Sri Lankan Indigenous Gun Tech, also Our Heritage

Sri Lanka had gunpowder tech 200 years before Portuguese arrival and known of such tech since Dambadeniya period. All gun images above r made by Sri Lankans, and horns and pouches to store the powder.. Image 3 and 4 are of the Kandyan Wall Guns. the Mahathuwakku, its gigantism can be seein in comparison to myself (BOOM BOOM to the Dutch trying to get in). And image 5 is the mahathuwakku of Sri Wikrama Rajasinghe's personal armory!! Its almost comedic to see Temple art of a dudes with a guns. And 9,10 r literally called Kodithuwakku 😭. We had canons too, the golden one, although rly rlly small belonged to Keerthi Sri Rajasinghe, recently returned by the Dutch Rijksmuseum (A reddit post on that )

[Image courtesies to the Colombo National Museum and their non-restriction of photography as long as not used for profit.. that's fair use and I'm not advocating for firearms, merely appreciating our indigenous guns on visits to the museum]

As stated in the plaque in image 7. we had gunpowder since the 1300s and guns since the 1400s, before Portuguese arrival. Gunpowder tech is a big deal in history. and we associate it with the Europeans. While the Europeans did perfect gunpowder tech, they only did so from 1400s on, vs the established Asian gunpowder powers.

Spread of Gunpowder Tech Map:

https://youtu.be/19EqU7vcwLQ?si=VGFUsx2i4P2DyEdD

As seen in vid, gunpowder became a thing in China since 800 AD, it mostly stayed there.. even into 1250, so no gunpowder Polonnaruwa or Cholas. but in 50 years it spread thru the silk road. and by the 1300s, Delhi sultanate, Ottoman Empire, and Safarvid lran became gunpowder empires, I kid not.. if googled they show up, not Europeans. So as per image 7 plaque, our ancestors knew of the existence of gunpowder since the 1200s, basically Dambadenlya on. and the part of extracting the sulphates needed from batshit and bird shit is genius. and the part which states that Portuguese though we made high quality firearms was no exaggeration either..

Until the late 1700s, the playing field of the worid was rlly levelled . the said gunpowder empires weren't branded so for no reason, they genuinely had serious tech. India for instance had the finest gunsmiths out there.. with records of Albuqueque taking an indian gunsmith and gifting to Portuguese King ( https://youtu.be/_pN96DVPsCk?si=fcROVnSZg7o--Suh ), one of many gunsmiths. The Europeans got better and better, but only rlly surpassed the established gunpowder powers in 16005/1700s. Even the British had to deal with the Mysore rockets of Tipu Sultan in the 4th Anglo-Mysore war, which they had took home and reverse engineered to use on Napoleon.. and on Americans in seige of Baltimore in revolutionary war, which is why the rockets were mentioned in the American national anthem.

The point being. firearms r a part of our heritage too. they r nowhere near that of the gunpowder empires, but it was a thing... we stilldon't make firearms to this day. except for some mortar. or even gunpowder (to my knowledge, correct me if wrong). But our context is different tho. We can excel at the stuff we r good at in this modern era.

Not relevant to firearms, but it was cool to see Boomerangs used in angampora, its not even on boomerang wiki. And also, seeing a metal scalpel and scissor from 800s Anuradhapura hospital, only to see.the system stil exist 300 years later in 1100s Polonnaruwa was quite a happy sight, good health care.

Glad the Colombo museum exists, so many cool things displayed within.. The next time u happen to stray across the museum, enjoy seein the guns.. OUR guns 😌, also our heritage.

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[Personally, I'm one to believe that Sri Lanka didn't fall off post-Rajarata, while many things about the Rajarata way of life have been lost, they would been compensated by other means, perhaps not absolutely though. It's a wholesome idea to think there r things in the modern context, that we could excel in.. like how the post-Rajarata folks somewhat accomplished with firearms.. perhaps we were never rlly the best at anything, but get through.. 

That's a good message. the transitional period isn't looked upto in the same light as Rajarata, but we had to deal with the influence of the Ming, Malays, Vijayanagar, and thank goodness the few miles of sea or the Dehli sultanate would've easily gobbled. Its like the default story that the glory of rajarata ended with Magha's occupation.. and that's true, but more accurately I suppose, it represents the transition of SL from a superpowerish player to a regular one, to which we r still today.. that is pretty much the objective 'fell off'.. i think our irrigation and agri far exceeds anything seen in Rajarata, but i need sources to back that. But even being a regular player and not a colony or vassal, even today in this world of more dangerous players itself is just great. Never before in any historical period do we have our roads, phones, internet, electricity, welfare, services and etc.. like the transition ppls at their time, we r quite on par with our time.. perhaps not the best, but so were the transition ppls. Interesting to think about

To this u/YoungQuixote replied: 

"I don't think the Delhi and other Sultanates was ever a real threat.

They struggled to hold Southern India for most of their brief rule in the South. What lands they did have in the South they quickly lost to the Vjaynagara Empire who was building up and supporting the Jaffna Kingdom at the time.

I think what is shows is that Lanka /Kingdom of Kandy modernised incredibly quickly and independently in the 1500s-1600s by building their own firearms and cannons etc among other reforms rather than do nothing or hire European consultants to re-fit their military with modern drill/weapons like many other ME/Indian/Asian rulers did later in the 1700s and 1800s.

Proactivity, Guns, location and negotiations go a long way, and were a big reason Kandy survived so long while Kotte, Jaffna collapsed etc."

The points were agreeable. But still, can't help but wonder if there was something about the circumstances of those 2 centuries that allowed the indigenous proliferation of gun tech, that would've tailed off at the end of the 1600s. Not that it stopped, as even the Kandyans manufactured gun tech to the very end, just that the smithing started to lag behind the standard, and becoming impossible after British occupation..even then, if I remember correctly, the whole reason the rebellion of 1818 failed was because the Disave refused to use guns since they were 'not hela', crossing the fine line of patriotism and idiocy.. I remember hearing that's the only reason the British were able to stay, or they would've been kicked off for good.. and this was when gunsmithing was not at its finest.. yeah they were foreign guns, but to refuse using them since its not the hela thing to do.. We r privileged with the hindsight of knowing just how hela guns can be, making the while thing just so ironic]

Posted to r/srilanka as u/The_Cosmic_Learner

Achinthya Nanayakkara

23.03.2025