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_.

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