THE MARATHA WEAPONS OF WAR. BY B. K. Apre In the struggle for supremacy between different peoples, the weapons of war have played an important role. The survival of a people or their civilization has been determined by their scientific progress in weapons. Ability to kill the enemy quickly and effectively with improved weapons has decided the issue at all times. It is a historic fact that the Assyrians with their iron weapons and mobile chariots destroyed the civilizations in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates. In the Epic Age the Asuras with their missiles easily defeated their rivals, the Gods, though the latter emerged triumphant in the end by trickery and diplomacy. The Second World War would not have abruptly come to an end had the Allies not dropped the atom bomb on the Japanese. ‘The weapons of war, thus, being vital to one’s own survival, people have concentrated more on their possession than on other things, though with varying success. However, it has not been easy, as one would imagine, either to manufacture or to procure superior weapons of war. For, their manufacture depends upon the general scientific progress of a people. The weapons van be taken as an index to a people's progress in science. Pro- curing weapons from a foreign country has always meant dependence upon it and betrayal of one's own weakness. It has been a matter of common experience that the exporting country parts with weapons which are either inferior or out-of-date. ‘These observations on the weapons of war hold true in the case of the Marathas. They had to depend upon the Europeans for superior guns and artillery right from the days of Shivaji till their defeat at the hands of the English in the final struggle for power. All their endeavours to make up this deficiency by manufacturing guns at home fell short of the require- ments of the times as their level of scientific progress was too low. Marathas were in the mediaeval stage of civilization whereas their rivals, the English, who came to this land were already reaping the benefits of renaissance. ‘The gulf that yawned between the two was too wide to be bridged in a short time. Renaissance was introduced in the Maratha country as in the rest of India late in the nineteenth century. The Marathas and the other indi- genous powers, therefore, were destined to succumb to the superior civili- zation of the English. That was the gospel of the gun.