Ancient Indian Glossary

[The Crooked Philosopher]

The purpose to start an Indian Glossary topic was to provide every user some useful knowledge about Ancient Indian term, this topic also welcome anyone who have more knowledge about Ancient India to share their knowledge about Ancient India especially Mauryan period. The topic begin with Ancient Indian Military where all members could have a look on it, if there's a mistake please point it out, thank you.

Rathadhyaska - officer of chariot

Samparayika - war chariot

Jaitharatha - triumphant chariot

Vainayika - military exercise wagon

Gajadhyaska - officer of elephants

Karmuka - bow made from palmyrah tree

Kodanda - bow made from bamboo

Druna - bow made from dam wood

Dhanus - bow made from bone or horn

Sakti - spear

Kunta - spear or lance or more precisely barbed dart, made from iron and has six edges

sattra - deception

kurpasa - cuirass or quilted jacket

kuthara - axe

Parasu - battle-axe related to the famous Parasurama

Asidhenu - small combat dagger with one cubit in length and three edges and usually for close combat

Lavitra - a crooked shaped sickle, sharp at the end and a big handle mostly use in moving and reaping while hurling it requires both hands to hurl it.

Prasa - lance made from bamboo with metallic spearhead

Gada - heavy iron rod with one hundred metal spikes at the top

Laguda - heavy staff with metallic fect, two cubit long

arrow - divided in several kinds venu, sara or zara, sataka, dandasara and naraca.

Pattisa - spear with keen edge made of copper or iron

Asi - sword

Khadga - sword of another variant

Kavaca - armor, shield, coat of mail or cuirass but mostly refer as armor and made from iron

Varman - armor made of cattle skin or elephant skin

Sirastrana - helmet

Kanthrana - neck guard

Kancuka - long protection jacket up to knee level

Varabana - long protection jacket up to the heels

Tanutrana - coat of mail for body protection

Uraschada - breast plate

Phalaka - shield made of wood

Edited May 26, 2012 by The Crooked Philosopher

[Veridagorin]

Maybe the Indian caste system should make it so that the Indians don't get citizen soldiers but there workers are more efficient at collecting resources for early defense they should be able to build soldier types in phase 1 that are inbewteen citizen soldiers and elite soldiers slightly stronger at fighting than citizen soldiers or as strong as level 3 citizen soldiers but worse than elite soldiers

or since people can't travel bewteen caste's maybe each caste has its own pop limit

[The Crooked Philosopher]

In Kautilya Arthashastra, it is most ideal to have an army made up of kshatriya but in all cases however conscripts are needed for military campaign. If caste was imposed into Mauryan India in game play, it would caused untold frustration because there would be limit to create how many kshatriya and how many citizen levies.

[historic_bruno]

Just curious what the source(s) of the above terms are?

[The Crooked Philosopher]

Some of these are available in the Internet, but you'll need a Sanskrit dictionary with English translation to confirm that it is accurate. I found an interesting article when was actively looking for Majumdar, B.K. (1955): The Military System in Ancient India instead i stumbled upon an article which have a good description on Ancient Indian Military but still i have to use Internet Sanskrit dictionary to confirm the terms use in the article is accurate and advance research that identify arms or armor that are existed during the Mauryan time frame or out of Mauryan time frame.

To view the article, please visit http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/1362/11/11_chapter%206.pdf because thats the first source i found. If you need to confirm whether these terms are accurate please visit http://spokensanskrit.de/.