The Elephant and the Aryans

Sarva Daman Singh

doi:10.1017/S0035869X00121367

The Elephant and the Aryans

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

Sarva Daman Singh

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The association of man and elephant dates back to remote antiquity. The bones of the animal unearthed at Mohenjodaro, the realistic figurines, and the representations on the seals of the Indus sites point to the beginnings of this fateful friendship; the docility, intelligence, and easy obedience of the elephant must have quickly led to its domestication, once it was known and captured. That the prosperous civilization of the Indus used the elephant for riding and other purposes, appears almost certain; “the representations on the seals show the two breeds recognized today in India, the Kamooria Dhundia with its flat back, square head, and stout legs, and the inferior Meergha, less heavily built and with a sloping back.” The proto-Australoids were perhaps the first people to domesticate and train the elephant; the words gaja and mātaṅga have been traced to the pre-Aryan peoples of India speaking Austric languages.

Type: Articles
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 95 , Issue 1-2 , April 1963 , pp. 1 - 6

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00121367 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1963

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^{page 1 note 1} Marshall, , Mohenjodaro and the Indus Civilization, 1931, vol. II, p. 653Google Scholar; Mackay, , Further Excavations at Mohenjodaro, vol. II, pls. lxxix, 7, 8, 13Google Scholar; lxxxiv, 57; lxxxvi, 171, depict docile elephants with a thorough familiarity.

^{page 1 note 2} Marshall, loc. cit.; Piggott, Stuart, Prehistoric India, 1950, p. 157Google Scholar; Childe, Gordon, New Light on the Most Ancient East, 1952, p. 176Google Scholar; Wheeler, , The Indus Civilization, 1953, pp. 60, 63Google Scholar, accepts the use of the elephant, with a slight reservation inevitable in the study of so much archaeological material. In an article entitled ‘The Prehistoric Climate of Baluchistan and the Indus Valley’ published in the American Anthropologist, vol. 63, no. 2, Part 1, 04, 1961, pp. 265ff.Google Scholar, R L. Raikes and R. H. Dyson, Jr, argue that the climatic conditions of that region are not materially different today from those of the past, and that the elephant (p. 276) “has never been reported west of the Central Provinces in India, although a more western extension in earlier times cannot be ruled out. At the same time the extent of the Indus Civilization makes the importation of these animals from its periphery a perfectly reasonable possibility.” The question of the climate is problematical, but the domestication of the elephant does not seem to be disputed.

^{page 1 note 3} Piggott, loc. cit.

^{page 1 note 4} Chatterji, S. K. in ‘History and Culture of the Indian People’, vol. I, The Vedic Age, 1951, p. 150Google Scholar.

^{page 1 note 5} Breasted, J. H., A History of Egypt, New York, 1905, p. 271Google Scholar.

^{page 2 note 1} Ibid., p. 304.

^{page 2 note 2} Budge, E. A. W. and King, L. W., Annals of the Kings of Assyria, pp. 85, 86Google Scholar.

^{page 2 note 3} Olmstead, A. T., JAOS., 38, p. 250Google Scholar.

^{page 2 note 4} Bishop, C. W., The Elephant and its ivory in Ancient China, JAOS., 41, p. 291Google Scholar.

^{page 2 note 5} C. W. Bishop, op. cit., p. 292.

^{page 2 note 6} Arrian, Anabasis, Bk. 3, ch. 8, records the presence of an Indian contingent with fifteen elephants at Gaugamela in 331 B.C. The disappearance of the elephant is attested by the march of Alexander through Western Asia, where he did not come across any wild elephants.

^{page 2 note 7} Macdonell, A. A., The Origin and Early History of Chess, JRAS., 1898, p. 131, n. 1Google Scholar.

^{page 2 note 8} C. W. Bishop, op. cit., p. 299.

^{page 2 note 9} Ibid.

^{page 2 note 10} Ibid.

^{page 2 note 11} Tschèpe, P. Albert, Histoire du Royaume de Tch'ou (Changhai, 1903), p. 263 and n. 5Google Scholar; JRAS., 1898, P. 131, n. 1; JAOS., 41, p. 302.

^{page 3 note 1} Ibid., p. 303.

^{page 3 note 2} CHI., vol. I, p. 81; cf. Whitney, , JAOS., III, p. 312Google Scholar; Vedic Index, II, p. 501, says that ‘there is no trace of its use in war’. Is it reasonable to ask whether the inhabitants of the Indus drove an elephant here and there to scare away an enemy? Though direct evidence is lacking, it is not utterly improbable. Recent writers on early Indian warfare have failed to take note of the elephant's domestication in the Indus Civilization. Thus for the Vedic period, Chakravarti, P. C., The Art of War in Ancient India, 1941, p. 47Google Scholar, and Majumdar, B. K., The Military System in Ancient India, p. 1960, p. 16Google Scholar, repeat only the earlier authorities. Dikshitar, , War in Ancient India, 1948, p. 167Google Scholar, admits the use of elephants in war in the Ṛgvedic period, though he does not say a word about the Indus Valley.

^{page 3 note 3} Wheeler, , Ancient India, no. 3, 1947, p. 82Google Scholar; Piggott, op. cit., pp. 261ff.

^{page 3 note 4} Sharma, G. R., The Excavations at Kauśāmbī (1957–1959), 1960, pp. 6–10Google Scholar.

^{page 3 note 5} Vedic Index, II, p. 171–172.

^{page 3 note 6} The Vedic Age, p. 217.

^{page 4 note 1} ‘One of the three classes of elephants', Monier Williams, Sanskrit Dictionary.

^{page 4 note 2} RV. 1, 64, 7; IV. 16, 14; VIII. 33, 8.

^{page 4 note 3} RV. IV. 4, 1, yāhi räjevāmavāṁ ibhena, etc.; cf. Ghoshal, U. N., Kingship in the ṚRgveda, IHQ., 20, 1944, p. 37Google Scholar.

^{page 4 note 4} RV. IX. 57, 3, ibho rājeva suvratah; Geldner, , HOS., vol. 35, p. 40Google Scholar, inaccurately renders it as ‘folgsamer Königselefant’. Cf. Sastri, P. S., The Imagery of the Ṛgveda, ABO RI., vol. 29, p. 168Google Scholar.

^{page 4 note 5} RV. X. 106, 6, sṛṇyeva jarbharī turpharitū naito-śeva turpharī parpharīkā etc.; cf. Dikshitar, op. cit, p. 167. Another Ṛgvedic passage, VIII. 45, 5, may probably refer to the use of the elephant in war, if the word apsaḥ, as explained by Sāyaṇa, is taken to mean a darṣaniyo gajaḥ. That, however, is doubtful.

^{page 5 note 1} Its occurrence in the late tenth book may be significant.

^{page 5 note 2} AV. III. 22.

^{page 5 note 3} AV. III. 22, 6, hastī mṛrgāṇāṁ suṣsadāmatiṣṭhāvānbabhūva hi. Cf. Griffith, , The Hymns of the Atharva Veda, vol. I, Sec. Ed., 1916, p. 116Google Scholar.

^{page 5 note 4} AV. IV. 36, 9, . . . hastinariṃ maśakā iva.

^{page 5 note 5} Ibid., VI. 70, 2, yathā hastī hastīnyāḥ padena padamudyuje.

^{page 5 note 6} VS. XXX. 11; TS. III. 4, 9, 1; cf. CHI., vol. I, p. 137.

^{page 5 note 7} VS. XXIV. 29. The elephant is also mentioned in TS. V. 5, 11, 1; MS. III. 14, 8; PB. VI. 8, 8; XXIII. 13, 2; AB. VI. 27, 2; ŚB. III. 1, 3, 4; Jaim. Up. Br. III. 22, 1.

^{page 5 note 8} AB. VIII. 22.

^{page 6 note 1} Ibid., VIII. 23.

^{page 6 note 2} Ibid., IV. 1.

^{page 6 note 3} SVB. III. 6, 11, hastṿaśvarathapadātayaḥ. The Adbhuta Brāhmaṇa uses the word gaja for the elephant, see Vedic Index, s.v.

^{page 6 note 4} Chāndogya Upanisṣad, VII. 24, 2; cf. Katṭha Up. I. 1, 23, bahūn paśūn hastihiraṇyamaśvān.

^{page 6 note 5} Vedic Index, II, p. 501.

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