[Footnote 1:  Ibid., ch. xxiii. p. 144.]

The troops usually consisted of four classes:  the “riders on elephants, the cavalry, then those in chariots, and the foot soldiers,"[1] and this organisation continued till the twelfth century.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Rajavali, p. 208, The use of elephants in war is frequently adverted to in the Mahawamso, ch. xxv. p. 151-155, &c.]

[Footnote 2:  See the inscription on the tablet at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1187.]

Their arms were “the five weapons of war,” swords, spears, javelins, bows, and arrows, and a rope with a noose, running in a metal ring called narachana.[1] The archers were the main strength of the army, and their skill and dexterity are subjects of frequent eulogium.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch, vii 48; ch. xxv p. 155.]

[Footnote 2:  One of the chiefs in the army of Dutugaimunu, B.C. 160, is described as combining all the excellences of the craft, being at once a “sound archer,” who shot by ear, when his object was out of sight; “a lightning archer,” whose arrow was as rapid as a thunderbolt; and a “sand-archer,” who could send the shaft through a cart filled with sand and through hides “an hundred-fold thick.”—­Mahawanso, ch. xxiii. p. 143.  In one of the legends connected with the early life of Gotama, before he attained the exaltation of Buddhahood, he is represented as displaying his strength by taking “a bow which required a thousand men to bend it, and placing it against the toe of his right foot without standing up, he drew the string with his finger-nail.”—­HARDY’S Manual of Buddhism, ch. vii. p. 153.  It is remarkable that at the present day this is the attitude assumed by a Veddah, when anxious to send an arrow with more than ordinary force.  The following sketch is from a model in ebony executed by a native carver.

[Illustration:  VEDDAH DRAWING HIS BOW]

I am not aware that examples of this mode of drawing the bow are to be found on any ancient monument, Egyptian, Assyrian, Grecian, or Roman; but that it was regarded as peculiar to the inhabitants of India is shown by the fact that ARRIAN describes it as something remarkable in the Indians in the age of Alexander. “[Greek:  Hoplisios de tes Indon ouk houtos eis tropos, all oi men pezoi autoisi toxon te echousin, isomekes tps phoreonti to toxon, kai touto kato epi ten gen thentes kai tps podi tps aristerps antibantes, outos ektoxeuousi, ten neuren epi mega opiso apagagontes.”—­ARRIAN, Indica, lib, xvi.  Arrian adds that such was the force with which their arrows travelled that no substance was strong enough to resist them, neither shield, breast-plate, nor armour, all of which they penetrated.  In the account of Brazil, by Kidder and Fletcher, Philad. 1850, p. 558, the Indians of the Amazon are said to draw the bow with the foot, and a figure is given of a Caboclo archer in the attitude; but, unlike the Veddah of Ceylon, the American uses both feet.]