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Originally Posted by benny.lee
India is an ancient civilization.
Its weapons are so exquisite and incredible.
I am a Chinese
I noticed that the Chinese weapons in this museum are more common.
Some frustration  |
I guess the difference between the "known" Indian and Chinese weapons may be explainable by historical circumstances.
In 19-20 centuries China had several civil wars with wholesome destruction of cultural heritage, from Taiping rebellion to Cultural Revolution and everything in between, whereas India was relatively peaceful and maintained Royal dynasties with their properties and armouries. Also, religious and cultural pluralism in India was much more conducive to the flourishing variety of "ethnic" weapons , with Hindu and Muslim major branches and "boutique" subsets, such as Coorg, Nepalese, Mysore, NW Frontier etc .
And, lastly, weapons in India had sacred overtones and were treated as such, with infinite variety in form, religious symbolism in decoration and lavish adornments. In China weapons were viewed as utilitarian instruments and ( with the rare exceptions of Royal examples) were limited to several simple patterns of purely practical features.
This does not make Chinese weapons less historically important or interesting, but simply more austere. Da Dao or the so called River Pirates examples are esthetically plain ugly, but did their military job admirably well.