Gunpowder is one of the four great inventions of China. However, in recent years, some Western scholars have put forward arguments about the invention of gunpowder in India, which can be summarized in four main aspects, which have been rejected one by one after a long period of multi-party research by scholars.
First, the Indian army did not use firearms to resist the attack of the Macedonian army
Some Western scholars, based on some records of the ancient Greek Philostradus (c. 170-245), in his biography of Tyana Apollonis, believe that the Indian army had used firearms in the 4th century BC.
Because in this biography, alexander the Great, king of Macedon, led an army to invade Punjab in India in 326 BC (325 BC), between the Fascist River and the Ganges River, and was met with stubborn resistance from the Indians. It is said that these men fired thunderous monsters from the walls of the city, repelling the invaders' attacks. It is also said that when The Egyptian Hercules and Bacchus led their army into India, they were met with the same resistance, saying that the Indians threw a monster, and above the invaders, there was a flash of thunder and a storm, and the invaders were forced to retreat.
Based on this, rocket scientist Siri deduced that these weapons that made a wild and thunderous sound were firearms. Numerous literature proves that this inference does not hold.
In the General History of India by the Indian historians Sinha and Banaji, the Indians fought against the invasion of macedonian armies. In 326 BC, Alexander advanced into the fascist region of the sea and annexed some of the small principalities along the way. I wanted to continue to the Ganges River Valley, but due to the hot weather and the epidemic of plague, it was difficult to move forward. At the same time, the king of Nanda, who ruled the Ganges Valley, was leading an army of 80,000 cavalry, 200,000 infantry, 8,000 chariots, and 6,000 war elephants, and the macedonian king took the initiative to retreat because of this information. It can be seen that the Indian army did not use firearms at that time.
The General History of the World, published by the Soviet Union, described the operation and said that the assault force used by the Indian army in this operation was mainly war elephants, not firearms.
Engels pointed out in The Artillery:
According to the evidence presented by the Greek writers Elianus, Kethias, Filostrat and Themistius. The Indians seem to have used some kind of pyrotechnics militarily in the time of Alexander the Great... But it is by no means gunpowder.
Second, there is no record of firearms in ancient Indian literature
Some Western scholars. Due to mistranslations and misunderstandings of ancient Indian texts. It is believed that India had firearms in 300 BC.
In 1776, the British Orientalist Halhead (1751-1830), when translating into English the ancient Indian Manu Code, which was written in 300 BC, used words such as Cannon (fire) and gunoranykindoffirearm (musket and various firearms) in some related texts. thereafter. Some have spread false rumors, gradually forming the idea that India had used firearms since 300 BC.
The reason for this is that Halhead himself did not understand Sanskrit and had to translate it into English in the Spanish text of the Manu Code. Therefore, its mistakes are inevitable. The above mistranslation of the key phrase. It was found in the English translation of paragraph 90 of book 7 of the Manu Code. Later, after repeated deliberation and proofreading by some Indian and Western scholars, the mistranslations and inaccuracies were corrected. The correct translation is:
When engaging an enemy, do not kill your enemies with dishonest instruments,/or arrows with teeth, arrows with poison, and arrows that are red with fire at the tip.
This corrected translation proves that the arrows used by the Indian army in combat at that time were only sharpened into teeth, coated with poison, and fired after burning red, and it was not at all obvious that they were firearms with gunpowder. Therefore, the claim that ancient Indian documents had firearms in 300 BC was lost.
Another French missionary in India, Dubwa (1765-1848), in his book An Overview of the Characteristics, Customs, and Habits of the People of Ikdo, believed that the Vana or Bana mentioned in the 300 B.C. epic Ramayana was a rocket, and that the Vana was the projectile weapon used by the epic hero Rama and one of the 32 traditional weapons of India.
However, scholars have studied that Rama was a deified figure, and that the Vana he used was a launcher shot out with an arrow, not a rocket. More importantly, the word Vana only had the meaning of rocket after India began making gunpowder and firearms in the 16th century. It can be seen that Dubois's record of rockets in India in 300 BC is nothing more than a myth and legend, not a real historical existence.
In 1880, the British writer Ajdon, in his work, used the example of the agniastra (general arrow) mentioned in the ancient Indian Vedic song in an attempt to show that firearms were already recorded at that time. Another scholar, Moore, also sang peace with him. However, an Indian historian of chemistry, Sir Rai, pointed out that in Sanskrit, the agniastra is often confused with a rocket, but it is not a rocket, but a kind of longitudinal rocket that can shoot something like "Greek fire". Moreover, the Agni mentioned in the hymn is the fire god of Indian mythology, not a real person. It is natural that mistakes in confirming myths and legends as a history of faith are inevitable.
The Indian army was not equipped with firearms in the 13th-15th centuries
In his book The Origin of Artillery, Heim claims that firearms were used by Indian armies in warfare in the 14th and 15th centuries. A scholar named Felichta (?-I611) said that the Indian army used a gun car, the Arabah, in 1363 against the Muslims in Biarnag, which can be said to be evidence of the Indian army's use of firearms and the invention of gunpowder. Arima Believes That the so-called Arabah Gun Truck is just an ordinary two-wheeled chariot, and it has nothing to do with the later Gun Truck.
In 1441, the Indian ambassador to Saluku stated that between 1290 and 1300, the Indian army had fired naphtha throwers at the Muslim soldiers with war elephant soldiers during the siege of Rentanburg, emitting a large number of sparks. Later, in the Battle of Batmi in 1398-1399, the Indian army used naphtha throwers to fight the enemy, and arrows, stones and flames poured into the besieging enemy like a heavy rain.
Saluku used this as an argument that the naphtha thrower used by the Indian army in these two operations was evidence of the Indian army's use of firearms in that year. Arima rejects this claim, pointing out that saluku's so-called naphtha thrower, called Naghribiha in Hindi, means "Western things," similar to "Greek fire" from the West, not gunpowder. Arima's research concluded that before the Portuguese invasion in 1498, the Indians did not prepare gunpowder, let alone use firearms.
The earliest firearms in India were rockets left on the battlefield by the Mongolian army
This rocket was the gunpowder arrow used by the Mongol army Guo Baoyu's army in 1221-1222 when it pursued Zalandin's Indian army. Goday, a researcher of ancient Indian culture history, believes that gunpowder and rockets were invented Chinese, and the age of introduction to India has yet to be further studied. India's historical record of gunpowder and firearms does not go back more than 400 years.
So far. There is nothing suspicious about the conclusion that India is not a country of gunpowder inventors.
bibliography
Lu Maode's "Examination of the Invention of Gunpowder Artillery Chinese"
Yuan Chengye, Song Quancai, "Examination of the Chronology of the Invention of Gunpowder in China"
Meng Naichang,"Exploring the Source of Gunpowder Invention"
Needham, Lu Guizhen, "New Views on the History of Gunpowder and Firearms in the Field of Chinese Culture"
Feng Jiasheng, "The Invention of Gunpowder and its Western Transmission"