By P.K.Balachandran/Sunday Observer
Colombo, December 8: Gunpowder weapons came late to Sri Lanka when compared to neighbouring India. Gunpowder weapons were mentioned in Indian chronicles for the first time as early as in 1258. Firearms were introduced to Sri Lanka only in 1505 when the Portuguese landed in Colombo.
Sinhalese in Colombo were shaken by the cannon fire from Portuguese vessels anchored off Colombo. As the Rajavaliya noted, Portuguese guns could “shatter castles of stone and iron.”
However, the Portuguese did not use firearms very much until much later when they got involved in local politics and local wars as supporters of one local ruler or the other for trade concessions. Their interest was basically in Sri Lankan spices and proselytization.
After some initial hesitation to use an unfamiliar technology, Sri Lankan rulers of the 16 th century took to gunpowder weapons with gusto, even manufacturing them with reasonable expertise and in fair numbers too.
The story of gunpowder weaponry in Sri Lanka has been narrated in fascinating detail by the Melbourne-based Sri Lankan military historian, Dr.Channa Wickremesekera, in his book A Modest Arsenal: Gunpowder Weapons in Sri Lanka (Thambapani Academic Publications, Colombo, 2024.)
Despite an obvious fascination for them, gunpowder weapons were not widely used in Sri Lanka. The jungle terrain and wet weather in the island, especially in its Central hill country, limited the use of the early types of gunpowder weapons like matchlock muskets and cannons. Even the Portuguese, Dutch and the British, for whom, gunpowder weapons were the primary armament, found it difficult to use them effectively in the thick jungles, mountainous terrain and the inclement weather conditions.
These non-military geographical and climatic factors helped the Kandyans keep the European aggressors at bay for a considerable length of time. The conditions were ideal for guerrilla warfare with bows and arrows, rocks and boulders and cleverly used small firearm fire. The Kandyans excelled in Guerrilla warfare.
However, the Europeans, especially the British, eventually prevailed over the local rulers. The reasons for their eventual success were as follows: Europeans had switched from “matchlock” to “flintlock muskets” which were waterproof, unlike the matchlock muskets. The British also recruited well acclimatized foreigners like Indians and even Africans from their African possessions. Far away from their homes, the Indians and Africans were unlikely to desert or defect. Even the Malay recruits had taken to defecting or absconding because they had become “locals” having left their native Java long ago to serve the Dutch in Sri Lanka.
During the 1817 Uva rebellion, the British established a string of bases in the jungles of Kandy and Uva, to ensure that their frontline troops got a steady stream of supplies of men and material from Kandy and Badulla. And by 1815, the British had dismantled the Kandyan kingdom, thus breaking the local chain of command.
Sources of Gunpowder
As stated earlier, the Portuguese brought gunpowder to Sri Lanka in 1505. The Muslim Mapilla merchants from Kerala who had great influence in Colombo and Sitawaka, also brought gunpowder weapons technology from their native Kerala which had been having a Portuguese presence since 1498.
In the beginning, Sri Lankan rulers used imported gunpowder weapons. But before long, they started manufacturing gunpowder, matchlock muskets, even flintlock muskets and light artillery called Thuwakku or Beerangi. Thuwakku is a derivative of the Tamil word Thupakki. Beerangi is also a Tamil word, indicating the extent of the arms trade between South India and Sri Lanka at that time.
The first to be introduced in Sri Lanka was the “hand cannon”, where an assistant applied a match directly to the gunpowder with his hand. The hand cannon was followed by the “matchlock musket”, in which the gunpowder was ignited by a burning piece of flammable cord or twine that is in contact with the gunpowder through a mechanism that the musketeer activated by pulling a trigger. This firing mechanism was an improvement over the hand cannon.
By the 17 th. Century “flintlock musket” was replacing matchlock muskets in Europe. It was brought to Sri Lanka by the Portuguese and the Dutch. In the flintlock firearm, flint is used create a spark. There is no direct application of a lighted length of cord. Flint is a sedimentary rock made of silica which is used to light fires. Flint occurs in chalk or limestone.
Wars with Firearms
Gunpowder weapons were used in the wars between Rajasinha I of Sitawaka and the Portuguese. When the Sitawaka forces laid siege to Colombo fort in 1587–88, the Portuguese dispersed the attackers with a few shots from the cannon mounted on the fort. A series of military conflicts and political manoeuvres helped the Portuguese extended their control over the kingdoms of Jaffna (1591), Raigama (1593), and Sitawaka (1593). Firearms arms were used by all parties in these battles.
At the end of the 16 th. Century there were more than 20,000 muskets in Sri Lanka, according to Barros and Couto (History of Ceylon).
The Portuguese were the first to use muskets effectively. In 1539, the Portuguese under Miguel Fereyra and the Mapillas fought with muskets, in which the Portuguese showed their superior skill. In 1562, when a Portuguese force was trapped in Sitawaka, shots from a single cannon dispersed the attackers.
The Sitawaka forces had Espingardas or Portuguese shotguns. Kandy also had 2000 Espingardas in very good condition, a European observer noted. In Kandy in 1634, the Portuguese found, “considerable artillery of bronze and iron muskets and munitions in abandoned stockades.” According to Capt.Jao Ribeiro, in 1655, the Kandyan army of 40,000 had 9,000 men with muskets.
In the Dutch-Kandy wars between 1761 and 1766, the Kandyan army had more firearms than bows and arrows. After the Kandy-Uva rebellion in 1817, more than 8000 muskets were captured by the British from the rebels.
Indian scholar, Cenan Pirani, wrote in his University of California Ph.D. thesis, that a Portuguese writer had warned his fellow countrymen not to teach the locals about guns. He pointed out that Sitawaka soldiers had become very “warlike” after they started using firearms.
Local Arms Industry
Though Sri Lanka was an agricultural country, it had always had village smiths to work on iron. Their craftsmanship was excellent according to contemporary observers. They could make flintlock guns too, though most such guns were imported. Practically all matchlock guns were locally manufactured.
In 1813, the Collector or Matara, William Granville, noted that iron was extracted at Kirama in Matara disrtrict and that excellent guns were made out of the iron. However, the general opinion among Europeans was that the Sri Lankan guns were of varying quality. Guns made by village smiths were crude but those made for the State were much better and ornate too.
Kandyan King Vimaladharmasuriya had set up 100 foundries in his domain. Guns were also made in Sabaragamuwa and sent to Kandy to meet the British threat. Guns were made for the peasantry also as peasants had to have guns when the king or the local chief called them to join a military operation. There were no native standing armies then. Armies were essentially an armed rabble.
Gunpowder was both locally made and imported. Ache in Indonesia was a source. The importers were Muslims of Weligama who ran an emporium there. Gunpowder was also imported or smuggled from the Nayaka kingdom in Madurai South India.
Gunpowder manufacture needed, charcoal, saltpetre and sulphur. Sulphur had to be imported from South India. “But saltpetre came to be widely produced by Kandyans who made it by scraping the salt off the rocky surface of certain caves and then putting it through the process of washing, boiling ad filtering,” Wickremesekra says According to John Davy, by early 19 th. Centruy, Sri Lanka had become self-sufficient in sulphur.
There was a lot of firearms smuggling from South India. In 1763, the Dutch intercepted a flotilla of 13 dhonis from South India off Puttalam, carrying muskets, bullets and medicines.
Firearms arsenals were enhanced also by capturing them from the enemy. Kandyan victories over the Portuguese in 1603, 1630,1638 resulted in the capture of a lot of Portuguese guns. In 1803 Arthur Johnstone estimated that the Kandyans had captured 1000 English muskets.
END
