The German Sanskrit philologist and teacher Gustav Oppert (1836-1908) worked for the greater part of his life in British India, as a professor in the Presidency College of Madras (now Chennai) and as a curator in the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library. This 1880 book considers, 'with special reference to gunpowder and firearms', the weaponry of the Hindu armies of the Middle Ages. Oppert uses two main sources, the Nitiprakasika and the Sukraniti, the former 'up to now, utterly unknown', the latter having never been 'properly described and published'. Unfortunately, the Sukraniti is now believed to be a nineteenth-century document (though drawing on older sources), and Oppert's claim that gunpowder was being used in India in the twelfth century is probably untenable. Nevertheless, the work remains an interesting study of the size, organisation and weapons of Hindu fighting forces, from bows and arrows to elephants, as well as the more anachronistic firearms.

Title: On the Original Inhabitants of Bharatavars a or India.Publisher: British Library, Historical Print EditionsThe British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is one of the world's largest research libraries holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats: books, journals, newspapers, sound recordings, patents, maps, stamps, prints and much more. Its collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial additional collections of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 300 BC.The HISTORY OF ASIA collection includes books from the British Library digitised by Microsoft. This series includes ethnographic and general histories of distinct peripheral coastal regions that comprise South and East Asia. Other works focus on cultural history, archaeology, and linguistics. These books help readers understand the forces that shaped the ancient civilisations and influenced the modern countries of Asia. ++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++ British Library Oppert, Gustav; 1893. xv. 711 p.; 8 . V 2778