THE SWORD IN BABYLONIA, ASSYRIA AND PERSIA, AND ANCIENT INDIA.
[Illustration: FIG. 202.—ASSYRIAN SWORD.]
Although Professor Lepsius maintained and proved that the earliest
Babylonian civilisation was imported from Egypt, Biblical leanings, and
the fatal practice of reading myths and mysteries as literal history,
have led many moderns to hold the Plain of Shinar (Babylon) and the
ancient head of the Persian Gulf to be the cradle of culture and the
origin of ‘Semitism.’ We still read, ‘Babylonia stands prominent as
highly civilised and densely populated at a period when Egypt was
still in her youthful prime.’[649] Only in Genesis (x. 10), a document
treating of later ethnology, we find mention of Erech,[650] Urukh
being the oldest traditional king of Babylon. On the other hand, the
Egyptians declared Belus and his subjects to have been an Egyptian
colony which taught the rude Babylonians astrology and other arts.
The monumental Babylonian or pre-Chaldæan Empire begins only in B.C.
2300, many a century—say a score—after Menes. The late Mr. George Smith
warns us that some scholars would make the annals ‘stretch nearly
two thousand years beyond that time’; but he expressly declares no
approximate date can be fixed for any king before Kara-Indas (circ.
B.C. 1475?–1450?). Also, ‘The great temples of Babylonia were founded
by the kings who preceded the conquest by Hammu-rabi, King of the
Kassi’ Arabs (sixteenth century B.C.).[651]
The Burbur or Accad inscriptions found in Babylonia do not date before
B.C. 2000. Ninus, the builder of Nineveh (Fish-town) and the founder
of the Assyrian dynasties, is usually placed between B.C. 2317 and
2116. An extract, by Alexander Polyhistor from the Armenian[652]
Chronicle, gives, by adding the dynasties, an origin-date of 2,317
years. Berosus the priest, declares from official documents, that
Babylon (God’s Gate) had regal annals 1,000 years before Solomon (B.C.
993–953), in whose reign dynastic Jewish history begins. Diodorus
Siculus, quoting Ctesias (B.C. 395) makes the monarchy commence one
thousand years before the Siege of Troy, which we may place about B.C.
1200. Æmilius Sura, quoted by Paterculus, proposes the date B.C. 2145,
and Eusebius the Armenian 1340 years before the first Olympiad (B.C.
776), or B.C. 2116. The great kingdom of the Khita (Hittites)[653]
was succeeded on the rich lowlands of the Tigris-Euphrates system by
Babylon, which the Nilotes called ‘Har,’ and by the Assyrians, whom the
Egyptians called Mat or the People, and hieroglyphs notice the ‘Great
King of the Mat.’ But [Cuneiform] Assur[654] was little known till the
decline of the Pharaohs in the Twenty-first Dynasty (B.C. 1100–966)
of the priest Hirhor and his successors: one of the latter—Ramessu or
Ramses XVI.—married, when dethroned, a daughter of Pallasharnes, the
‘great king of the Assyrians,’ whose capital was Nineveh,[655] and thus
led to the Assyrian invasions of Egypt.[656] We may, then, safely hold
with Lepsius that early Babylonian civilisation was posterior to, if
not imported from, Egypt.[657]
In Babylonia a third element, the so-called ‘Turanian’ (Chinese),
first emerged from Egyptian and began to take its part in the drama
of progress. The almost unknown quantity has assumed magnificent
proportions in the eyes of certain students, and great things are still
expected from Akkadian revelation. Yet the race typified by the Chinese
could have had no effect upon the learning of Egypt. ‘At the time
when the genealogical tables of Genesis were written (chap. x.) those
regions were still so unknown and barbarous that the writer excluded
them from the civilised world.’[658]
[Heading: _THE SWORD IN ASSYRIA._]
Our factual knowledge of Mesopotamian civilisation is mostly due to
the labours of the present century. Professor Grotefend of Bonn, in
1801–1803, discovered the clue to the Persian cuneiform,[659] cuneatic
or arrow-headed character. This great step in advance opened the
labyrinth to a host of minor explorers—Heeren (1815), Burnouf (1836),
Lassen (1836–44), Hincks, who attacked the Assyrian cuneiform, and,
to mention no more, Rawlinson, whose ‘Reading made Easy’ popularised
the study in England. Actual exploration of the Mesopotamian ruins was
begun by the learned Consul Botta (Dec. 1842) who, after failing at
Koyunjik opposite Mosul, worked successfully at Khorsabad, some ten
miles to the north-east: four years afterwards (Dec. 1846) the first
collection of Assyrian antiquities reached the Louvre. He was followed
(Nov. 8, 1845) by Mr. (now Sir) H. A. Layard, who unfortunately was not
an Orientalist: his various discoveries of a stamped-clay literature,
and his popular publications, introduced to the public Koyunjik and
Kal’at Ninawi (Nineveh), Hillah (Babylon), Warká, Sippara (Abu Nabbah)
sixteen miles south-west of Baghdad, and a variety of Biblical sites.
This ‘recovery’ of antiquities buried twenty centuries ago, and a whole
literature of bas-reliefs, enables us to compare the Nile Valley, the
cradle and mother-country of science and art, with its rival-successor
on the Tigris-Euphrates. The original workmanship of Assyria, like that
of Egypt, is still unknown; and, though she borrowed from Nile-land,
her art is rather a decadence than a rise. The difference, indeed, is
between the porphyries, the granites, and the syenites of Egypt, and
the mud-bricks, the coarse black marbles, the rough basalts, and the
undurable alabasters (a calcareous carbonate) of Interamnian Assyria.
But the industrious valley-men made the best of their poor material.
The ruins show the true Egyptian arch; the so-called Ionic capital, the
original volutes being goats’ horns;[660] the Caryatides and Atlantes,
or human figures acting columns; the cornice, corbel, and bracket;
with a host of architectural embellishments to fill up plain fields.
Apparently all migrated from Nile-land. Such were the winged circle,
the lotus,[661] the fir-cone, and the rosette: the latter, also found
by Dr. Schliemann at ‘Troy’ (p. 160), became the _rosa mystica_ of
Byzantine art, and was used by Christians to denote their origin.
Again, we have the key-pattern, which is Trojan and Chinese as well
as Greek; the honeysuckle, a symbol of the Homa or Assyrian ‘Tree of
Life’;[662] the guilloche-scroll or wave-pattern; and the meander,
also miscalled the Tuscan border: the latter is common in Egypt and
Cyprus, and possibly derives from the Hittite Svasti, erroneously
called Svastika.[663] Assyria equally excelled in literature,[664] in
painting, in sculpture, in the minor arts, and in metallurgy. She made
transparent glass: a crystal lens[665] found at Nineveh accounts for
the diminutive size of some inscriptions. Her sons worked enamel, and
thus adorned the humble brick: like their Egyptian teachers, they were
skilful in ivory-carving, in cutting cylinders of jasper and _pietra
dura_, and in gem-engraving on carnelian, onyx, sardonyx, amethyst,
agate, chalcedony, and lapis lazuli.
As regards Assyrian metallurgy, few articles of iron have been found
in the river-valley’s damp and nitrous soil, but the metal is denoted,
as in Egypt, by a blue tint, and the god Ninib is termed the ‘lord
of the iron coat.’ Gold and silver were profusely used as ornaments.
Lead was dug in the Montes Gordæi (Kurd Mountains) near Mosul, the
original Ararat of ‘Noah’s ark.’ Copper vessels, bright as gold when
polished, were found in the palaces of Nimrúd: the ore was brought
from the northern highlands heading the Tigris Valley, where the
Arghana ma’adan (Diyar-i-Bekr mine) long supplied the Ottoman Empire.
The place that exported their tin is disputed.[666] They worked well
in bronze: of this alloy many castings have been found: utensils,
as pots and cauldrons, cups, forks and spoons, dishes, and plates,
plain and ornamented; tools, as picks, nails, and saws; thin plates;
the so-called razors;[667] lamps; weapons; an ægis-like object also
found in Egypt; lance-heads, shields, and door-sockets each weighing
six pounds and three and three-quarter ounces.[668] The bronze gates
of Balawat, with plates eight feet long showing the triumphs of
Shalmaneser II. (B.C. 884–850), attest high art. Layard supplied the
British Museum with many iron articles from the north-western palace
at Nimrúd, and some had iron cores round which bronze had been cast
for economy. Amongst them were iron chain-armour, two rusty helmets
ornamented with bronze; picks, hammers, knives, and saws.[669] The
approximate date may be assumed at B.C. 880.
[Illustration: FIG. 203.—ASSYRIAN LANCE WITH COUNTER-WEIGHT.]
[Illustration: FIG. 204.—ASSYRIAN SPEAR-HEAD.]
[Illustration: FIG. 205.—ASSYRIAN ‘RAZOR.’
A sickle-shaped tool from a bas-relief. A similar weapon in iron, found
at Pæstum in Lucania, is preserved in the Musée d’Artillerie at Paris.]
In mimic war (hunting) the Assyrians were proficients. Many hundreds
of bas-reliefs, which are more natural because less conventional
than those of Egypt, illustrate the chase of the lion, stag, and
jungle-swine; the wild horse, ass, and bull. They were equally skilled
in the art of war, which is shown in all its phases, the march, the
passage of streams, the siege, the battle, the sea-fight, or rather
the river-fight, the pursuit, and the punishment of prisoners by
torturing, impaling, flaying alive, crucifixion, and ‘tree-planting’
or vivi-interment. The abominable cruelties of these Asiatics, still
practised by the Persian, the Kurd, and the ‘unspeakable’ Turk,
contrast strongly with the mildness of the African Egyptians. Their
walls, single or double, were provided with the fosse and the rampart,
and with machicolations, crenelles, and battlements; the last two
originally shields like the Egyptian cartouche. The _places fortes_
were attacked by the wheeled tower,[670] the iron-pointed battering
ram, the scaling ladder, and the pavoise, or large shield common
throughout Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.[671] In
the field pennons are attached to the lances, and the standard-bearers
carry eagles. The action begins with missiles, slings, darts, and
arrows; the mace and spear then play their part, and the Sword is
never absent. The warriors—who appear on foot or horseback, with
gorgeous caparisons, in chariots or swimming with floats of inflated
skins—wear helmets of many shapes, crested, crescented, capped with
the _fleur-de-lys_ and perfectly plain; some are close-fitting with
ear-flaps, the common skull-cap (_namms_) of Ancient Egypt, and the
Indian Kan-top. The head-gear usually ended in a metal point—the
_pickelhaube_. The sculptors show imbricated armour or hauberks
(mail-coats) of the Norman type, with stockings of iron- (?) rings,
gaiters, and boots laced up in front. The shields, either circular or
rounded at the top and straight at the bottom, cover the whole body.
[Heading: _THE ASSYRIAN SWORD._]
The Assyrian Sword, like the Egyptian, is of four principal shapes.
One, a long poniard of Nilotic form, is carried by all classes from
king to slinger. The other (_Malmulla_, ? fig. 206, 3), by some
translated ‘falchion,’ appears slightly curved, not like the Turkish
scymitar, but with the half-bend of the Japanese and the Indian
Talwár. The curved blades in the bas-reliefs mostly characterise
conquered peoples. The third is the Sa-pa-ra or Khopsh, of which an
illustration will be given (p. 208); and the fourth is a club-shaped
blade thickening at the end, which is almost pointless.[672] In the
cuneiforms a ‘double Sword’ is often mentioned: it may be of the kind
called by the Greeks ‘Chelidonian’ (chap. ix. and xi.).[673] Fancy
weapons appear in the bas-reliefs—for instance, the Sword from the
Nineveh palace of the Sardanapalus-reign, B.C. 1000 (fig. 210).
[Illustration: FIG. 206.—1. BABYLONIAN BRONZE DAGGER; 2, 3. ASSYRIAN
SWORDS (Layard); 4. ASSYRIAN BRONZE SWORD (bas-relief in Palace of
Khorsabad, reign of Sargon, B.C. 721–706).]
[Illustration: FIG. 207.—DAGGER-SWORD IN SHEATH.]
[Illustration: FIG. 208.—DAGGER-SWORD.]
[Illustration: FIG. 209.—CLUB-SWORD.]
[Illustration: FIG. 210.—FANCY SWORD.]
Mostly the weapons have richly decorated hilts and scabbards. In a
royal sculpture the pommel is formed by a mound or hemisphere—a
constant ornament—and below it is a ball between two flat discs: the
upper jaws of two lions, placed opposite each other, embrace the blade
and the grip where it presses against the metal sheath-mouth. Another
has a lion’s head on the handle. The two-lion scabbard is common, and
sometimes the beasts are locked in a death embrace. In another specimen
the royal blade is much broader than usual, and two lions couchant form
the ferrule, embracing the sheath with their paws and retrogardant or
bending their heads backwards (fig. 212). The ferrule of another is
enriched with a guilloche. In the inscriptions of Assur-bani-pal[674]
(Sardanapalus) we read of a ‘steel Sword and its sheath of gold,’ and
of ‘steel Swords of their girdles.’ Another legend runs—‘He lifted his
great Sword called “Lord of the Storm,”’ proving that the Sword, like
the horse, the chariot, the boat, and other favourites, had names and
titles.
[Illustration: FIG. 211.—ASSYRIAN SWORDS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 212.—ASSYRIAN SWORDS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 213.—ASSYRIAN DAGGER.]
The dagger is often decorated with the head of the hippopotamus (a
Nilotic, or rather African, beast) surmounting an imbricated handle
(fig. 213).[675] This poniard is worn in the girdle, and in some cases
it appears under and behind the surcoat. The longer weapon is carried
by a narrow bauldric slung over the right shoulder and meeting another
cord-shaped band at the breast, in fact suggesting our antiquated
cross-belts. The Sword is always worn on the left side.[676] A royal
Sword-belt bears several ranges of bosses and globules, which may be
pearls: that of the eunuch-attendant has three wide rows, the central
broken here and there by round plates. A Magian wears a broad scarf
with long hanging fringes cast obliquely over the left shoulder: it is
edged with a triple series of small rosettes placed in squares, and it
passes over the Sword, to which, perhaps, it acts bauldric. A soldier’s
bauldric is coloured red, like the wood of the bows and arrows. Another
eunuch wears the Sword-belt buckled over the waist-sash, and holds in
his right hand a scourge: this was the emblem of official rank, as the
Egyptian carried a hide-Kurbáj.[677] Another soldier has, besides the
Kamar-band (waist-sash), a red belt, and what seems to be its tassels
hanging from the shoulders before and behind.
[Illustration: FIG. 214.—ASSYRIO-BABYLONIAN ARCHER in war coat,
leggings, and fillet. Bas-relief, B.C. 700. (Museum of the Louvre.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 215.—ASSYRIAN FOOT SOLDIER with the coat, helmet
and tall crest, greaves or leggings, target and lance. Bas-reliefs of
Nineveh of Sardanapalus V. B.C. 700.]
[Illustration: FIG. 216.—ASSYRIAN SOLDIER HUNTING GAME. Bas-relief of
Khorsabad, of the reign of Sargon. (British Museum.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 217.—FOOT SOLDIER OF THE ARMY OF SENNACHERIB (B.C.
712–707). From a bas-relief in the British Museum. The shape of the
conical helmet is modern Persian; the coat and leggings appear to be of
mail; the shield is round, large, and very convex.]
[Illustration: FIG. 218.—ASSYRIAN WARRIOR, WITH SWORD AND STAFF.]
[Illustration: FIG. 219.—ASSYRIAN WARRIORS AT A LION HUNT.]
[Illustration: FIG. 220.—ASSYRIAN EUNUCH. In mail-coat, with mace, bow,
and dagger-Sword.]
[Heading: _THE SWORD IN ASSYRIA._]
The Sword and the Sword-dagger seem to have been universally used
in Assyria—none but captives and working men are without them. The
vulture-headed ‘Nisroch the god’ (of Nebuchadnezzar) carries two long
poniards in his breast garment, whereas Ashur in statues shoots his
bow. Assur-bani-pal ‘destroys the people of Arabia with his Sword.’
The king in his car, with his Cidaris (tiara) and fly-flap, has two
daggers and a Sword in his girdle, from which hang cords and tassels.
Another rests his right hand upon a staff, and his left upon the
pommel of his weapon. A third plunges a short straight blade, like the
matador’s _espada_, between the second and third vertebræ of a wild
bull, where the spinal cord is most assailable: this would be done
to-day in the spectacula of Spain. Swords are worn by the magi and the
eunuchs;[678] and one of the latter draws his weapon to cut off a head.
The body-guard bears by his side a Sword longer than usual, and holds
arrows and other weapons for his lord’s use. Even the executioner does
his work with the Sword.
Happily for students, an ancient Assyrian bronze Sword was bought by
Colonel Hanbury from the Bedawin at Nardin.[679] He could not ascertain
whence it originally came, but it was probably placed in the hands of a
statue, perhaps of Maruduk (Mars, father of Nebo or Mercury[680]): it
certainly resembles those with which the god is represented upon the
Cylinders[681] when fighting with the Dragon. The dimensions are:
Length of blade 16 inches
Length of hilt 5⅜ „
Total length 21⅜ „
Width at hilt 1⅛ „
Width at hilt base 1⅞ „
The weapon has a richly jewelled hilt inlaid with ivory. It is of the
kind known in the Assyrian inscriptions as [Cuneiform] (Sa-pa-ra).[682]
It bears the following (cuneiform) inscription in three places: (1)
along the whole length of the flat blade, inside edge; (2) along the
back; and (3) on the outside edge, where it is divided into two lines:—
E-kal Vul-nirari sar kissati abli Bu-di-il Sar Assuri
Abli Bel-nirari Sar Assuri va—
(The Palace of Vul-nirari, King of Nations, son of Budil,[683]
Sar (king) of Assyria, son of Bel-nirari, Sar of Assyria, and—)
[Illustration: FIG. 221.—BRONZE SWORD BEARING THE NAME OF VUL-NIRARI
I., FOUND NEAR DIARBEKR.]
[Heading: _THE SWORD IN PERSIA._]
And now, proceeding east, we may note that the Persepolis sculptures
distinctly show, as we might expect, Assyrian and Babylonian
derivation. The Persians are, despite their prodigious pretensions,
a comparatively modern people,[684] and they were rude enough when
armed only with sling, lasso, and knife. The date of Hakhámanish
(Achæmenes), the _hero eponymus_ of the ruling family, can hardly be
made to precede B.C. 700. This was about the time (B.C. 721–706) when
Sargon II. first mentions the Greeks as the Yaha of Yatnan (Yunan =
Ionia), who sent him tribute from Cyprus and beyond. The Medes, before
the reign of Cyaxares had conducted the Persians from the Caspian
regions into Media Magna, were mere barbarians, like the Iliyát or
Iranian nomades of the present day, who number from a quarter to a
half of the population. But in starting into life Persia succeeded to
a rich inheritance—Babylon. To this conquest (B.C. 538) she was led
by her hero king, Cyrus the Great, or rather Kurush[685] the elder,
son of Cambyses (Xenophon), not father of Cambyses (Herodotus), and a
contemporary of Darius the Mede.[686] Their courage and conduct, their
loyalty and simplicity, their wise laws, their generosity and their
love of truth,[687] now unhappily extinct, raised them in Herodotus’
day to the proud position of ‘Lords of Asia.’
[Illustration: FIG. 222.—PERSIAN ARCHER. From a bas-relief of
Persepolis, the ancient capital of Persia (B.C. 560). The long coat,
probably of leather, descends to the ankle. The headdress has nothing
of the helmet, but nevertheless indicates workmanship in metal.]
[Illustration: FIG. 223.—PERSIAN WARRIOR. From a bas-relief of
Persepolis; a cast is in the British Museum. The shield, high enough
to rest on, is almost hemispherical; the helmet, with ear and neck
coverings in one single piece, differs from the Assyrian.]
[Illustration: FIG. 224.—THE PERSIAN CIDARIS, OR TIARA.]
Between the bas-reliefs of Khorsabad and those of Persepolis there
is the same difference as between the early Egyptian sculptures and
the degenerate days of what Macrobius calls the ‘tyranny’ of the
Ptolemies.[688] The drawing is less pure, the forms are heavier, the
anatomical details are wanting or badly indicated—they are, in fact,
clumsy imitations of far higher models.
Herodotus (VII. ch. lx.-lxxxiii.), when reviewing the army of Xerxes
(Khshhershe = Ahasuerus[689]) in B.C. 480, numbers forty-five
nations, of which only the six (including Colchians and Caspians)
wore Swords. The long straight dagger was carried by the Pactyans,
by the Paphlagonians, by the Thracians, and by the Sagartians, who
spoke Persian, and who were in dress half Persians and half Pactyans
(Afghans?).[690] The Sagartian Nomades (chap. lxxxv.) were armed with
a short blade and with lassos of plaited thongs ending in a running
noose: this denotes that they were cattle-breeders.[691] Chapter liv.
again mentions ‘the Persian Sword of the kind which they call ἀκινάκης
(Akinakes):’ like the Roman _pugio_ and the modern _couteau-de-chasse_,
it was straight, not curved, as expressly stated by Josephus.[692] The
Persian troops wore only these ‘daggers suspended from their girdles
along their right thighs.’ Hence Cambyses died of a wound on his right
side, and Valerius Flaccus describes a Parthian as—
Insignis manicis, insignis acinace dextro. (_Arg._ vi. 701.)
Julius Pollux explains it as a περσικὸν ξιφίδιον, τῷ μηρῷ προσηρτημένον
(a Persian swordlet fastened to the thigh), and Josephus compares it
with the Sica or Sicca.[693] The favourite weapon was the bow, although
Darius speaks of the Sword as the instrument of punishment.
[Illustration: FIG. 225.—PERSIAN ACINACES. (Here worn on right side.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 226.—PERSIAN ACINACES.]
[Illustration: FIG. 227.—SWORD FROM MITHRAS GROUP.]
[Illustration: FIG. 228.—SWORD IN RELIEF, PERSEPOLIS SCULPTURES.]
The Indians, afterwards so celebrated for their Swords, were in B.C.
480 barbarians dressed in cottons and armed with only cane bows and
arrows. Of the twelve peoples who supplied the one thousand two
hundred and seven triremes, the Egyptians had long cutlasses, the
Cilicians ‘Swords closely resembling the cutlass of the Egyptians,’ the
Lycians[694] daggers and curved falchions, and the Carians daggers and
‘enses falcati,’ which apparently were not used by the Greeks (chap.
xciii.).
[Illustration: FIG. 229.—PERSIAN ACINACES. From a bas-relief at
Persepolis.]
[Illustration: FIG. 230.—DAGGER-FORMS FROM PERSEPOLIS.]
Representations of the Persian Acinaces abound in the sculptures
of Chehel Munar (the Palace of the Forty Columns) at Persepolis.
Apparently there are two kinds. Porter’s[695] illustration (Plate 37)
shows a handle like the modern weapon sheathed and slung to the right
side: Ammianus Marcellinus (xiv. 4) and all classics insist upon this
unswordsmanlike peculiarity.[696] The other (Plate 41), worn by a robed
Persian, and generally carried in the front-knots of the belt, has a
crutch-handle and wavy blade, like the Malay Krís (crease). In other
places (Plates 53 and 54) a human figure stabs the roaring monster in
the belly with a common ‘Khanjar’-dagger. The traveller considers the
stout little weapon with broad blade and ferruled sheath apparently
tied to the right thigh as the Persian Sword of that age, which the
classics describe as very short. The lineal descendant of this weapon,
now obsolete in Persia, is the Afghan Charay, a congener of the
Egyptian flesh-knife Sword.
According to Quintus Curtius: ‘The Sword-belt of Darius was of gold,
and from it was suspended his scymitar, the scabbard of which was
composed of one entire pearl.’ The practice of inlaying blades and
hilts, still popular in Persia, may explain Herodotus (ix. 80), that
amongst the spoils taken at Platæa by the Greeks ‘there were acinaces
with golden ornaments.’ That of Mardonius was long kept as a trophy
in the temple of Athene-Parthenos in the Athenian Acropolis. On the
other hand, as was elsewhere done, blades of gold were given _honoris
causâ_. Hence in the ‘Iliad’ (xviii. 597) we see Hephæstus making
youths with golden cutlasses upon Achilles’ shield. According to
Xenophon the royal gift of Persia was a golden scymitar, a Nisæan horse
with golden bridle, and other battle-gear. Herodotus (viii. 120) makes
Xerxes present the Abderites with a golden scymitar and a tiara, Diana
is girt with a golden falchion (Herod. viii. 77). The golden blade is
not unknown to more modern days. In the ‘Chronicles of Dalboquerque’
(Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 204) two pages stand behind the King of Cananor,
one with a Sword of gold and the other with a scymitar of gold. The
weapons are distinguished from the ‘Swords adorned with gold and
silver’ (vol. i. 117). The King of Siam also sent to Dom Manoel of
Portugal ‘a crown and Sword of gold’ (vol. iii. 154). Cuzco supplied a
unique gold celt.
[Illustration: FIG. 231.—ACINACES OF PERSEPOLIS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 232.—ACINACES OF MITHRAS GROUP.]
The influence of the great Babylonio-Assyrian centre extended Egyptian
art and science to farthest Asia. From Iran we pass, with the
course of civilisation, eastward to India. Here the Hindú proper did
not succeed in establishing himself amongst the original Turanian
possessors of Hindustan, or the upper country, before the Eighteenth
Egyptian Dynasty.[697] The South was and is still essentially
Turanian—witness Malabar and its ‘nepotism.’
[Heading: 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.
[Illustration: 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.]
[Illustration: FIG. 234.—_a._ JAVANESE BLADE, SHOWING INDIAN
DERIVATION. _b._ HINDÚ SABRE. From a bas-relief at Bijanagar.]
The sage Vaishampáyana, a pandit or pedant lecturing on the Art of
War, warns us that the ‘Efficiency of the weapon is subject to great
changes. In different ages and places the quality of an arm is not the
same, for the material and mode of construction greatly vary. Moreover,
much depends upon the strength and ability of the person using such
weapons, in preserving, increasing, or diminishing their efficiency.’
It may also be remarked that many of his weapons appear to be the
results of a brain quickened by opium or hashísh.
The sage Shukra, or Preceptor of the Dæmons, also discourses learnedly,
in his ‘Shukraniti,’ on armies and weapons, including firearms.
The only practical part of chap. v. (Oppert, pp. 82–144) is his
description of the lucky and unlucky marks on horses. The Arabs have a
similar system, and a horse with inauspicious signs sells, however well
bred, for a small sum. And there is wisdom in verse 242 (p. 124):—
A non-fighting King and a ne’er-faring Priest (Brahman)
Earth swallows as Snake the hole-dwelling beast.
As regards the Sword, Shukra says (Lib. iv. sect. vii. p. 109, verse
154):—
Ishadvaktrashcaikadháro vistáre chaturangulah
Kshurapránto nábhisamo drahamushtissucandraruk
Khadgah prasáshchaturhastadandabudhnah ksuránanah.
The Sword is a little curved and one-bladed; it is four-fingers broad,
and sharp-pointed as a razor; it extends up to the navel, has a strong
hilt, and is brilliant as the beautiful moon. The Khadga (two-handed
Sword) is four cubits (or six feet) long,[708] broad at the hilt, and
at the end-point sharp like a razor.
[Illustration: FIG. 235.—BATTLE-SCENE FROM A CAVE IN CUTTACK, FIRST
CENTURY A.D.]
From neither of these works do we learn anything about an interesting
subject—the elephant-Sword. It is mentioned by the Italian traveller
Ludovico di Varthema (A.D. 1503–1508), who makes it two fathoms long
and attached to the trunk. Athanasius Nikitin calls it a scythe. Knox
in his ‘Ceylon’ also speaks of a sharp iron with a socket of three
edges ‘placed on the teeth’ (tusks?). It was probably derived from
the West. Antigonus, the great elephantarch; Seleucus, and Pyrrhus
armed their beasts with ‘sharp points of steel in the tusks’—veritable
Swords. In Da Gama’s day each animal wore ten blades, five to the
tusk.[709]
It must be borne in mind that upper India about the beginning of our
æra was mostly Buddhist, and consequently she bred men of peace.
Yet the caves and the cave-temples supply in bas-relief specimens
of Sword-bearers, and even of free fights. The weapon is mostly the
short stout blade, corresponding with the Persian Acinaces, but worn
in modern fashion on the left side. Mr. James Fergusson has kindly
supplied me with two illustrations. The first (fig. 235) is the
battle-scene showing two Swords. A huge chopper or falchion, with a
tooth on the back, is wielded in the left hand, the right supporting
the shield.[710] The other, straight with one median ridge, is broad
at the end instead of being pointed. The second (fig. 236), which Mr.
Fergusson calls the ‘first Highlander,’ is of the same date, and it
shows very distinctly the handle—which might be modern—the sheath, and
the mode of wearing. It is more distinct in the photograph than in the
woodcut made by the author’s artist.
[Illustration: FIG. 236.—THE FIRST HIGHLANDER.]
[Illustration: FIG. 237.—ARJUNA’S SWORD.]
The temple-caves of Elephanta or Gharapuri (cave-town) in the Bay of
Bombay, described by Forbes and Heber, Dr. Wilson and Mr. Burgess,
show a very different and superior article. This comparatively
modern basilica—burrowed out of the rock and dedicated to Shiva or
Mahadeva, the third person of the Hindu Triad, and the representative
of destructive-reproduction in his Trimurti or triple form—contains
a multitude of alt-reliefs from ten to fourteen feet high, and so
prominent that they are almost ‘undercut,’ joined to the parent-rock
only by the back. At the north-east angle stands the figure of the hero
Arjuna, the presumed ancestor of the Pandya Princes. This Brave, an
especial favourite in Southern India,[711] holds, in the right hand,
perpendicularly and point upwards, a short, straight blade, with a
bevelled point like the Roman; there is a small hand-guard; the fist
fills the grip, and the large pommel confines the hand, as is still the
fashion throughout India.
[Illustration: FIG. 238.—JAVANESE SCULPTURES WITH BENT SWORDS.]
The military tactics of the earlier Hindús are familiarly shown by our
game of chess.[712] But their pandits and students, writing in the
closet, borrowed or devised a whole body of ‘strategemata,’ making it
easy to find amongst them the Phalanx, the Legion, the Wedge, or the
Crescent attack.
[Illustration: FIG. 239.—PESHÁWAR SCULPTURES.]
Professor Oppert informs us[713] that the Arka (_Calatropis gigantea_),
the huge swallow-wort with milky and blistering juice, which grows wild
all over the peninsula, if ‘used with discretion when iron is being
forged, contributes greatly to the excellence of the Indian steel.’
The simple is well known to the native alchemist, to the doctor, and
to the vet., but I was not aware of its being generally applied to
iron-working.
I reserve for Part II. details concerning the modern Indian Sword
and the blades imitated from it. Lieutenant-Colonel Pollok (Madras
Staff Corps)[714] describes, unfortunately without illustration, the
Burmese Dalwel (‘Dalwey,’ vol. ii. p. 18) or fighting-Sword, a ‘nasty
two-handed weapon with a blade about two feet long, and as sharp as a
razor’ (i. 51). He also notices the Dha, or Dhaw, a knife six inches
long, equally fitted for domestic use and stabbing.
NOTE.—My lamented friend Dr. Burnell, whose loss to
Anglo-Oriental philology is so deeply felt, took a notable
part in reducing Hindú claims to remote antiquity. Whereas Sir
William Jones, a _littérateur_ thoroughly well imposed upon,
dated the Laws of Menu from A.D. 1280, Burnell boldly assigned
them to the fourth century A.D., and partly to a much later
period. The Theatre of Kalidása (Sakuntala, Urwasi, &c.) he
has attributed to the sixth century instead of the first; in
fact he leaves nothing to B.C. but parts of the Vedas and the
earliest Buddhist texts.
We can accept the reform unhesitatingly. The oldest Hindú
inscription (Girnár) dates from about B.C. 250; the oldest
Cave-temple from still later. The alphabet is a lineal
descendant from the Egypto-Phœnician. The earliest Hindú
buildings were wooden: India had no architecture which could
vie with those of Greece or monarchical Rome, much less
with the mighty works of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Hindú’s
‘iron-built’ cities were probably clay-walled settlements.
His mythology was Egyptian tempered with Greek: for instance,
the four Yugas or periods, in the fourth of which (Kali, the
black Yuga) we now are. And considering how early Christianity
found its way into the Peninsula, and the highly subjective
and receptive nature of the people, I cannot but believe
that they borrowed largely from the sacred writings of the
stranger. It is easier to hold that Christ originated, or at
least influenced, Krishna, than with Volney to hold Krishna
the original of Christ. In 1852 Mr. Pocock wrote about ‘India
in Greece’; in 1883 we want a change of venue to ‘Greece in
India.’ ‘Yavana’ (Greek) entered India with Alexander, and this
gives a _terminus a quo_ though not _ad quem_.