Indian archery
Archery in Ancient Bharat has been respected and regarded as a divine art, quite secret and sacred, clad in mysticism. Archery is directly linked with our glorious past and the National prestige; the very mention of Archery instils a sense of pride among the Indians.
History
Indian archery was held in extremely high regard by the ancient Indians. The practice, for the most part, can be traced back to the Vedic period (c. 1500 – c. 500 BCE), yet archery was likely known and practiced much earlier. In fact, very recent discoveries (2020) have found evidence for archery equipment (arrowheads) in a cave in Sri Lanka. These artefacts' were dated to be approximately 48,000 years old! This find is in fact the oldest evidence for archery outside of Africa that we know of currently. The following section gives some insights into archery in ancient India, and how we know it was practiced far into the distant past. Early evidence of Indian archery can be derived from two main sources; ancient cave paintings and ancient texts, namely the Vedas. The Vedic sagas are some of the oldest sacred texts we know of and are estimated to be compiled c. 1700–1100 BC. The Vedic sagas had been transmitted orally for millennia before the great effort was undertaken to write down the information. We will discuss Indian archery in the Vedas in a later section, but for now, let us consider even older and equally interesting evidence for archery in India. These would be paintings in caves in central India; the Bhimbetka rock shelters. The Bhimbetka rock shelters are a group of caves in central India which were inhabited by prehistoric humans for many thousands of years. Some of the caves contain a treasure trove of artefacts' and cave paintings which gives us a rare insight into the lives of these prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the area.
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