Obsolete Weapons in the Mahabharata: An Attempt at Reconstruction

The paper deals with four weapons that appear in the Mahabharata, but are never, or only exceptionally, employed in real combat: plough (hala), wheel/disc (cakra), thunderbolt (vajra) and trident (trisula). In each case, an attempt to reconstruct the prehistory of the weapon is made, the textual and...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Babkiewicz, Andrzej (Author) ; Sellmer, Sven 1969- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Equinox 2022
In: Religions of South Asia
Year: 2022, Volume: 16, Issue: 2/3, Pages: 201-219
Further subjects:B vajra
B plough (weapon)
B trident
B Mahābhārata
B Weapons
B disc (weapon)
B thunderbolt
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Summary:The paper deals with four weapons that appear in the Mahabharata, but are never, or only exceptionally, employed in real combat: plough (hala), wheel/disc (cakra), thunderbolt (vajra) and trident (trisula). In each case, an attempt to reconstruct the prehistory of the weapon is made, the textual and material evidence is examined, and a hypothesis is presented as to how the weapon was imagined by the authors and recipients of the epic.
ISSN:1751-2697
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions of South Asia
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1558/rosa.24401