Book Review:Ancient India's Superior Steel

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Made in India Thursday August 25 2005 21:27 IST Nanditha Krishna

Did you know that the famous Damascus sword and Toledo blade were made of Indian

steel? Or that the gift King Porus gave to Alexander in the fourth century BC

was Ferrum Candidum, believed to be steel? Or that Pliny, writing in the first

century BC, says that iron was imported from ‘‘Seres’’ (Cheras)? The list of

surprising facts is endless. What is shocking is that we Indians know so little

about such an important ancient industry of India. India’s Legendary Wootz

Steel, written by Sharada Srinivasan and Srinivasa Ranganathan, corrects this

lacuna and gives us a fascinating picture of the Indian steel industry. It is a

well-researched yet easy-to-read book that brings scholarship to a popular

level. Wootz is a form of crucible steel, formed by adding large

quantities of carbon to iron. This results in alternating layered light and dark

etched patterns, created by welding layers of lower and higher carbon steel. The

design came to be known as damask, referring to the watered pattern, and thereby

Damascus. Today the word ‘‘Damascus’’ is applied to patterns in integrated

circuits with copper interconnects. Wootz was the western name for high carbon

steel from India, derived from the Kannada ukku and Sangam Tamil ekku, meaning

crucible steel. The Iron Pillar of Delhi (AD 400) and the lesser-known iron

pillar at Kochadri in Karnataka and the iron beams of the Konark temple - the

latter two situated in humid coastal areas - stand testimony to ancient Indian

knowledge of corrosion resistance. By 1100 BC, iron was in use in South Indian

megalithic cultures, from Adichanallur in the South to Vidarbha in the North.

Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu was a hub of ferrous crucible processing by 300 BC. The

southern peninsula became the

centre of this vibrant and growing steel industry, which attracted traders from

Rome and the Middle East. By AD 300, the Alexandrian alchemist Zosimos of

Panapolis had published an unequivocal reference to Indian crucible steel. The

pattern-welded crucible steel manufactured in India was used by the European

Merovingians, Carolingians and even the Vikings between AD 500 and 800. There

are several admiring accounts of ‘‘Seres’’ iron and ‘‘Teling’’ (Telenga)

swords, named after the trading ports, in early Greek, Roman, and medieval

Persian and Arabic accounts. The Roman Pliny, Periplus of the Aegean Sea and

the Arab Aus Hajr wrote in admiration of the Damascus sword. Just as Indian

numerals, zero and decimal system were taken to the West by the Arabs, the

‘‘unparalleled’’ Indian tradition of manufacturing steel came to be known as

Hindvi or Hinduwani steel. Even the Prophet Mohammed was said to have used a

‘‘Teling’’ sword. But it was during the Crusades that the

Damascus sword wowed the European world. It was immortalised by Sir Walter Scott

in The Talisman, where Richard the Lion Heart and Saladin meet in a

fictionalised account and show off the superiority of their swords. Richard

slices a one-and-a-half inch thick steel bar with a single stroke. Saladin

picks up his wootz Damascus sword and sliced a down silk pillow into two parts;

he then hangs his shawl on his sword, throws it up in the air, and cuts it into

two. Not all weapons were made in India. Often, steel ingots were exported for

the product to be fashioned elsewhere. In 1657, Niccolao Manucci recorded that

India had exported over 10,000 pounds of steel. In 1722, Reaumur described

‘‘steel from India. rated most highly in Egypt. I could find no artisan in

Paris who succeeded in forging a tool out of it’’. After the 17th century,

European travellers to India faithfully recorded the production of crucible

steel. These included Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1679), Francis

Buchanan (1807), H W Voysey (1832) and others who travelled to Mysore, Malabar,

Salem, Trichy and Golconda. There was a brisk trade in wootz ingots between

Golconda and Persia during the reign of the Qutb Shahi kings. The Mughal and

Rajput armouries included watered and pattern-welded Damascus swords. According

to Buchanan, Tipu paid three panams for a maund of crucible steel. In fact he

went further and manufactured rockets that were also sent to Britain along with

the wootz. In 1870, Major M J Walhouse mentions Arunachalam of Salem, a highly

reputed ironsmith. The composition of wootz excited the European mind. George

Pearson, in 1795, reported on wootz steel, followed by Mushet in 1804, who was

the first to conclude correctly that there was more carbon in wootz than in

English steel. In the 19th century, Michael Faraday, the discoverer of

electricity and a materials scientist, along with James Stoddart, a chemical

assistant at the Royal Institution at London, undertook

the earliest experiments to analyse wootz. Although the authors do not mention

it, the British and the East India Company went about deliberately and

systematically destroying the indigenous Indian steel industry, after acquiring

its technology, in order to boost their own factories in Birmingham, callously

reducing the traditional Indian steel workers to penury. The book also contains

Sharada’s own discovery of high-carbon wootz steel, with light and dark wavy

etched damask patterns at Melsiruvalur in Tamil Nadu. It carries her to the age

of the Tamil poetess Auvaiyar, who composed poetry about the spears of the

warrior Anci. Ferrous crucible processes are found in sites dating back to the

third century BC at Kodumanal near Coimbatore. Examples from Gatihosahalli in

Mysore, Machnur and Tintini in Karnataka were similar to the Melsiruvalur

sample. The tradition of smelting iron thrives among the Agaria tribe of

Central India, extensively documented by anthropologist

Verrier Elwin. It is interesting that the production of steel continues in many

of the ancient sites of wootz-making such as Salem, Mysore and Telengana. This

book is a fascinating combination of history and technology, and it is

supplemented by colourful paintings recreating some of the scenes where wootz

was used. It is a trailblazer in popular archaeo-metallurgy, a new science in

this country. That two eminent research institutions have come forward to

publish the book, and that Tata Steel has commissioned it, is commendable

indeed. nankrishna (AT) vsnl (DOT) com

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