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History of metallurgy in the Indian subcontinent

This article is about the Sanskrit term Ayas. For other uses, see Ayas.

The History of metallurgy in the Indian subcontinent dates back to 1700 BCE. Metals and related concepts were mentioned in various early Vedic age texts. The Rigveda already uses the Sanskrit term Ayas (metal).

Contents

1 Overview
2 Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and other texts
3 Archaeology
- 3.1 Indus Valley Civilization
4 Metals
5 Terminology for ayas
- 5.1 Other terms
6 Notes
7 References
8 Further reading
9 See also
10 External links

Overview

Recent excavations in Middle Ganga Valley done by archaeologist Rakesh Tewari show iron working in India may have begun as early as 1800 BC.

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 BC, and associated with the post-Rigvedic Vedic civilization. It reached from the upper Gangetic plain in Uttar Pradesh to the eastern Vindhya range and West Bengal.

Perhaps as early as 300 BC, although certainly by 200 A.D., 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 Gupta times, 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

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

Rigveda

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 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. 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 unfamilarity 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.”

Arthasastra

The Arthasastra lays down the role of the Director of Metals, the Director of Forest Produce and the Director of Mining.

Other texts

There are many references to Ayas in the early Indian texts.

The Atharva Veda and the Satapatha Brahmana refer to krsna ayas (”black metal”), which could be iron (but possibly also iron ore and iron items not made of smelted iron). There is also some controversy if the term syamayas (”black metal) refers to iron or not. In later texts the term refers to iron. In earlier texts, it could possibly also refer to darker-than-copper bronze, an alloy of copper and tin.

The Yajurveda seems to know iron.

In the Charaka Samhita an analogy occurs that probably refers to the lost wax technique.

The Silappadikaram says that copper-smiths were in Puhar and in Madura.

An influential Indian metallurgist and alchemist was Nagarjuna (b. 931). He wrote the treatise Rasaratnakara that deals with preparations of rasa (mercury) compounds. It gives a survey of the status of metallurgy and alchemy in the land. Extraction of metals such as silver, gold, tin and copper from their ores and their purification were also mentioned in the treatise. The Rasa Ratnasamuccaya describes the extraction and use of copper.

Archaeology

Chakrabarti (1976) has identified six early iron-using centres in India: Baluchistan, the Northwest, the Indo-Gangetic divide and the upper Gangetic valley, eastern India, Malwa and Berar in central India and the megalithic south India.

According to Tewari, iron using and iron “was prevalent in the Central Ganga Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas from the early second millennium BC.”

The earliest evidence for smelted iron in India dates to 1300 to 1000 BCE.

Archaeological data suggests that India was a “an independent and early centre of iron technology.”

J.M. Kenoyer (1995) also remarks that there is a “long break in tin acquisition” necessary for the production of “tin bronzes” in the Indus Valley region, suggesting a lack of contact with Baluchistan and northern Afghanistan, or the lack of migrants from the north-west who could have procured tin.

Indus Valley Civilization

The copper-bronze metallurgy in the Harappan civilization was widespread and had a high variety and quality. There remains the possibility that some of these items were made of smelted iron, and the term “krsna ayas” might possibly also refer to these iron items, even if they are not made of smelted iron.

Lothali copper is unusually pure, lacking the arsenic typically used by coppersmiths across the rest of the Indus valley. The city imported ingots from probable sources in the Arabian peninsula. Workers mixed tin with copper for the manufacture of celts, arrowheads, fishhooks, chisels, bangles, rings, drills and spearheads, although weapon manufacturing was minor. They also employed advanced metallurgy in following the cire perdue technique of casting, and used more than one-piece moulds for casting birds and animals.

Metals

Brass

Brass was used in Lothal and Atranjikhera in the 3rd and 2nd millennium BCE.

Copper

Copper technology may date back to the 2nd millennium BCE in the Himalaya region.

Copper and its alloys were also used to create copper-bronze images such as Buddhas or Hindu/Mahayana Buddhist deities.

Other metal objects made by Indian artisans include lamps.

One of the most important sources of history in the Indian subcontinent are the royal records of grants engraved on copper-plate grants (tamra-shasan or tamra-patra). Because copper does not rust or decay, they can survive indefinitely. Collections of archaeological texts from the copper-plates and rock-inscriptions have been compiled and published by the Archaeological Survey of India during the past century. The earliest known copper-plate known as the Sohgaura copper-plate is a Maurya record that mentions famine relief efforts. It is one of the very few pre-Ashoka Brahmi inscriptions in India.

Gold and silver

The deepest gold mines of the Ancient world were found in the Maski region in Karnataka.

Iron

See also: Iron pillar of Delhi

The iron pillar of Delhi

In the 5th century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus observed that “Indian and the Persian army used arrows tipped with iron.”

Wootz and steel

Main articles: Wootz steel and Damascus steel

The first form of crucible steel was wootz, developed in India some time around 300 AD. In its production the iron was mixed with glass and then slowly heated and then cooled. As the mixture cooled the glass would bond to impurities in the steel and then float to the surface, leaving the steel considerably more pure. Carbon could enter the iron by diffusing in through the porous walls of the crucibles. Carbon dioxide would not react with the iron, but the small amounts of carbon monoxide could, adding carbon to the mix with some level of control. Wootz was widely exported throughout the Middle East, where it was combined with a local production technique around 1000 AD to produce Damascus steel, famed throughout the world. Indian wootz steel was the first high quality steel that was produced.

Henry Yule quoted the 12th century Arab Edrizi who wrote: “The Hindus excel in the manufacture of iron, and in the preparations of those ingredients along with which it is fused to obtain that kind of soft iron which is usually styled Indian steel (Hindiah). They also have workshops wherein are forged the most famous sabres in the world. …It is not possible to find anything to surpass the edge that you get from Indian steel (al-hadid al-Hindi).

As early as the 17th century, Europeans knew of India’s ability to make crucible steel from reports brought back by travelers who had observed the process at several places in southern India. Several attempts were made to import the process, but failed because the exact technique remained a mystery. Studies of wootz were made in an attempt to understand its secrets, including a major effort by the famous scientist, Michael Faraday, son of a blacksmith. Working with a local cutlery manufacturer he wrongly concluded that it was the addition of aluminium oxide and silica from the glass that gave wootz its unique properties.

Earliest evidence of steel making comes to us from Samanalawewa area in Sri Lanka where thousands of sites were found.

After the Indian rebellion of 1857, many Indian wootz steel swords were destroyed by order of the British authorities. Metal working suffered a decline during the British Empire, but steel production was revived in India by Jamsetji Tata.

Zinc

Zinc was extracted in India as early as in the 4th to 3th century BCE. Zinc production may have begun in India, and ancient northwestern India is the earliest known civilization that produced zinc on an industrial scale.

In the 17th century, China exported Zinc to Europe under the name of totamu or tutenag. The term tutenag may derive from the South Indian term Tutthanagaa (zinc).

The Arthasastra describes the production of zinc.

Terminology for ayas

ayas, loha: metal
arakutah, riti, pitala: brass
bhaskara: copper
hiranya: gold
kasye, kamsa, kamsya: bell metal/bronze
krsnayasa, karsnayasa: “black metal”
jasada: zinc

lohayasa, lohitayas, lohitam, loha, loham: “red metal”, copper, bell metal
naga: lead
raitya: brass
ravi: copper
sisaga: lead
syamayas, syama, syamam, syamenayasa: “black metal”.
sisa, sisam, sisaka: lead

sulva, sulvaka: copper
tala: bell metal
tamram, tamra, tamba, tamba loha: copper
tamrarajas: finely divided copper
trapu, taua: tin
tutha: blue vitriol (copper sulphate)
vanga: tin

Other terms

Prastarika: metal trader
Sulbhadhatusastra: science of metals
panchaloha, sarva loha: the five base metals (tin, lead, iron, copper, silver)

Notes

^ e.g. R. Tewari 2003
^ Origins of Iron Ore
^ (e.g. Frawley 1991)
^ Chakrabarti 1992
^ Chakrabarti 1992
^ A review of literary references to Ayas in the early Indian texts can be found in Chakrabarti 1996 and Chakrabarti 1992.
^ (Sethna 1992: 235)
^ Agarwal, Vishal (2003), “A Reply to Michael Witzel’s ‘Ein Fremdling im Rgveda’”, Journal of Indo-European Studies 31 (1-2): 107-185, <http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/documents/ReplytoWitzelJIES.pdf>
^ Kazanas, Nicholas: Addendum to The AIT and Scholarship
^ Kazanas, Nicholas: Addendum to The AIT and Scholarship
^ In AV 11.3.7. Lohita (red copper) is compared with blood, and syama (swarthy metal) with flesh (maam-sa). This could be an analogy that describes how black metal (flesh) is produced by red metal (blood). Kazanas, Nicholas: Addendum to The AIT and Scholarship
^ Chakrabarti 1992
^ Chakrabarti 1992
^ Chakrabarti 1996
^ Chakrabarti 1992
^ Chakrabarti 1996
^ Chakrabarti 1996
^ Chakrabarti 1996
^ Chakrabarti 1996
^ Copper Technology in the Central Himalayas Goes Back to 2000BC
^ Chakrabarti 1992
^ e.g., Cf. Chakrabarti 1992; Erdosy 1995
^ Rakesh Tewari 2003
^ (see Bryant 2001: 246-248)
^ (Bryant 2001: 246)
^ (see Bryant 2001: 247)
^ cited in Bryant 2001
^ Rakesh Tewari 2003; Chakrabarti 1976, 1992:171; Tripathi, Vibha. 2001; Erdosy 1995
^ Shaffer 1989, cited in Chakrabarti 1992:171
^ H. P. Francfort, Fouilles de Shortugai, Recherches sur L’Asie Centrale Protohistorique Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1989, p. 450
^ Jim Shaffer 1992 “The Indus Valley, Baluchistan and Helmand Traditions: Neolithic Through Bronze Age.” In Chronologies in Old World Archaeology. Second Edition. R.W. Ehrich, (Ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. I:441-464, II:425-446., cited in Possehl 1992
^ Gregory Possehl, The Indus Civilization, 2002:94
^ (see Bryant 2001: 246-248, 339)
^ S. R. Rao, Lothal (ASI, 1985), pp. 42
^ S. R. Rao, Lothal (ASI, 1985), pp. 41-42
^ The Bill of Contentions
^ Craddock et al. 1983
^ Copper Technology in the Central Himalayas Goes Back to 2000BC
^ Chakrabarti 1996
^ Chakrabarti 1996
^ Chakrabarti 1996, with reference to Mukherjee, M. 1978
^ http://www.chennaionline.com/artscene/craftpalace/history/lamps.asp
^ Chakrabarti 1996
^ They date to the middle of the first millennium BCE. Srinivasan, Sharda and Srinivasa Rangnathan. 2004
^ Dated to the middle of the first millennium BCE. Srinivasan, Sharda and Srinivasa Rangnathan. 2004
^ Srinivasan, Sharda and Srinivasa Rangnathan. 2004
^ Srinivasan, Sharda and Srinivasa Rangnathan. 2004
^ Srinivasan, Sharda and Srinivasa Rangnathan. 2004; W. Egerton, Indian and Oriental Armour, London (1896).
^ J.M. Heath 1839, quoted by Chakrabarti 1992; G. N. Pant, Indian Arms and Armour, Vol. I and II, National Museum, New Delhi (1980)
^ Chakrabarti 1992
^ e.g. James Stodart 1818, Robert Hadfield, quoted by Chakrabarti 1992:3-6, 119; Robert Hadfield, Sinhalese iron and steel of ancient origin, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, 85 (1912).
^ C. S. Smith, A History of Metallography, University Press, Chicago (1960); Juleff 1996; Srinivasan, Sharda and Srinivasa Rangnathan 2004
^ http://metalrg.iisc.ernet.in/~wootz/heritage/WOOTZ.htm
^ Srinivasan, Sharda and Srinivasa Rangnathan. 2004
^ (Juleff, 1996)
^ Srinivasan, Sharda and Srinivasa Rangnathan. 2004
^ Srinivasan, Sharda and Srinivasa Rangnathan. 2004
^ Craddock et al. 1983. (The earliest evidence for the production of zin comes from India. Srinivasan, Sharda and Srinivasa Rangnathan. 2004)
^ The Bill of Contentions
^ India Was the First to Smelt Zinc by Distillation Process
^ Arun Kumar Biswas, Zinc and related alloys
^ Srinivasan, Sharda and Srinivasa Rangnathan. 2004
^ Craddock et al. 1983
^ TKS Book Series
^ ; Srinivasan, Sharda and Srinivasa Rangnathan. 2004
^
^ Craddock et al. 1983

References

Edwin Bryant (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-516947-6.
Craddock, P.T. et al., Zinc production in medieval India, World Archaeology, vol.15, no.2, Industrial Archaeology, 1983
Frawley, David (1995). Gods, Sages and Kings. 1991.Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin ISBN 0-910261-37-7
G. Juleff, “An ancient wind powered iron smeting technology in Sri Lanka”, Nature 379 (3), 60-63 (January, 1996)
Erdosy, George: 1995; “The Prelude to urbanization”, in The Archaeology of the Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of cities and states. Allchin, F. R. et al. (eds.), Cambridge 1995.
Kenoyer, J.M. (1995). Interaction Systems, Specialized crafts and Culture Change. In: Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia. Ed. George Erdosy.. ISBN 3110144476
Sethna, K.D. 1992. The Problem of Aryan Origins. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. ISBN 81-85179-67-0
S. R. Rao, Lothal (published by the Director General, Archaeological Survey of India, 1985)
Shaffer, Jim. Mathura: A protohistoric Perspective in D.M. Srinivasan (ed.), Mathura, the Cultural Heritage, 1989, pp. 171-180. Delhi.
J.D. Verhoeven, A.H. Pendray, and W.E. Dauksch. (1998). The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades. Journal of Metals. 50(9). pp.58-64.
Lynn Willies et al. 1984, Ancient Zinc and Lead Mining in Rajasthan, India. World Archaeology, Vol.16, No. 2, Mines and Quarries.