The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s5.324

c2.s5.324

In case the ordinary arrangement is practiced, two horses are submitted to the yoke (dhur), and two run loose, only held by a strap fastened to each end of the fore-axle.* The characteristics of horses most extolled are youth, swiftness, and color. We have seen the age of three years mentioned with approbation,† and I may add that white horses are especially prized for swiftness, though other colors are conspicuous; some so diversified that one cannot help conjecturing that quaggas or zebras were imported and called horses. ‘Swift as thought,’ manojava, is the standing epithet of good steeds.‡ As I have given some attention to the art of the charioteer, it is only fair to say that the horses also were so well trained that they heeded every word, and are even claimed to have known enough to spring up before the knight and confuse him without being directed.§ This is a unique exhibition, however, and professedly a story only, giving us also (three verses before) an instance of the susceptibility of the Hindu horses in their falling upon their knees before their master. But elsewhere, in scenes of grief, as in Homer, we find the horses weeping.‖ The prompt obedience of the steeds must be taken as true if we believe the wheeling-feats described. They must also fear no noise whatever.¶