History of metallurgy in the Indian subcontinent

6:52 PM | BY ZeroDivide EDIT
Coin of Samudragupta (c. 350—375) with Garuda pillar. British Museum.
The iron pillar of Delhi (375—413).
Bronze Chola Statue of Natarajaat the Metropolitan Museum of Art,New York City.
Dagger and its scabbard, India, 17th—18th century. Blade:Damascus steel inlaid with gold; hilt: jade; scabbard: steel with engraved, chased and gilded decoration.
Akbarnama—written in August 12, 1602—depicts the defeat of Baz Bahadur of Malwa by the Mughaltroops in 1561. The Mughals extensively improved metal weapons and armor used by the armies of India.
Hyder Ali (c. 1722-1782)—the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore until 1782—developed military rockets using metal cylinders to contain the combustion powder.
History of metallurgy in the Indian subcontinent began prior to the 3rd millennium BCE and continued well into the British Raj.[1] Metals and related concepts were mentioned in various early Vedic age texts. The Rigveda already uses the Sanskrit term Ayas (metal). The Indian cultural and commercial contacts with the Near East and the Greco-Roman world enabled an exchange of metallurgic sciences.[2] With the advent of the Mughals, India's Mughal Empire (established: April 21, 1526—ended: September 21, 1857) further improved the established tradition of metallurgy and metal working in India.[3]
The imperial policies of the British Raj led to stagnation of metallurgy in India as the British regulated mining and metallurgy—used in India previously by its rulers to build armies and resist England during various wars.[4]

Overview[edit]

Recent excavations in Middle Ganga Valley done by archaeologist Rakesh Tewari show iron working in India may have begun as early as 1800 BCE.[5]Archaeological sites in India, such as Malhar, Dadupur, Raja Nala Ka Tila and Lahuradewa in the state of Uttar Pradesh show iron implements in the period between 1800 BCE - 1200 BCE. Sahi (1979: 366) concluded that by the early 13th century BCE, iron smelting was definitely practiced on a bigger scale in India, suggesting that the date the technology's inception may well be placed as early as the 16th century BCE.[6]
The Black and Red Ware culture was another early Iron Age archaeological culture of the northern Indian subcontinent. It is dated to roughly the 12th – 9th centuries BCE, and associated with the post-Rigvedic Vedic civilization. It reached from the upper Gangetic plain in Uttar Pradesh to the easternVindhya range and West Bengal.
Perhaps as early as 300 BCE, although certainly by 200 CE, high quality steel was being produced in southern India by what Europeans would later call the crucible technique. In this system, high-purity wrought iron, charcoal, and glass were mixed in crucibles and heated until the iron melted and absorbed the carbon. The resulting high-carbon steel, called fūlāḏ فولاذ in Arabic and wootz by later Europeans, was exported throughout much of Asia and Europe.
Will Durant wrote in The Story of Civilization I: Our Oriental Heritage:
"Something has been said about the chemical excellence of cast iron in ancient India, and about the high industrial development of the Guptatimes, when India was looked to, even by Imperial Rome, as the most skilled of the nations in such chemical industries as dyeing, tanning, soap-making, glass and cement... By the sixth century the Hindus were far ahead of Europe in industrial chemistry; they were masters of calcinations,distillation, sublimation, steaming, fixation, the production of light without heat, the mixing of anesthetic and soporific powders, and the preparation of metallic salts, compounds and alloys. The tempering of steel was brought in ancient India to a perfection unknown in Europe till our own times; King Porus is said to have selected, as a specially valuable gift from Alexander, not gold or silver, but thirty pounds of steel. The Moslems took much of this Hindu chemical science and industry to the Near East and Europe; the secret of manufacturing "Damascus" blades, for example, was taken by the Arabs from the Persians, and by the Persians from India."

Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and other texts[edit]

The Sanskrit term Ayas means metal and can refer to bronze, copper or iron.

Rigveda[edit]

The Rig Veda refers to ayas, and also states that the Dasyus had Ayas (RV 2.20.8). In RV 4.2.17, "the gods [are] smelting like copper/metal ore the human generations".
The references to Ayas in the Rig Veda probably refer to bronze or copper rather than to iron.[7] However, D. K. Chakrabarti (1992) argued: "It should be clear that any controversy regarding the meaning of ayas in the Rgveda or the problem of the Rgvedic familiarity or unfamiliarity with iron is pointless. There is no positive evidence either way. It can mean both copper-bronze and iron and, strictly on the basis of the contexts, there is no reason to choose between the two."

Africa–India relations

9:39 AM | BY ZeroDivide EDIT
Africa–India relations refers to the historical, political, economic, military,helper and cultural connections between the India and the African continent.
Historical relations concerned mainly India and Eastern Africa. However, in modern days —and with the expansion of diplomatic and commercial representations,— India has now developed ties with most of the African nations.

Historical background[edit]

Africa and India are separated by the Indian Ocean. The geographical proximity between the Horn of Africa and the Indian subcontinent has played an important role in the development of the relationship since ancient times.

Ancient trade relations[edit]

Coins of king Endybis, 227-235 AD. +. The left one reads in Greek "AΧWMITW BACIΛEYC", "King of Axum". The right one reads in Greek: ΕΝΔΥΒΙC ΒΑCΙΛΕΥC, "King Endybis".
Little is known about contacts made between Indians and Africans before the first century CE. The only surviving source, Periplus Maris Erythraei (Periplus of the Erythraean Sea),—which dates to mid-first century—refers to trade relations between the Kingdom of Aksum (nowadays Ethiopia) and Ancient India around the first millennium. Helped by the monsoon winds, merchants traded cotton, glass beads and other goods in exchange for gold and soft-carved ivory.[1] The influence of the Indian architecture on the African kingdom shows the level of trade development between the two civilizations.[2]
Under Ptolemaic rule, Ancient Egypt dispatched two trade delegations to India.[3] The Greek Ptolemaic dynasty and India had developed bilateral trade using the Red Sea and Indian ports.[4] Controlling the western and northern end of other trade routes to Southern Arabia and India,[5] the Ptolemies had begun to exploit trading opportunities with India prior to the Roman involvement but according to the historian Strabo the volume of commerce between India and Greece was not comparable to that of later Indian-Roman trade.[6] The Periplus Maris Erythraei mentions a time when sea trade between India and Egypt did not involve direct sailings.[6] The cargo under these situations was shipped to Aden:[6]
The trade started by Eudoxus of Cyzicus in 130 BCE kept increasing, and according to Strabo (II.5.12.):[7]
In India, the ports of Barbaricum (modern Karachi), Barygaza, Muziris, Korkai, Kaveripattinam and Arikamedu on the southern tip of India were the main centers of this trade. The Periplus Maris Erythraei describes Greco-Roman merchants selling in Barbaricum "thin clothing, figured linens, topaz, coral, storax, frankincense, vessels of glass,and silver and gold plate" in exchange for "costus, bdellium, lycium, nard, turquoise, lapis lazuli, Seric skins, cotton cloth, silk yarn, and indigo".[8] In Barygaza, they would buy wheat, rice, sesame oil, cotton and cloth.[8]
With the establishment of Roman Egypt, the Romans took over and further developed the already existing trade.[4] Roman trade with India played an important role in further developing the Red Sea route. Starting around 100 BCE a route from Roman Egypt to India was established, making use of the Red Sea to cross the Arabian Sea directly to southern India.[9] Traces of Indian influences are visible in Roman works of silver and ivory, or in Egyptian cotton and silk fabrics.[10] The Indian presence in Alexandria may have influenced the culture but little is known about the manner of this influence.[10] Clement of Alexandria mentions the Buddha in his writings and other Indian religions find mentions in other texts of the period.[10]

Sraddhadeva Manu (Adam) > ILA >Lunal Dynasty([][] Ikshvaku> Solar Dynasty)

3:14 PM | BY ZeroDivide EDIT
Matsya protecting Sraddhadeva Manu and the seven sages at the time of Deluge
Matsya avatar of Vishnu pulls Manu's boat after having defeated a demon.
In Hindu mythology, Sraddhadeva Manu is the current Manu and the progenitor of the current humanity (manvantara). He is the seventh of the 14 Manus of the current kalpa (aeon).
Sraddhadeva was the king of Dravida before the great flood. Forewarned about the flood by the matsya avatar of Vishnu (Enki?), he saved the humanity by building a boat that carried his family and the seven sages to safety. He is the son of Vivasvat, and therefore, is also known as Vaivasvata.[1]Besides, he is also called Satyavrata ("the honest one").

Ancestry[edit]

According to the Puranas, the genealogy of Sraddhadeva is as follows:[2]
  1. Brahma
  2. Marichi, one of the 10 Prajapatis created by Brahma.
  3. Kashyapa, son of Marichi and Kala. Kashyapa is regarded as the father of humanity.
  4. Vivasvan or Surya, son of Kashyapa and Aditi.
  5. Vaivasvata Manu, originally Satyavrata, son of Vivasvan (Surya) and Saranyu (Saṃjñā)

The Great Deluge[edit]

Matsya avatar.
Sraddhadeva was the king of Dravida (in present-day South India) during the epoch of the Matsya Purana.[3] According to the Matsya Purana, the Matsya Avatar of Vishnu first appeared as a shaphari (a small carp), to Sraddhadeva, while he washed his hands in a river flowing down the Malaya Mountains in his land of Dravida.[4]
The little fish asked the king to save Him, and out of compassion, he put it in a water jar. It kept growing bigger and bigger, until the king first put it in a bigger pitcher, and then deposited it in a well. When the well also proved insufficient for the ever-growing fish, the King placed it in a tank (reservoir), that was two yojanas (16 miles) in height above the surface and on land, as much in length, and a yojana (8 miles) in breadth.[5][6] As it grew further, the king had to put the fish in a river, and when even the river proved insufficient, he placed it in the ocean, after which it nearly filled the vast expanse of the great ocean.
It was then that Vishnu, revealing himself, informed the king of an all-destructive deluge which would be coming very soon.[7][8][9] The king built a huge boat which housed his family, the seven sages, 9 types of seeds, and animals to repopulate the earth, after the deluge would end and the oceans and seas would recede. At the time of deluge, Vishnu appeared as a horned fish and Shesha appeared as a rope, with which the king fastened the boat to horn of the fish.[10]
The boat was perched after the deluge on the top of the Malaya Mountains.[11][7][8] After the deluge, Manu's family and the seven sages repopulated the earth.
This narrative is similar to other flood myths such as that of Gilgamesh and Noah.[12]

Descendants[edit]

Sraddhadeva married Shraddha and had ten children including Ila and Ikshvaku, the progenitors of the Lunar Dynasty and Solar Dynasty respectively.
The Mahabharata states:[13][14]
"And Manu was endowed with great wisdom and devoted to virtue. And he became the progenitor of a line. And in Manu's race have been born all human beings, who have, therefore, been called Manavas. And it is of Manu that all men including Brahmanas, Kshattriyas, and others have been descended, and are therefore all called Manavas. Subsequently, the Brahmanas became united with the Kshattriyas. And those sons of Manu that were Brahmanas devoted themselves to the study of the Vedas. And Manu begot ten other children named Vena, Dhrishnu, Narishyan, Nabhaga, Ikshvaku, Karusha, Saryati, the eighth, a daughter named Ila,[15] Prishadhru the ninth, and Nabhagarishta, the tenth. They all betook themselves to the practices of Kshattriyas. Besides these, Manu had fifty other sons on Earth. But we heard that they all perished, quarrelling with one another."

Ikshvaku (Sanskrit: इक्ष्वाकु, ikṣvāku (from the word Sanskrit: इक्षु, ikṣu which means ‘sugar cane’[1]); Pali: Okkāka) was the first king of the Ikshvaku dynasty and founder of the Ikshvaku-Vansh, or Suryavansh Dynasty of Kshatriyas in Vedic civilization in ancient India.

Lineage details below as per the Valmiki Ramayana
  1. Lord Brahma
  2. Marichi (son of Brahma)
  3. Sage Kashyapa (son of Marichi)
  4. Vivasvan (Surya) (son of Sage Kashyapa)
  5. Manu (Vaivasvatha) (Father of humanity)
  6. Ikshvaku (Manu's son)
  7. 40. Rama
  8. 41. Luv and Kush (Sons of Rama and Sita)

In Vedic History[edit]

Ikshvaku was one of the earliest monarchs of India, and played a pivotal role in the propagation of the ancient Vedic religion.

In Jainism History[edit]

The Ikshvaku clan said to began from the first Tirthankara, Rishabha, who is regarded as the first King on the earth of this Avsarpini cycle.[4] According to Jainism, Rishabha was born to Nabhi Raja and Marudevi at Ayodhya. Rishabdev had 101 sons of whom the eldest was Bharata and second son was Bahubali. Rishabha, after completing his tenure as a King, gave up all his possessions to his 101 sons and became a Sadhu.
Jain history provides two explanations how the word "Ikshvaku" came about. According to one version, after Rishabdev fasted for one year, he took his first aahar (food), which was IkshRas(Sugarcane Juice). This Sugarcane Juice was given to Rishabdev by King Shreyansha. Thus from this event, Rishabdev was given the name of Ikshvaku and his lineage was called as Ikshvaku Vansh (Family of Ikshvaku). According to another version,when lord Rishab was a kid, he was offered several fruits, out of those he choose sugarcane and started chewing it. Indra came to worship Rishab dev. When he saw lord Rishab chewing sugarcane, he gave the name Ikshvaku, meaning "sugarcane eating", thus his clan adopted this name in honor.[5]Thus according to Jainism, Ikshvaku was another name for Rishabdev.

In Buddhism[edit]

In Buddhism Ikshvaku is an epithet of Śakya Simha Buddha.

House of Ikshvaku[edit]

Across the length and breadth of Greater India, numerous royal families have claimed to have belonged to the House of Ikshvaku, which was synonymous with the Solar Dynasty. Great kings like Bhagiratha and Dasaratha were among the kings in the line before Lord Rama.

In Literature[edit]

Author Amish Tripathi's latest series is titled Scion of Ikshvaku and covers the reign of a king in that dynasty- Rama. Another book, titled The Seal of Surya, covers the life of Ikshvaku and his reign through the genre of historical fiction.

----

Theosophy[edit]

Main article: Manu (Theosophy)
Conversation between Manu and Brihaspati
In Theosophy, the "Vaivasvatu Manu" is one of the most important beings at the highest levels of Initiation of the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom, along with Maitreya, and the Maha Chohan. According to Theosophy, each root race has its own Manu which physically incarnates in an advanced body of an individual of the old root race and physically progenerates with a suitable female partner the first individuals of the new root race.
encyclopedia
Ila/Ilā
Budhadeva.jpg
Budha with consort Ilā (Ila as a woman)
Devanagariइल/इला
Sanskrit TransliterationIla/Ilā
ConsortBudha (as a woman)
Ila is an androgyne in Hindu mythology, known for his/her sex changes. As a man, he is known as Ila (Sanskrit: इल) or Sudyumna and as a woman, is called Ilā (Sanskrit: इला). Ilā is considered the chief progenitor of the Lunar Dynasty (Chandravamsha or Somavamsha) of Indian kings - also known as the Ailas ("descendants of Ilā").
While many versions of the tale exist, Ila is usually described as a daughter or son of Vaivasvata Manu and thus the sibling of Ikshvaku, the founder of the Solar Dynasty (Arkavamsha or Suryavansha). In versions in which Ila is born a girl, she is changed to a boy by divine grace soon after her birth. After mistakenly entering a sacred grove as an adult, Ila is either cursed to change his/her gender every month or cursed to become a woman. As a woman, Ilā married Budha, the god of the planet Mercury and the son of the moon-god Chandra (Soma), and bore him a son called Pururavas, the father of the Lunar Dynasty. After the birth of Pururavas, Ilā is transformed into a man again and fathered three sons.
In Vedic literature, Ilā is praised as Idā (Sanskrit: इडा), the goddess of speech, and described as mother of Pururavas. The tale of Ila's transformations is told in the Puranic literature as well as the Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Birth[edit]

According to the Linga Purana and the Mahabharata, Ilā was born as the eldest daughter of Vaivasvata Manu, the progenitor of mankind, and his wife Shraddha. However, the parents desired a son and so prayed and performed austerities to propitiate the deities Mitra and Varuna, who changed Ilā's gender. The boy was named Sudyumma.[1][2] The Bhagavata Purana, the Devi-Bhagavata Purana,[3] the Kurma Purana, the Harivamsa, the Markandeya Purana and the Padma Purana (referred to as "Bhagavata Purana et al. texts" further) narrate a variant: Ila's parents could not have any children for a long time and approached the sage Agastya for a solution. The sage performed a yagna (sacrifice) dedicated to Mitra and Varuna to attain a son for the couple. Due to either an error in the ritual, or a failure to offer the appropriate sacrifice, Mitra and Varuna instead sent a daughter to the couple. In one version, the couple supplicated the deities, who transformed Ilā's gender. In another version, this transformation happens after the erroneous hymns are rectified and the son is called Ila.[2][4][5][6] According to a variant, Shraddha wished for a daughter; the sage Vasistha heeded her wish while performing the sacrifice and thus, a daughter was born. However, Manu desired a son so Vashistha appealed to the god Vishnu to change the gender of the daughter. Ilā was renamed Sudhyumna.[7] The accounts describe Ila as either the eldest or the youngest child of Manu. As the child of Manu, Ila had nine brothers, the most notable was Ikshvaku, the founder of the Solar Dynasty (Arkavamsha or Suryavansha).[8][9][10] As the son of Manu, Ila is the grandson of Surya, the Sun-god.[11] According to another account found in the Vayu Purana and the Brahmanda Purana, Ilā was born female and remained a female.[10]
In the Ramayana, Ila is born as a son of Kardama, the Prajapati born of the god Brahma's shadow. Ila's tale is told in the Uttara Kanda chapter of the Ramayana, while describing the greatness of the Ashvamedha - the horse sacrifice.[5][12]

Curse and marriage to Budha[edit]

In the Ramayana, the Linga Purana and the Mahabharata, Ila grows to become the king of Bahlika. While hunting in a forest, Ila accidentally trespassed Sharavana ("Forest of Reeds"), the sacred grove of the goddess Parvati, the consort of the god Shiva. Upon entering Sharavana, all male beings except for Shiva, including trees and animals, are transformed into females.[Notes 1] In the Ramayana, even Shiva had assumed the form of a female to please the goddess.[13] One legend tells that a female yakshini disguised herself as a deer and purposefully led Ila to the grove in order to save her husband from the king.[11] The Linga Purana and the Mahabharata emphasize the sex change of Ila to be a deliberate act of Shiva to start the Lunar Dynasty.[1] The Bhagavata Purana et al. texts tell that Ila's entire entourage as well as his horse also changed their genders.[4]
Budha, the husband of Ilā
According to the Ramayana, when Ila approached Shiva for help, Shiva laughed with scorn but the compassionate Parvati reduced the curse and allowed Ila to switch genders every month. However, as a male he would not remember his life as a female and vice versa. While Ilā roamed the forest in her new form with her female attendants, Budha, the god of the planet Mercury and the son of the moon-god Chandra, noticed her. Although he had been practising asceticism, Ilā's beauty caused him to fall in love with her at first sight. Budha turned Ilā's attendants into Kimpurushas (hermaphrodite, lit. "is it a man?")[10][14] and ordered them to run away, promising that they would find mates as Ilā had.[13]
Ilā married Budha and spent an entire month making love to him. However, Ilā woke one morning as Ila and remembered nothing about the past month. Budha told Ila that his retinue had been killed in a rain of stones and convinced Ila to stay with him for a year. During each month she spent as a woman, Ilā had pleasure with Budha. During each month as a man, Ila turned to pious ways and performed austerities under the guidance of Budha. In the ninth month, Ilā gave birth to Pururavas, who grew to become the first king of the Lunar Dynasty. Then, as per the advice of Budha and Ila's father Kardama, Ila pleased Shiva with a horse sacrifice and Shiva restored Ila's masculinity permanently.[5][13]
Another legend from the Vishnu Purana credits Vishnu of restoring Ilā's manhood as Sudyumma.[2][15] The Bhagavata Purana et al. texts tell that after Pururavas's birth, the nine brothers of Ila - by horse sacrifice - or the sage Vasistha – the family priest of Ila – pleased Shiva to compel him to give the boon of alternate month manhood to Ila, turning him into a Kimpurusha.[3][4][9] The Linga Purana and the Mahabharata record the birth of Pururavas, but do not narrate the end of Ila's alternating gender condition. In fact, the Mahabharata describes Ilā to be the mother as well as the father of Pururavas.[16] According to another account found in the Vayu Purana and the Brahmanda Purana, Ilā was born female, married Budha, then was transformed into a male called Sudyumna. Sudyumna was then cursed by Parvati and transformed once again into a female, but became a man once again through Shiva's boon.[10]
In almost all versions of the tale, Ila wants to live as a man, but in the Skanda Purana, Ila desires to be a woman. The king Ela (Ila) entered Parvati's grove at Sahya mountain and became the woman Ilā. Ilā wished to remain a woman and serve Parvati (Gauri) and Ganga, the goddess of the Ganges river. However, the goddesses dissuaded him and told him that life as a woman was a curse and full of sorrow. Ilā bathed in a sacred pool and returned as Ela, bearded and deep-voiced.[5][17]

↑