The Classical Accounts of India c18: XI. Aelian
The Classical Accounts of India c18
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XI. Aelian
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Claudius Aelianus, who flourished in the second-third century A.D., settled in Rome and taught rhetoric in the days of the Emperor Hadrian. He wrote two books, one of which, entitled *On the Peculiarities of Animals*, became popular and was regarded as a standard work on Zoology. It deals with quite a large number of birds and animals of India. A considerable portion of the work relating to India has been translated by McCrindle. A few selected passages from this are given below.¹
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III. 46². An Indian elephant-trainer fell in with a white elephant-calf, which he brought when still quite young to his home, where he reared it, and gradually made it quite tame and rode upon it. He became much attached to the creature, which loved him in return, and by its affection requited him for its maintenance. Now the king of the Indians, having heard of this elephant, wanted to take it; but the owner, jealous of the love it had for him, and grieving much, no doubt, to think that another should become its master, refused to give it away, and made off at once to the desert mounted on his favourite. The king was enraged at this, and sent men in pursuit, with orders to seize the elephant, and at the same time to bring back the Indian for punishment. Overtaking the fugitive they attempted to execute their purpose, but he resisted and attacked his assailants from the back of the elephant, which in the affray fought on the side of its injured master. Such was the state of matters at the first, but afterwards, when the Indian on being wounded slipped down to the ground, the elephant, true to his salt, bestrides him as soldiers in battle bestride a fallen comrade, whom they cover with their shields, kills many of the assailants, and puts the rest to flight. Then twining his trunk around his rearer he lifted him on to his back, and carried him home to the stall, and remained with him like a faithful friend with his friend, and showed him every kind attention. [O men! how base are ye! ever dancing merrily when ye hear the music of the frying-pan, ever revelling in the banquet, but traitors in the hour of danger, and vainly and for nought sullying the sacred name of friendship.]
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VI. 37. Repeats Plutarch's story of the elephant of Porus (see above, p. 197).
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XII. 8. The elephant when feeding at large ordinarily drinks water, but when undergoing the fatigues of war is allowed wine,—not that sort, however, which comes from the grape, but another which is prepared from rice. The attendants even go in advance of their elephants and gather them flowers; for they are very fond of of sweet perfumes, and they are accordingly taken out to the meadows, there to be trained under the influence of the sweetest fragrance. The animal selects the flowers according to their smell, and throws them as they are gathered into a basket which is held out by the trainer. This being filled, and harvestwork, so to speak, completed, he then bathes, and enjoys his bath with all the zest of a consummate voluptuary. On returning from bathing he is impatient to have his flowers, and if there is delay in bringing them he begins roaring, and will not taste a morsel of food till all the flowers he gathered are placed before him. This done, he takes the flowers out of the basket with his trunk and scatters them over the edge of his manager, and makes by this device their fine scent be, as it were, a relish to his food. He strews also a good quantity of them as litter over his stall, for he loves to have his sleep made sweet and pleasant.
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The Indian elephants were nine cubits in height and five in breadth. The largest elephants in all the land were those called the Praisian, and next to these the Taxilan.
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XII. 44. In India an elephant if caught when full-grown is difficult to tame, and longing for freedom thirsts for blood. Should it be bound in chains, this exasperates it still more, and it will not submit to a master. The Indians, however, coax it with food, and seek to pacify it with various things for which it has a liking, their aim being to fill its stomach and to soothe its temper. But it is still angry with them, and takes no notice of them. To what device do they then resort? They sing to it their native melodies, and soothe it with the music of an instrument in common use which has *four strings* and is called a *skindapsos*. The creature now pricks up its ears, yields to the soothing strain, and its anger subsides. Then, though there is an occasional outburst of its suppressed passion, it gradually turns its eye to its food. It is then freed from its bonds, but does not seek to escape, being enthralled with the music. It even takes food eagerly, and, like a luxurious guest riveted to the festive board, has no wish to go, from its love of the music.
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XII. 48. Not only the Indians, but the kings of Persia have translated and sung the poems of Homer, if one may credit those who have written on these subjects.
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XIII. 18. In the Indian royal palace where the greatest of all the kings of the country resides, besides much else which is calculated to excite admiration, and with which neither Memnonian Susa with all its costly splendour, nor Ekbatana with all its magnificence can vie (for, methinks, only the well-known vanity of the Persians could prompt such a comparison), there are other wonders besides, which I cannot undertake to describe in this treatise. In the parks tame peacocks are kept, and pheasants which have been domesticated; and among cultivated plants there are some to which the king's servants attend with special care, for there are shady groves and pasture-grounds plated with trees, and branches of trees which the art of woodsman has deftly interwoven. And these very trees, from the unusual benignity of the climate, are ever in bloom, and, untouched by age, never shed their leaves; and while some are native to the soil, others are with circumspect care brought from other parts, and with their beauty enhance the charms of the landscape. The olive is not of the number, this being a tree which is neither indigenous to India, nor thrives when transported thither. Birds and other animals that wander at freedom and have never been tamed resort of themselves to India and there build their nests and form their lairs. Parrots are natives of the country, and keep hovering about the king and wheeling round him, and vast though their numbers be, no Indian ever eats a parrot. The reason of all this is that they are believed to be sacred and that the Brachmans honour them highly above all other birds. They assign a specious enough reason for their doing so—namely, that the parrot alone, from the admirable conformation of its vocal organs, can imitate human speech. Within the palace ground there are also artificial ponds of great beauty in which they keep fish of enormous size but quite tame. No one has permission to fish for these except the king's sons while yet in their boyhood. These youngsters amuse themselves without the least risk of being drowned while fishing in the unruffled sheet of water and learning how to sail their boats.³
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XIII. 22. An elephant trained for the purpose is the first to make an obeisance to the king of the Indians when he leaves the place to administer justice, and never forgets this duty, or refused to perform it. Close by the animal stands its keeper, who gives it a reminder of the lesson it has been taught by a stroke of the goad, and by accents of the native speech which elephants through a mysterious endowment of nature peculiar to themselves are capable of understanding. They are also stirred by the warspirit as if showing that they keep this lesson in mind. Four-and twenty elephants are constantly kept as guards of the king's person, and they relieve each other in turn just like other guards. They are trained likewise not to fall asleep when on guard, for they are tutored even to do this by the skill of the Indians. Hekataios the Milesian relates that Amphiaraos, the son of Aikles, being oppressed with sleep, neglected his watch and just escaped suffering what this writer mentions. But elephants are wakeful, and as they are not overpowered by sleep, they are, next to men, the most faithful of all sentinels.
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XIII. 25. Horses and elephants being animals of great use in arms and warfare are held in the highest esteem by the Indians. In their king's service they fetch bundles of hay, which they deposit in the stalls, and provender also, which they bring home fresh and green and undamaged. When the king finds their freight in this condition, he expresses his satisfaction, but if not, he punishes most severely the men in charge of the elephants and horses Even very small animals are not beneath his regard, and he even accepts them when brought to him as presents; for the Indians do not look down with contempt at any animal whatever, whether it be tame or even wild. For instance, subjects that are of rank offer the king such presents as cranes and geese, hens and ducks, turtle-doves and attagens, partridges and pindals (birds like the attagens), and other that are smaller than the above mentioned, such as bokalides and fly-catchers, and what are called kestrels. They show these below the feathers to prove the extent of their fatness. They give also animals which they have caught, stags, and antelopes, and gazelles and oryxes and unicorn asses (of which I have made previous mention), and also different kinds of fish, for they bring even these as presents.
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XV. 7. In India, and more especially in the country of the Prasians, liquid honey falls like rain upon the herbage and the leaves of marsh-reeds, and supplies sheep and oxen with an admirable kind of nutriment, the exceeding sweetness of which the animals highly relish. Now the herdsmen drive them to those spots where this delicious dew falls and lies, and the cattle return supply the herdsmen with a delicious repast, for they yield a very sweet milk which does not require honey to be mixed with it as is done in Greece.
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XV. 8. The Indian pearl-oyster (I have already spoken of the Erythraean kind) is caught in the following manner. There is a city which a man of royal extraction called Soras governed at the time when Eucratides governed the Bactrians, and the name of that city is Perimuda. It is inhabited by a race of fish-eaters who are said to go off with nets and catch the kind of oysters mentioned, in a great bay by which a vast extent of the coast is indented. It is said that the pearl grows upon a shell like that of a large mussel, and that the oysters swim in great shoals, and have leaders, just as bees in their hives have their queen-bees.. I learn further that the leader is bigger and more beautifully coloured than the others, and that in consequence the divers have a keen struggle in the depths which of them shall catch him, since when he is taken they catch also the entire shoal, now left, so to *speak, forlorn and leaderless, so that it stirs not, and, like a flock of sheep that has lost its shepherd, no longer moves forward against any incipient danger. As long, however, as the leader escapes and skilfully evades capture, he guides their movements and upholds discipline. Such as are caught are put into tubs to decay, and when the flesh has rotted and run off, nothing is left but the round pebble. The best sort of pearl is the Indian and that of the Red Sea. It is produced also in the Western Ocean where the island of Britain is. This sort seems to be of a yellowish colour, like gold, while its lustre is dull and dusky. Juba tells us that the pearl is produced in the straits of the Bosporus and is inferior to the British, and not for a moment to be compared with the Indian and Red Sea kind. That which is obtained in the interior of India is said not to have the proper characteristics, but to be a rock crystal.
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XV. 14. The Indians bring to their king tigers made tame, domesticated panthers, and oryxes with four horns. Of oxen there are two kinds—one fleet of foot, and the other extremely wild, and from (the tails of) these oxen they make fly-flaps. The hair on their body is entirely black, but that of the tail is of the purest white. They bring also pigeons of a pale yellow plumage which they aver cannot be tamed or ever cured of their ferocity; and birds which they are pleased to call kerkoronoi, as well as dogs of that noble breed of which we have already spoken; and apes, some of which are white, and others again black. Those apes that are red-coloured they do not bring into towns, as they have a mania for women, and, if they assault them, are put to death from the abhorrence roused by such a lascivious outrage.
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XV. 15. The great King of the Indians appoints a day every year for fighting between men, as I have mentioned elsewhere, and also even between brute animals that are horned. These butt each other, and with a natural ferocity that excites astonishment, strive for victory, just like athletes straining every nerve whether for the highest prize, or for proud distinction, or for fair renown. Now these combatants are brute animals—wild bulls, tame rams, those called mesoi, unicorn asses, and hyaenas, an animal said to be smaller than the antelope, much bolder than the stag, and to butt furiously with its horns. Before the close of the spectacle, elephants come forward to fight, and with their tusks inflict death-wounds on each other. One not unfrequently proves the stronger, and it not unfrequently happens that both are killed.
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XV. 21. When Alexander was assaulting some of the cities in India and capturing others, he found in many of them, besides other animals, a snake, which the Indians, regarding as sacred, kept in a cave and worshipped with much devotion. The Indians accordingly with every kind of entreaty implored Alexander to let no one molest the animal, and he consented to this. Now when the army was marching past the cave, the snake heard the sound that arose (that kind of animal being very sharp both of hearing and sight), and hissed so loud and emitted such gusts of rage that every one was terrified and quite confounded. It was said to be seventy cubits long, and yet the whole of it was not seen, but only its head that projected from the cave. Its eyes, moreover, are reported to have equalled the size of the large, round Macedonian shield
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XV. 24. The Indians make much ado also about the oxen that run fast; and both the king himself and many of the greatest nobles take contending views of their swiftness, and make bets in gold and silver, and think it no disgrace to stake their money on these animals. They yoke them in chariots and incur hazard on the chance of victory. The horses that are yoked to the car run in the middle with an ox on each side, and one of these wheels sharp round the turning-post and must run thirty stadia. The oxen run at a pace equal to that of the horses, and you could not decide which was the fleeter, the ox or the horse. And if the king has laid a wager on his own oxen with any one, he becomes so excited over the contest that he follows in his chariot to instigate the driver to speed faster. The driver again pricks the horses with the goad till the blood streams, but he keeps his hand off the oxen, for they run without needing the goad. And to such a pitch does the emulation in the match between the oxen rise, that not only do the rich and the owners of the oxen lay heavy bets upon them, but even the spectators, just as Idomeneus the Cretan and the Locrian Ajax are represented in Homer betting against each other. There are in India oxen of another kind, and these look like very big goats. These are yoked together, and run very fast, being not inferior in speed to the horses of the Getae.
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XVI. 2. I hear that parrots are birds found in India, and I have made mention of them already; but some particulars, which I then omitted, I take the opportunity of setting down here. There are, I am told, three kinds of them. All of them however, if taught like children, become like them able to talk and utter words of human speech. In the woods, however, they emit notes like those of other birds, but do not utter sounds that are significant and articulate—for without teaching they cannot talk. There are also peacocks in India, the largest of their kind anywhere found, and wood-pigeons with pale-green feathers, which one ignorant of ornithology on seeing for the first time would take to be parrots and not pigeons. They have bills and legs of the same colour as Greek partridges. There are in India cocks also of the largest size, with crests not red-coloured like those of our cocks at least, but many-hued like a coronal of flowers. Their rump feathers are neither curved nor curled, but broad, and they trail them as peacocks do their tails when they do not lift and erect them The plumage of these Indian cocks is of a golden and a gleaming azure colour like the smaragdus stone.
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XVI. 17. In the sea which has been mentioned they say there is a very large island, of which, as I hear, the name is Taprobane. From what I can learn, it appears to be a very long and mountainous island, having a length of 7000 stadia and a breadth of 5000. It has not, however, any cities, but only villages, of which the number amounts to 750. The houses in which the inhabitants lodge themselves are made of wood, and sometimes also of reeds.
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XVI. 18. In the sea which surrounds the islands, tortoises are bred of so vast a size that their shells are employed to make roofs for the houses. for a shell, being fifteen cubits in length, can hold a good many people under it, screening them from the scorching heat of the sun, besides affording them a welcome shade. But, more than this, it is a protection against the violence of storms of rain far more effective than tiles, for it at once shakes off the rain that dashes against it, while those under its shelter hear the rain rattling as on the roof of a house. At all events they do not require to shift their abode, like those whose tiling is shattered, for the shell is hard and like a hollowed rock and the vaulted roof of a natural cavern.
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The island, then, in the great sea, which they call Taprobane, has palm-groves, where the trees are planted with wonderful regularity all in a row, in the way we see the keepers of pleasure-parks plant out shady trees in the choicest spots. It has also herds of elephants, which are there very numerous and of the largest size. These island elephants are more powerful than those of the mainland, and in appearance larger, and may be pronounced to be in every possible way more intelligent. The islanders export them to the mainland opposite in boats, which they construct expressly for this traffic from wood supplied by the thickets of the island, and they dispose of their cargoes to the king of the Kalingai. On account of the great size of the island, the inhabitants of the interior have never seen the sea, but pass their lives as if residents on a continent, though no doubt they learn from others that they are all around enclosed by the sea. The inhabitants, again, of the coast have no practical acquaintance with elephant-catching, and know of it only by report. All their energy is devoted to catching fish and the monsters of the deep; for the sea encircling the island is reported to breed an incredible number of fish, both of the smaller fry and of the monstrous sort, among the latter being some which have the heads of lions and of panthers and of other wild beasts, and also of rams; and, what is still a greater marvel, there are monsters which in all points of their shape resemble satyrs.
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XXIV. 13-15. When it is said that an Indian by springing forward in front of a horse can check his speed and hold him back, this is not true of all Indians, but only of such as have been trained from boyhood to manage horses; for it is a practice with them to control their horses with bit and bridle, and to make them move at measured pace and in a straight course. They neither, however, gall their tongue by the use of spiked muzzles, nor torture the roof of their mouth. The professional trainers break them in by forcing them to gallop round and round in a ring, especially when they see them refractory. Such as undertake this
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work require to have a strong hand as well as a thorough knowledge of horses. The greatest proficients test their skill by driving a chariot round and round in a ring; and in truth it would be no trifling feat to control with ease a team of four high-mettled steeds when whirling round in a circle. The chariot carries two men who sit beside the charioteer. The war-elephant, either in what is called the tower, or on his bare back in sooth, carries three fighting men, of whom two shoot from the side, while one shoots from behind. There is also a fourth man, who carries in his hand the goad wherewith he guides the animal, much in the same way as the pilot and captain of a ship direct its course with the helm.
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L. 4. The Indians neither put out money at usury, nor know how to borrow. It is contrary to established usage for an Indian either to do or suffer a wrong, and therefore they neither make contracts nor require securities.
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¹ Cf. M-II, 73, 89, 93, 117-19, 169-70 177–f n, 1; M-V, 141-7
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² Schwanbeck, and following him, McCrindle, ascribe this extract to Megasthenes (M-II 118), but on very insufficient grounds
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³ The palace described in this passage seems to be that of the Maurya Emperor at Pataliputra, but there is no evidence to show that it was copied from Megasthenes, as McCrindle supposes (M-V, 142) A similar account is given by Curtius (see above p 105)
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FOOTNOTES