Walter Slaje

Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Jahrgang 172 (2022), Ausgabe 2, Seite 479 - 488

Walter Slaje

Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Jahrgang 172 (2022), Ausgabe 2, Seite 407 - 414

The present article deals with an observation of nature by ancient Indian poets, which has found its confirmation in modern natural science, and clarifies the question why bees can die in the lotus.

This article is written in English.

Walter Slaje

Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Jahrgang 169 (2019), Ausgabe 1, Seite 111 - 139

Little is known about ranged weapons in pre-modern India such as slingshots and catapults, the crossbow and early cannon. To a certain extent, the scarcity of pertinent sources will undeniably help to explain our lack of knowledge connected to the subject, but it is equally true that texts with unquestionable significance have largely been ignored by historical military research on India. Among those neglected sources the Rājataraṅgiṇīs and the Mokṣopāya rank first. Not only do they testify to the existence of such weapons in medieval Kashmir, but the context of the fighting events detailed by their authors also allows to draw conclusions with sufficient certainty about the actual use in combat and the lethal impact of the arms under consideration, which are made the subject of the present paper.