Dhanurveda

Book excerpt: Dhanurveda, the standard work on Vedic military science being lost, the dissertations on the science found in the Mahabharata, the Agni Purana, Akasha Bhairava Tantra, Kautalya Arthashastra, Manusmriti, Matsya Purana, Mahabharata, Manasollasa, Yukti Kalpa Taru, Vishnudharmottara Purana, Veeramitrodaya, Samarangana Sootradhara, Shukraneeti, and other small works on Dhanurveda like Aushanas Dhanurveda, Vasishtha Dhanurveda, Sadashiva Dhanurveda and Neeti Prakashika are the only source of information on the subject left to us. The present work takes into account all the data available with the present author in fragment form or manuscript form or the published form of various treatises of Dhanurveda, so that a factual and actual picture of military science or the science of warfare in ancient India may be drawn for the modern day readers and researchers. The present work also contains the English Translation of the Vasishtha and Sadashiva Dhanurvedas as appendix 1 & 2 with illustrations wherever necessary.