Sorry I must have seen the crossbow in a book other than in my own. I have however found something else in Elgood’s Hindu Arms and Ritual.
Page 51. ‘Kautilya’s text as it has reached us with its insertions of identerminate date describes stone-throwing machines and we know from Muslim sources of manjaniqs, maghribis, arradahs and gigant crossbows called charkhs which were used in siege operations (see Toy, Sidney: The Strongholds of India. London 1957)’. And at the bottom of the page. ‘Ferishta is probably reliable when he reports that 5000 Hindus were slain when Muslim cannon fired ‘bags of copper miney’ at point-blank range at the advancing Hindu army during the battle of Talikota in 1565. He also refers to the Hindu use of ‘vast flights of rockets’. Probably rocket throwers, Takhsh-andaz, were carried into battle in howdahs together with grenade throwers, r’ad-andaz, in the army of Sultan Mahmud when he fought Timur at Delhi in 1398, but takhsh can mean a crossbow or an arrow.
See also the Glossary page 249 and 257.
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