The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.15

v1.c17.15

With the conclusions as to the home of the Āryan tribes extracted from geographical names the other available evidence well accords. The tiger, a native of the swampy jungles of Bengal, is not mentioned in the Rigveda, which gives the place of honour among wild beasts to the lion, then doubtless common in the vast deserts to the east of the lower Sutlej and the Indus and even now to be found in the wooded country to the south of Gujarāt. Rice, whose natural habitat is the south-east in the regular monsoon area and which is well known in the latter Saṃhitās, is never mentioned in the Rigveda. The elephant, whose home is now in the lowland jungle at the foot of the Himālaya from the longitude of Cawnpore eastwards, appears in the Rigveda as the wild beast (*mriga*) with a hand (*hastin*), while in the later texts it is commonly known as *hastin* only, a sign that the novelty of the animal had worn away. The mountains from which the Soma was brought appear, too, to have been nearer in this period than at a later date when the real plant seems to have been more and more difficult to obtain, and when substitutes of various kinds were permitted.