Why did iron production in India stop?

[tom hyle]

Originally Posted by Rick

> I would submit that the swords of Islam struck the Crusader era Europeans with awe and horror. When we get to the 19th 20th c. 'then' the ignorance and contempt becomes more apparent with the critical exception of the art connoisseur . Have you read Elgood's book on Hindu Arms ? In it he cites various on scene sources that said the native states were for the most part quite inefficient at war .

Anyway , my two cents worth .

Yeah; I think it was more of an industrial attitude toward traditional technology than anything else. I still encounter a lot of an attitude among current N Americans that while old cutlery is interesting and all it is not of the quality of today's. I know in some fields this just ain't so. Now, as to what's possible today; maybe so, but industry seems to have a way of both creating the possible and finding it uneconomic..........Hindoo blade work is, as Rick says of......was it spotty quality control or something? That is, though, somewhat in the nature of it still being somewhat done in traditional small work-shop settings, though I suppose that's on it's way out everywhere..... And some of it is really nice, too....