You must have read of the historic battle between Alexander of Macedonia (Greece) and Puru (called Porus by the Greeks), the king of a rather small kingdom, on the banks of the river Jhelum in 326 BC. Though Puru lost the battle due to superior tactics and generalship of Alexander, the fighting was so fierce that Alexander’s troops lost heart to continue further inland and clash with the mighty Nanda Empire of Magadh. Sensing his troops’ sunken morale, Alexander decided to go back from there having dropped his plan to conquer India. You would have also read the famous incident when asked by Alexander how he wished to be treated; Puru had given the proud reply, “As a king would treat another king”. Alexander respected that and departed on good terms.
However, you would perhaps be not aware that as a gesture of goodwill, Puru had given him a unique parting gift, regarded more valuable than gold at that time. What was that? It was not diamonds, pearls or precious stones. It was the legendary steel produced by the Hindus that was famous in the world as ‘the wonder material of the Orient’. According to the Roman historian Quintius Curtius in his book ‘Historiae Alexandri Magni’, the gift consisted of nearly 3 tons (a hundred ‘talents’ in their parlance) of the steel, which he calls ‘white iron’ and the proud Hindus called ‘black gold’.
Now, do reflect upon it. The episode shows that the steel produced by the Hindus was famous throughout the world even 2,350 years ago in recorded history! Is it not something to be proud of? I emphasize recorded history. There are reasons to believe that Hindus were producing great steel much before that.
Indian Swords – the stuff legends are made of
Swords made of Indian steel were actually the stuff of legends. They were prized throughout the world and accorded great respect. The most famous of the legends was that the swords were so sharp that you could toss a very light handkerchief made of silk in the air and then cut it in mid-air with the sword, whereas all other swords would just knock it off without being able to cut it. You will be surprised to know that it took the world over 2000 years to admit that this feat of cutting of a silken handkerchief in air was not just a legend. In 1918, Russian metallurgist N. T. Belaiew demonstrated the truth of this legend in his paper ‘Damascene steel’, published in the Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute.
From 6th century onwards, we have scores of historical records that speak of the extraordinary performance of Indian steel. Ka’b ibn Zuhayr, an Arabian poet of the 7th century, and a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad, gives the epithet of ‘Al Muhannad’ to the greatest swords of his era. The word ‘Al Muhannad’, derived from ‘Al Hind’, means sword made in Hind. Indian steel was exported to Syria also. They made swords from that steel in the town of Damascus. To the Western world, that steel came to known as Damascus or Damascene steel.
In 12th century, Muhammad al-Idrisi, a Muslim geographer, served in the court of King Roger II at Sicily, Italy. He has also categorically stated that no sword in the world could match the Indian swords. Lord Egerton, in his book ‘Indian and Oriental Armour’, cites many other Arab records that attest to it.
How Our Steel Confounded the West for Centuries
The Western world had its first encounter with Indian steel in the form of the swords of the Muslim warriors during the First Crusade in the 11th century when the European knights were astounded by them. Since then, scientists throughout Europe desperately sought to unlock the secret of the Damascus steel. In 1774, Swedish chemist Tobern Bergman figured out the difference between cast iron, wrought iron and steel. It was only in 1824 that the French scientist J. R. Breant conducted over 300 painstaking experiments with various substances and then came close to understanding its secret in his paper ‘Description of a process for making damasked steel’. At about the same time, Russian scientist Anasoff succeeded in achieving the same thing. As a result of all such research spanning centuries, it was only in 19th century that they could figure out that for a sword steel that had to be very hard and yet not brittle, and retain great sharpness, it had to have high carbon content. The steel of ancient India was found to have ultra-high carbon content up to 1.9%, whereas mild steel has only up to 0.3%.
How Was the Ancient Hindu Steel Called Wootz Steel Made?
The steel made by the ancient Hindus is now called by the name of Wootz steel. Much research on this has been done by S. Srinivasan and S. Ranganathan of the Department of Metallurgy, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. They say that the word Wootz is an anglicised version of the word ‘ukku’ in the languages spoken then in the region that comprises present-day Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Ukku means steel. Subsequently, the steel came to be produced in other places like Jaipur, Agra, Lahaur, Gawalior and Tanjore etc. also.
The exact process used by the ancient Hindus is lost. However, the research of Srinivasan et al has succeeded in getting a fair idea of the process they must have used. It is a high-carbon alloy produced by the crucible process. A crucible is generally a high-temperature resistant material like quartz, porcelain or ceramics in which the material is melted. Wootz steel was made by a quite complicated process. They had to first prepare sponge iron; it was then hammered while hot to expel slag, and was then broken up. It was then sealed with wood chips or charcoal in closed crucibles that were heated, causing the iron to absorb the high percentage of carbon needed. The crucibles were then cooled, with solidified ingot of Wootz steel remaining.
This process was witnessed by several European travellers even in the 19th century. We have eye-witness accounts of Francis Buchanan in his book ‘A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar’ (1807) and H. W. Voysey in his paper ‘Description of the native manufacture of steel in southern India’ published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1832. They were not metallurgists themselves and hence could not figure out the materials used. They have mentioned small (about 14 ounces) size conical crucibles that contained the material to be melted. They have also mentioned that the crucibles were packed in rows of about 15 inside a sunken pit filled with ash to constitute the furnace which was operated by bellows made of buffalo hide, fixed into a perforated wall. The fire was stoked from a circular pit which was connected to the bottom of the sunken ash pit. In any case, they correctly identified the final products and thus their accounts are valuable.
But that was not the end of our steel-making. K. N. P. Rao, in his paper ‘Wootz-Indian Crucible Steel’ in Metal News (1989) has shown that there was another unique feature of Hindu steel making. European blacksmiths of the medieval age used to forge their swords of low carbon content at ‘white heat’ of 1,200 degrees. As a result, the swords were brittle and often broke upon impact with other swords or armour. On the other hand, the Indian steel was forged in a narrow temperature range of 650 to 800 degrees, which made the steel hard as well as flexible.
It is obvious that our steel-making was an extremely laborious as well as costly process as only a very small quantity could be produced at a time. This is perhaps one of the reasons that they could not resist the temptation of making some money by exporting it to the Arab world, never knowing that one day, swords of the same steel would be used against them by the invaders.
How Had the Ancient Hindus Learnt All This?
The Iron Age in Europe is defined as the period from 700-1 BC. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says that the Iron Age did not start with the first appearance of iron but rather at the stage when its distinct functional properties were being exploited and it began to supplant bronze in the production of tools and weapons. And yet, as we saw above, their iron or steel was so inferior in quality to the steel produced by us that they could figure out our secret only by the 19th century!
What explains this great, tremendous disparity in the levels of scientific knowledge of the two civilizations? We do not know. How did the ancient Hindus master the complicated process of making Wootz steel that was so far ahead of its times and can give even the most modern steels of the 21st century a run for their money? How did they figure out that forging must be done only in a narrow temperature range of 150 degrees?
Frankly speaking, no one knows. Was it sheer genius or was it revealed knowledge, or both, we are not sure. The secret has been lost in the mists of time. Hindu steel remains as much a mystery as the creation of the great Kailasnath monolithic rock temple at Ellora that we discussed in an earlier article, ‘Kailasnath Temple, Ellora – World’s Envy, Hindus’ Pride’. However, that it was indeed done and continued to be done well into the 19th century also is amply evident from historical records and eye-witness accounts.
Also Read: Kailasnath Temple, Ellora – World’s Envy, Hindus’ Pride
Modern Hindus must take great pride in the phenomenal achievements of our ancestors in the field of metallurgical engineering in general and steel-making in particular. The swords of that era might not have survived till date but we have several other ‘living’ monuments of our metallurgy, such as the world famous Iron Pillar of Delhi which we shall discuss in another article. It is a pity that most Indians today have been deliberately kept unaware of such glorious, such mind-boggling heritage.
