The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.447

v1.c10.447

**Horse :** Next to arms and armour, the most important requirements of ancient Indian warfare were horses and elephants. Probably when the Aryans first came to India, they depended upon their horse, with a very superior breed of which, the progenitor of the modern Arab horse, they were familiar in their primitive homes in the plateau of Central Asia. In India, they subjugated the elephant; but soon after both the horse and the elephant held a lower position than the chariot, though in the time even of the *Mahābhārata*, elephants disputed the supremacy with cars, and such distinguished chiefs as Bhagadatta, Uttara, Duryodhana, Aṇvinda and others, issued forth to battle, mounted on their elephants. At the time of Alexander’s invasion, elephants had all but completely snperseded cars, for the Greek historians, while dwelling largely on the mighty phalanx of king Porus’ elephants say nothing of his war chariots: this may, however, be accounted for on the supposition that the elephants were novel and startling, whereas the car was familiar to the Greeks, and on the whole not very dangerous to them. The Hindus knew exactly the purposes for which horses and elephants were most valuable, and placed them in the wings of their army, where they could be manoeuvred without interfering with the action of the infantry in the centre, on which they depended, as the mainstay of military arrays. They also wrote several treatises on the management of those animals in health and disease. Unlike most other nations of antiquity, they employed the horse in war, both for the draught of their chariots and for the saddle, and that from the very earliest period of which we possess any notice. Driving was perhaps more fashionable than riding for the principal heroes always appeared in battle, as among the ancient Assyrians²²³ and Egyptians, on chariots, and prized themselves on being *rathis* or owners of cars. Mounted troops, however, were more common, and in the *Ṛgveda* Agni is in one place invoked "to come mounted on a rapid courser",²²⁴ and in another place is likened to "a rider-bearing steed".²²⁵ The Aśvins made Pedu "mount a swift charger".²²⁶ Madhucchandas, son of Viśvāmitra, prays that he may, "under the protection of Indra, repel his enemies, whether encountering them hand to hand, or on horseback".²²⁷ The horse was, likewise used as a beast of burden, and the Aśvins are accordingly invoked to come to the sacrifice "with viands borne on many steeds".²²⁸