History of metallurgy in the Indian subcontinent
11 quotes
Biography
The history of metallurgy in the Indian subcontinent began prior to the 3rd millennium BCE. Metals and related concepts were mentioned in various early Vedic age texts.
"There will never be another nation, which understood separate types of swords and their names, than the inhabitants of India..."
"Archaeologically . . . the problem of the Aryans and their association with iron remains as confusing as ever, regardless of the earlier strongly expressed theories of their apparently tautological association."
"The mention of iron in [Hindu] texts is as solid a chronological indicator as one can expect in the reconstruction of protohistory and cannot be cursorily dismissed. Moreover, the dates for iron in India are in sync with the dates for this metal attested in central Asia and Iran: if anything, the Indian context is the earliest and most likely to have influenced the others."
"Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215) commented on Indian iron’s superior blades: ‘does the table knife not cut unless it has an ivory handle?’ and ‘do we have to use metal forged in India to carve our meat?’"
"The Indians are very good at making various compounds of mixtures of substances with the help of which they melt the malleable iron; it then turns into Indian iron, and is called after al-Hind. There, in al-Hind, are workshops where swords are manufactured, and their craftsmen make excellent ones surpassing those made by other peoples. In the same way, the Sindi, Sarandibi and the Baynimani iron vie with one another for superiority as regards the climate of the place, skill in industry, the method of melting and stamping and beauty in polishing and scouring. But no iron is comparable to the Indian one in sharpness."
"There is a cake which is supposed to be steel from India and the kind to be rated most highly in Egypt. I could find no artisan in Paris who succeeded in forging a tool out of it."
"The working with wootz is so difficult, that it is a separate art from that of forging iron."
"The workmanship of the native hilts can scarcely be surpassed... The districts of Salem, Koimbatur, and North Arkat, (in Tamil Nadu, are those) in which the best Indian steel has been manufactured from time immemorial..."
"Gods, doing holy acts, devout, resplendent, smelting like ore their human generations."
"Grey iron is its flesh, copper its blood. Tin is its ashes, gold its colour, the blue lotus flower its scent."
"That foremost one of Dasarha's race also gave unto Subhadra as her peculium ten carrier-loads of first class gold possessing the splendour of fire, some purified and some in a state of ore."