Indian Antiquary Vol 07

SR No.: 032499
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 386
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 343

NOVEMBER, 1878.]
districts of the Maratha Country and Central India, and in districts not much frequented by Europeans -for assistance in throwing more light on the religious idiosyncrasies of our Indian fellowsubjects.
Oxford, September 1878.
CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA.
MONIER WILLIAMS.
ADDITIONS TO ARCHEOLOGICAL NOTE NO. XX. (supra, page 176).
In further illustration of the use of miniature or toy pottery in prehistoric times, Canon Greenwell, in his very elaborate work, British Barrows, describes "very diminutive vessels of pottery an inch high" found in Yorkshire barrows (p. 317), and again observes, "toy weapons and implements are sometimes found in barrows, and commonly in Denmark" (p. 361). Dr. Ferdinand Keller, in his work on The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and Europe, translated by J. E. Lee, a complete repertory of all that is known on the subject,-estimates the number of earthenware vessels found at Möringen, on the Lake of Zug, at several hundreds; "the smallest are only as big as a walnutshell, and have been used as children's playthings, or as vases for perfumes" (p. 175). Some of the vessels figured (plates 24, 30, 88) perfectly correspond with archaic Indian forms, with round or pointed bottoms; and earthen circlets or rings for supporting or keeping them upright, which are so abundant in Indian cairns, are equally numerous in the lake-dwellings.
The remarks in the 'Note' under review, that handles to cairn-pottery are a feature very rare in Europe will not hold good, at least as regards the lake pottery, in which handles are rather the rule than the exception in the lake-remains on both sides of the Alps. Vases with four short legs have also been found (Lake Dwellings, plates 106, 151), and vessels on four short feet have been discovered by Canon Greenwell in British barrows (pp. 88, 89). It may be added that rude clay figures of animals are found in the lake-dwellings (plate 158), as well as in Nilgiri cairns and the site of old Troy; and further, with respect to the strange custom of disjointing bodies for burial, Canon Greenwell's researches show that bodies were very frequently laid in the barrows piecemeal, and Colonel Meadows Taylor remarked the same appearances in cairn burials in Central India.
In the Note' the svastika is mentioned as first appearing on the pottery of archaic Greece and the Hissarlik relics, but it must now be pushed back to probably earlier times, for it has been found stamped on clay remains in a lake-dwelling on the Lake of Bourget, in Savoy, together with the
289
stamp or seal with which the impressions were made; the seal is a clay cone 1 inches long; a copy of the bottom, taken from plate 161 of Dr. Keller's work (see page 339) is annexed; the
stamps and impressions are in the French Exhibition now open. This ubiquitous symbol must now also be extended to America, for a counter' or 'roundel,' either of bone or horn, has been discovered in one of the low mounds near St. Louis, U.S., on which within several concentric circles there is "a regular croix gammée," or svastika; hence the remark in the 'Note' that the svastika is unknown on Mexican remains may any day be set aside.
London, 3rd August 1878.
M. J. W.
THE FIRE-ARMS OF THE HINDUS. To the Editor of the " Indian Antiquary."
SIR, The letter from Mr. Sinclair (ante, p. 231), and the previous communication from Bâbû Râm Dâs Sen to which it refers, raise an old question respecting the use of fire-arms at an early period by the Hindus. In support of what Mr. Sinclair has observed with regard to the absence of trustworthy evidence of the knowledge of fire-arms (in the sense in which we use the term) in India in the early times referred to,-that is, before the use of gunpowder in Europe,-reference may be invited to an article on the subject in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1876, Vol. XLV. Part I. No. 1, where, at page 44, ancient Hindu fireweapons are noticed. There seems every reason to believe that they were missiles carrying fire, discharged by ordinary mechanical appliances. R. M.
THE TELEPHONE.
SIR,-I beg to suggest, through the medium of your valuable journal, a Gujarati word for the newly invented telephone,' and hope it will meet the approval of the students of philology.
The word is
from Persian meaning far, and from to speak. The word literally means speaker from a distance, and is coined on the analogy of (telescope'), which literally means observer from a distance. Like 2-4, the word I trust will be equally acceptable to the Marathi, Hindustani, and Persian languages, and also to the vernaculars of Bengal and Madras if they can allow the infusion of the Persian element in them.
SORABJI KAVASJI KHAMBATA. Malabar Hill, September 25th, 1878.