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Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s24: 12. Animals

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s24

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12. Animals

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Among Indian animals the Elephant easily got the first place in the attention of almost every Greek observer.³ The Indian elephants were seen to be larger and stronger than the African elephants, and Megasthenes thought that this was due to the Indian soil supplying food in unsparing profusion. The elephants of Ceylon were larger still. The longevity of an elephant's life was well known, though Onesicritus put it too high when he stated that they lived three hundred years, sometimes five hundred, and that they were very vigorous when about two hundred. Arrian, obviously following Megasthenes, says more correctly that the longest lived animals attained an age of two hundred years, but many died prematurely of disease. The manner of hunting the elephant, described briefly by Nearchus and in greater detail by Megasthenes, was much the same then as the Keddah operations of today. The elephants were easily tamed and were naturally of a mild and gentle disposition, so as to approximate to rational beings. ‘Some of them have taken up their drivers who have fallen in battle, and carried them off in safety from the field. Others have fought in defence of their masters who had sought refuge by creeping between their forelegs and have thus saved their lives. If in a fit of anger they kill either the man who feeds them or the man who trains them, they are so overpowered with regret that they refuse food and sometimes die of hunger’. ‘They even learn to throw stones at a mark, to use weapons of war, and to swim most admirably.’ Nearchus spoke of chariots drawn by elephants as a most valued possession, and made the curious statement that a woman who won the present of an elephant from her lover was highly honoured and no one thought of blaming her for sacrificing her virtue for such a prize.¹ And Strabo remarks that this contradicts Megasthenes' statement that private persons were not allowed to keep a horse or an elephant, as they were the property of kings only. The elephant corps was a great asset in war and the possession of a vast force of the largest sized elephants by the Gangaridai² made them the most dreaded of all the Indian states.

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³ Frag. I (Diod. II, 38) p. 35: Ibid. (Diod. II, 37) pp. 33-4: Strabo XV 1, 42 and 43 (pp. 49-50)—for one phrase here Bevan's translation is 'to sew beautifully' for McCrindle's 'to swim most admirably'-Arrian, Indika, XIII, XIV, pp. (213-4).

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¹ Strabo, XV, 1, 43(p. 50): Arrian, Indika, XVII, p. 222.

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² The Gangaridai and the Prasii (Prāchyas) are often mentioned together by the Greek writers and must be taken to apply to the people of the valley of Lower Ganges.

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Next to the elephants, we find monkeys and snakes figuring prominently in the Greek accounts. In the forests on the banks of the upper Jhelum long-tailed apes of an uncommon size were found in vast numbers, and Kleitarchus' famous story of Alexander's strange encounter with a troop of them has been noticed above. They were quick to imitate everything they saw and were therefore easily caught by hunters washing their eyes with water in their presence and then leaving pots of bird-lime behind which sealed the eyes of the apes when they came and smeared their eyes with it; an alternative method was the use of baggy trousers smeared inside with bird-lime. Different varieties of monkeys were known to Megasthenes and described in detail by him as may be seen from extracts preserved by Aelian. One of these varieties so resembled men in appearance that they could easily be mistaken for ascetics, and in an Indian city called Latage they were provided every day with a regular meal under the King's orders after which they quietly withdrew to the forests without causing any damage or injury. Of another type in the eastern Himalayas we read: ‘If these creatures are left unmolested, they keep within the coppices, living on wild fruit; but should they hear the hunter's halloo and the baying of the hounds they dart up the precipices with incredible speed, for they are habituated to climbing the mountains. They defend themselves by rolling down stones on their assailants, which often kill those they hit. The most difficult to catch are those which roll the stones. Some are said to have been brought, though with difficulty and after long intervals, to the Prasii, but these were either suffering from diseases or were females heavy with young.¹ Arrian remarked that the knowledge of the apes of the Indian forests was so common in his time that he did not think it necessary to say much regarding their size or the beauty which distinguishes them or the mode in which they are hunted.²

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¹ Strabo, XV, 1, 29 (p. 36): Meg. Frags. XIII, XIII B (21), (pp. 57-8. 60-61).

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² Indika, XV (p. 218).

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The smaller poisonous varieties of the snakes, spotted and nimble in their movements, were noticed by Nearchus who expressed his surprise at the multitude and malignancy of their tribe.³ When the rivers rose in flood and filled the plains with water, they invaded the dwelling houses in villages, and on this account the people had to raise their beds to a great height from the ground, or even to abandon their homes through the presence of these pests in very large numbers. ‘In fact, were it not that a great proportion of the tribe suffered destruction by the waters, the country would be reduced to a desert. The minute size of some and the immense size of others are sources of danger; the former, because it is difficult to guard against their attacks, the latter by reason of their strength, for snakes are to be seen of sixteen cubits in length¹. There were snake-charmers moving about the country and they were able to cure snake-bites, and Alexander collected round him for the benefit of his army a group of the most skilful among the snake-charmers. The longest snake seen by Aristobulus was nine cubits and a span in length, but Onesicritus¹ stated that Abisares, King of the mountain country, kept two serpents one of which was 80 cubits in length and the other 140. Megasthenes knew of pythons that could swallow stags and bulls whole. He also speaks of flying serpents, two cubits in length, which flew by night and dropped a poisonous secretion which blistered the skins of persons on whom it fell. There were also winged scorpions of an extraordinary size.²

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³ Strabo, XV, 1, 45(pp. 51-2): Arrian, Indika, XV (pp. 218-19). The device of raised beds as protection against reptiles was noted by Marco Polo in South India in the 13th century A. D.

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¹ Strabo, XV, 1, 28(p. 34). It is this statement of Onesicritus for which Strabo characterises him as a 'master fabulist' as well as the master pilot of Alexander.

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² Frags. XII and XVI(pp. 56—61).

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Hunting dogs of astonishing strength and courage were noticed by the companions of Alexander in the country of Sophytes, and Alexander received one hundred and fifty of them as a present from him. A curious incident in Sophytes' court is related at some length by almost all the writers and here is Strabo's version of it: 'To prove their mettle, two of these dogs were set on to attack a lion, and when these were overpowered, two others were set on. When the contest was about equal, Sophytes ordered a man to seize one of the dogs by the leg and to drag him way, or if he still held on, to cut off the limb. Alexander at first refused to let the dog be so mangled, as he wished to save its life, but when Sophytes said, "I will give you four instead of it", he consented, and saw the dog allow its leg to be cut off by slow incision rather than let go its hold³'. It was believed that tiger blood ran in the veins of these dogs!

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³ Strabo, XV, 1, 31 and 37. (pp. 38—39, 46). Note 1 on p. 39 gives references to other accounts. Meg. Frag. XII (p. 56).

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The tiger itself the Greeks naturally had little chance of coming across. Nearchus saw the skin of a tiger, but not a live animal. He heard, however, that it equalled in size the largest horse, but for swiftness and strength no other animal could be compared to it; that the tiger when it encountered the elephant, leapt upon the head of the elephant and strangled it with ease; and that the animals usually seen and designated tigers were but jackals with spotted skins and larger than other jackals—which, of course, is a quaint description of leopards. According to Megasthenes the largest tigers were found in the country of the Prasii, almost twice the size of lions. He once saw a tame tiger led by four men, seizing a mule, overpowering it and dragging it to him, all by its hind leg; such was the strength of the animal¹.

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¹ Arrian, *Indika*, XV (p. 217): Strabo, XV, 1, 37, (p. 45)—Meg. Frag. XII, (p. 56).

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Megasthenes noted that some animals known only in a tame state in Greece were found also in the wild state in India, such as sheep, dogs, goats and oxen. The one-horned horse or *kartazon* of which a somewhat minute account is preserved by Aelian is generally taken to be the rhinoceros². Nearchus came across whales of enormous size in his voyage before he entered the Persian Gulf, and Aelian probably follows Megasthenes in his interesting description of these monsters ‘five times larger than the largest elephant’. The rib of a whale was as much as twenty cubits and its lip fifteen cubits³.

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² Meg. Frag. XV, XVB (pp. 58—60): Strabo, XV, 1, 56 (p. 59 and n. 3)

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³ Strabo, XV, 1, 11—12 (p. 91): Meg. Frag. LIX (pp. 164—65).

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Among the birds, parrots and peacocks attracted particular notice. Arrian criticises Nearchus for writing at length about parrots as if they were a curiosity and saying that they were indigenous to India; but Aelian’s account, doubtless based on Nearchus and other writers, is not devoid of interest: ‘There are, I am informed, three species of them, and all these, if taught to speak, as children are taught, become as talkative as children, and speak with a human voice; but in the words they utter a bird-like scream, and neither send out any distinct or musical notes, nor being wild and untaught are able to talk’. The same writer observes that the peacocks of India were the largest anywhere met, and Alexander was so charmed with their beauty that he threatened the severest penalties against any one who should kill a peacock¹.

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¹ Arrian, *Indika*, XV (p. 218): Meg. Frag. LIX (p. 159): Aelian, V, 21 (*Anc. Ind. in Class. Lit.*, p. 139, and n. 1).

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Having gained some idea of what the Greeks knew of India's natural phenomena, we may now turn to their accounts of its humanity, social institutions and polity, and here Megasthenes is our leading authority, the attention of earlier writers having been confined to the North-west and to local customs and institutions in that part of the country. India, being of enormous size when taken as a whole, was, according to Megasthenes' information, peopled by races both diverse and numerous, not one of which was originally of foreign descent, all being evidently indigenous. Moreover, India neither received a colony from abroad, nor sent out a colony to any other nation². These are statements of some historical value; the memory of the incoming of Aryans had completely faded out, and quite probably, the movement of colonisation to the Eastern lands, Indo-china and Malaysia, had not yet begun. But the contact with the Hellenistic kingdom was already established, and the time was not distant when Asoka's zeal for Dhamma would carry the name of India far and wide to the West certainly, and possibly to the North and East as well.

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² Frag. I (Diod. II, 38), xlvi (Strabo, XV, 1, 6), Meg. pp. 35, 107-8.

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