Hindu Medicine c7.165

c7.165

Moreover, they are the most efficient part of the king’s army, dealing decisive blows on the battlefield, and forming a swift vanguard for sudden assaults through difficult country. Besides some treatises on horse-medicine,⁹ Hindu veterinary tradition possesses a monumental compilation of elephant medicine, the “Hasty-āyurveda,” the “Sacred Wisdom on the Longevity of Elephants.”¹⁰ It contains more than seven thousand six hundred stanzas and forty-six chapters in prose which form four books, the third dealing at length with elephant surgery. As a companion-at-arms, the precious animal received the same care as the hero, the soldier.