Nīlakantha's instruments of war:Modern, vernacular, barbarous

The seventeenth century Benares-based intellectual, NÄ«lakanÚha Caturdhara, wrote what is still the most widely used Sanskrit commentary on the MahÄ bhÄ rata. In the commentary NÄ«lakantha sometimes explains the epicÃŒs instruments of war in contemporary terms—as cannons and muskets, for example. He also uses terms from vernacular, even ÃŽbarbarousÃŒ, languages in his glosses. Rather than ÃŽtypicalÃŒ of ÃŽtraditionalÃŒ Sanskrit commentators, such interpretations by NÄ«lakantha should be understood as self-consciously innovative. The innovations appear primarily in the epicÃŒs descriptions of the fortifications of cities. Placement of NÄ«lakantha in his historical and literary context, most saliently in his early modern context, provides the most meaningful explanation of this feature of the commentary.