

 Bhattabhaskara and VidyaranyasvamI were not known to the above-men- 

 tioned lexicographers. Moreover it seems that both these learned Sanskritists 

 were unacquainted with the form of the Indian lamp (for the Hindus do not 

 possess our hollow candlestick) , which has a solid pedestal and stand on which 

 latter is a small vase-shaped surface which contains the oil (omitting alto- 

 gether the strange allusion to tallow) and the wick ; the handle, if any, 

 being above the latter. — Compare also Harivamsa 227, 20 — 



where the flashing sataghnis may be either understood to apply to rocket-like 

 missiles or to guns. 



It may here be appropriately remarked that the Hindus do not use metallic 

 tubes for their rockets, having perhaps made the observation that they rise 

 with greater difficulty. Nilakantha explains in the Mahabharata the satagh- 

 nis to be guns, see Sukranlti, p. 252. 



™SeeII, 22-28 ; Weapons, pp. 25-29, 30 ; and Madras Journal, pp. 191-195; 

 Harivamsa, 22,7. 



