| Did You Know? Gun powder (Agnicurna) and Ancient Hindus Sir A. M. Eliot tells us that the Arabs learnt the manufacture of gunpowder from India, and that before their Indian connection they had used arrows of naptha. It is also argued that though Persia possessed saltpetre in abundance, the original home of gunpowder was India. It is said that the Turkish word top and the Persian tupang or tufang are derived from the Sanskrit word dhupa. The dhupa of the Agni Purana means a rocket, perhaps a corruption of the Kautaliyan term natadipika.
(source: Fire-Arms in Ancient India - By Jogesh Chandra Ray I.H.Q. viii. p. 586-88). (For more refer to article by G R Josyer - India: The Home of Gunpowder and Firearms). Heinrich Brunnhofer (1841-1917) German Indologist, also believed that the ancient Aryans of India knew about gunpowder. (source: German Indologists: Biographies of Scholars in Indian Studies writing in German - By Valentine Stache-Rosen. p.92). Gustav Oppert (1836-1908) in his work, Political Maxims of the Ancient Hindus, says, that ancient India was the original home of gunpowder and fire-arms. It is probable that the word Sataghni referred to in the Sundara Kanda of the Ramayana refers to cannon. (source: Hindu Culture and The Modern Age - By Dewan Bahadur K.S. Ramaswami Shastri - Annamalai University 1956 p. 127). Professor Horace Hayman Wilson says: “Amongst ordinary weapons one is named vajra, the thunderbolt, and the specification seems to denote the employment of some explosive projectile, which could not have been in use except by the agency of something like gunpowder in its properties.” "The Hindus, as we find from their medical writings, were perfectly well acquainted with the constituents of gun-powder - sulphur, charcoal, saltpetre - had them all at hand in great abundance. It is very unlikely that they should not have discovered their inflammability, either singly or in combination. To this inference a priori may be added that draws from positive proofs, that the use of fire as weapon of combat was a familiar idea, as it is constantly described in the heroic poems." (source: Essays and lectures on the religions of the Hindus - H H Wilson vol. II p. 302) It is very unlikely that they should not have discovered their inflammability, either singly or in combination. To this inference a priori may be added that drawn from positive proof, that the use of fire as a weapon of combat was a familiar idea, as it is constantly described in the heroic poems.” The testimony of ancient Greek writers, who, being themselves ignorant of fire-arms used by Indians, give peculiar descriptions of the mode of Hindu warfare is significant. “Themistius mentions the Brahmin fighting at a distance with lightning and thunder.” 
Goddess Kali at war *** Alexander, in a letter to Aristotle, mentions, “the terrific flashes of flame which he beheld showered on his army in India.” (See Dante’s Inferno, XIV, 31-7). Speaking of the Hindus who opposed Alexander, Lord Elphinstone says: “Their arms, with the exception of fire-arms, were the same as at present.” (source: History of India - by Mountstuart Elphinstone p. 241). Philostratus thus speaks of Alexander’s invasion of the Punjab: “Had Alexander passed the Hyphasis he never could have made himself the master of the fortified habitations of these sages. Should an enemy make war upon the, they drive him of by means of tempests and thunders as if sent down from Heaven. The Egyptian Hercules and Bacchus made a joint attack on them, and by means of various military engines attempted to take the place. The sages remained unconcerned spectators until the assault was made, when it was repulsed by fiery whirlwinds and thunders which, being hurled from above, dealt destruction on the invaders.” (source: Philostrati Vit: Apollo, Lib II. C. 35). Commenting on the stratagem adopted by King Hal in the battle against the king of Kashmir, in making a clay elephant which exploded, H M. Elliot says: “Here we have not only the simple act of explosion but something very much like a fuse to enable the explosion to occur at a particular period.” (source: The History of India, as told by its own Historians - By H. M Elliot volume I. p. 365). Though the Hindu masterpieces on the science of war are all but lost, yet there is sufficient material available in the great epics and the Puranas to prove that fire-arms were not only known and used on all occasions by the Hindus, but that this branch of their armory had received extraordinary development. In medieval India, of course, guns and cannons were commonly used. In the 12th century we find pieces of ordnance being taken to battle fields in the armies of Prithviraj. In the 25th stanza of Pritviraja Rasa it is said that “The calivers and cannons made a loud report when they were fired off, and the noise which issued from the ball was heard at a distance of ten cos. An Indian historian, Raj Kundan Lall, who lived in the court of the King of Oudh, says that there was a big gun named lichhma in the possession of His Majesty the King (of Oudh) which had been originally in the artillery of Maharaja of Ajmer. The author speaks of a regular science of war, of the postal department, and of public roads. “Maffei says that the Indians far excelled the Portuguese in their skill in the use of fire-arms.” Another author quoted by Peter Von Bohlen (1796-1840) German Indologist, speaks of a certain Indian king being in the habit of placing several pieces of brass ordnance in front of his army. “Faria-e-Souza speaks of a Guzerat vessel in A.D. 1500 firing several guns at the Portuguese, and of the Indians at Calicut using fire vessels in 1502, and of the Zamorin’s fleet carrying in the next year 380 guns.” (source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 355-360). In the light of the above remarks we can trace the evolution of fire-arms in the ancient India. There is evidence to show that agni (fire) was praised for vanquishing an enemy. The Arthava Veda shows the employment of fire-arms with lead shots. The Aitareya Brahmana describes an arrow with fire at its tip. In the Mahabharata and Ramayana, the employment of agnyastras is frequently mentioned, and this deserves careful examination in the light of other important terms like ayah, kanapa and tula-guda.
The agnicurna or gunpowder was composed of 4 to 6 parts of saltpetre, one part of sulphur, and one part of charcoal of arka, sruhi and other trees burnt in a pit and reduced to powder. Here is certain evidence of the ancient rockets giving place to actual guns in warfare. From the description of the composition of gunpowder, the composition of the Sukraniti can be dated at the pre-Gupta age.
(source: War in Ancient India - By V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar 1944. p. 103 -105). Medhatithi remarks thus "while fighting his enemies in battle, he shall not strike with concealed weapons nor with arrows that are poisoned or barbed on with flaming shafts." Sukraniti while referring to fire-arms, (agneyastras) says that before any war, the duty of the minister of war is to check up the total stock of gunpowder in the arsenal. Small guns is referred as tupak by Canda Baradayi. The installation of yantras (engines of war) inside the walls of the forts referred to by Manasollasa and the reference of Sataghni (killer of hundreds of men) pressed into service for the protection of the forts by Samaranganasutradhara clearly reveals the frequent use of fire arms in the battle-field. (source: India Through The Ages: History, Art Culture and Religion - By G. Kuppuram p. 512-513). The use of gunpowder, first invented and used in India as an explosive mixture of saltpetre, sulfur and charcoal to power guns, cannons and artillery. (source: How to Read the Timeline Hinduism Today). H. H. Eliot, Foreign Secretary to the Government of India (1845), after discussing the question of the use of fire-arms in ancient India, says: "On the whole, then, we may conclude that fire-arms of some kind was used in early stages of Indian history, that the missiles were explosives....that projectiles were used which were made to adhere to gates and buildings, and machines setting fire to them from a considerable distance; that it is probable that saltpetre, the principal ingredient of gunpowder, and the cause of its detonation, entered into the composition, because the earth of Gangetic India is richly impregnated with it in a natural state of preparation, and it may be extracted from it by lixiviation and crystallization without the aid of fire; and that sulphur may have been mixed with it, as it is abundant in the north-west of India."
(source: Historians of M India - Bibliographical Index. Vol. I p. 373). Horace Hayman Wilson wrote: "Rockets appear to be of Indian invention, and had long been used in native armies when Europeans came first in contact with them." "It is strange that they (rockets) should now be regarded in Europe as the most recent invention of artillery." (source: Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan: or the Central and Western Rajput States of India - By James Tod South Asia Books; ; 2 edition (April 1998) ISBN 8120803809 Vol. II p. 220 and (source: Historians of M India - Bibliographical Index. Vol. I p. 373 and 357). *** (For more refer to article by G R Josyer - India: The Home of Gunpowder and Firearms).
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