Well after my post in the Gharara historical topic I thougth it wise to to revert to something more noble and manly, before someone starts assuming I’m a softy, which I am inside but wont let anyone think that on the outside. 
Okay to the subject at hand.
Across the world since the earlist of times man has used the Bow and Arrow to hunt for food, beat off predators and enemies of all kinds and sadly to kill fellow man in the numerous wars and conflicts that are a pattern of life for all cultures. Thankfully these days it is more a sporting icon than anything yet still there are hunter gatherers and people who use the bow for more than sport.
Many nations and cultures have a strong heritage asscoiated with the Bow and Arrow and indeed I am a lifelong archer fammiliar with the most gracefull and yet lethal of mans creations.
For those of you who do not realize the importance of this tool I guess you will find the following most informative and to those with a passion for the Bow and who might well call themselves my fellow archers this will be more than interesting.
In Pakistan and India as well as the greater subcontinent and in fact all over the world we can categorise Bows into two categories and then further divide them into two sub-categories. Firstly to those unfammiliar with the bow there are now two types of bow the modern and the historical bow. The difference is pretty obvious modern bows look nothing like the traditional bow when you subject them to close scrutiny for they are different in so many ways.
I will begin by detailing the Historical bow which comes in two forms. The first is the simple self bow, which is a bow made from one or perhaps two materials at most, requires very little construction or engineering skill and will do a very good job. The second is the Composite bow which as the name suggests is a powerfull bow made from composite materials.
In South Asia the first bows to appear were almost certianly Self-Bows. These it seems were made from single wood or bamboo staves and measured anything from one to three meters. In Pakistan and India the most common material for the self bow was Bamboo. Being a supple and very flexible yet strong wood, it was ideal for the tensile forces that would be subjected to it when the stave was drawn as a bow.
The wood bows were also used but it seems these were strong but lacked the fexibility of the Bamboo which made them very brittle and such bows seldom lasted as long. Due to the stress forces plied on the self bow it had to be long to take the force. Too short and the bow would be too rigid and impossible to draw, too long and it became unwieldy and again difficuilt to draw. Most bow staves were about the same hieght as the archer or perhaps longer. One could compare the bamboo bow of South Asia to the Japanese Yumi which is a simmilar creation albeit assymetrical.
The other bow most commonly used in South Asia was the powerfull Composite Bow. It was made from several materials consisting of Horn (ussually buffallo horn), Sinew from game animal tendons and a thin wood core ussually birch or maple, though any would could technically be used. The composite bow could be much shorter and therefore easier to use from the back of a horse and more importantly it was far more powerfull.
Archery has been a long tradition in South Asia with archers fammously using both types of bow. The bow is not just a weapon it is also a cultural Icon wether it is the Northern Tribes who are famed for thier love of horses and Archery… or wether it be the Icons in temples and churches and Masjids, from Hunters to Holy men and even Gods it seems have been fond of the bow.
Archery is also a modern Olympic sport with various styles and schools.
So anyone here fond of Archery?
..But it is illegal in India.. 
