The use of a chowry (fly-whisk) in ancient India

Note: this text is extracted from Book VI, chapter 31.

“First she came to Śrāvastī, and beheld from a distance the King Prasenajit white with age, who had gone out to hunt, distinguished by a chowrie frequently waved, which seemed at a distance to repel her, as if saying: ‘Leave this old man’”.

The chowrie or chowry (Sanskrit chāmara) is the fly-whisk made from the bushy tail of the Tibetan yak (Bos grunniens). It has already been mentioned several times in Vol. II (pp. 80, 90, 111 and 1Ö2). The chowrie has been an emblem of royalty in Asia from a very early date, where, with the umbrella, it forms part of the regalia. We noticed (Vol. II, p. 264) that it figured in the regalia of the Burmese kings. We also saw (Vol. II, p. 162) that the auspicious marks of Naravāhanadatta at his birth were those on his feet which resembled umbrellas and chowries, at once showing his fitness to become a great king.

As a fly-whisk it was often set in a costly gold, silver or ivory handle. Thus Mas’ūdī says:

“They export from this country the hair named al-zamar (or al-chamar) of which those fly-flaps are made, with handles of silver or ivory, which attendants held over the heads of kings when giving audience” (I, 385).

It was also used like a plume in the horse-trappings. Thus, in describing the great speed at which a horse is moving, Kālidāsa says in his Vikramorvaśī (Act I):

“The waving chowrie on the steed’s broad brow
Points backward, motionless as in a picture.”
      (Wilson, Theatre of the Hindus, vol. ii, 1827, pp. 17, 18.)

Cosmas of Alexandria, the merchant and traveller who turned monk about a.d. 545, gives an amusing description of the yak in his Topographia Christiana (Book XI):

“This Wild Ox is a great beast of India, and from it is got the thing called Tupha, with which officers in the field adorn their horses and pennons. They tell of this beast that if his tail catches in a tree he will not budge, but stands stock-still, being horribly vexed at losing a single hair of his tail; so the natives come and cut his tail off, and then when he has lost it altogether he makes his escape! Such is the nature of the animal.”

(See Yule and Cordier, Cathay and the Way Thither, Hakluyt Society, vol. i, p. 223.)

See also Yule and Cordier’s interesting note on the wild and tame yak in their edition of Marco Polo, vol. i, pp. 277-279.

In Book III, chap. xviii, Polo writes:

“They have such faith in the ox, and hold it for a thing so holy, that when they go to the wars they take of the hair of the wild ox, whereof I have elsewhere spoken, and wear it tied to the necks of their horses; or, if serving on foot, they hang this hair to their shields, or attach it to their own hair. And so this hair bears a high price, since without it nobody goes to the wars in any good heart. For they believe that anyone who has it shall come scatheless out of battle.”

In a note on this passage, Yule, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 359n⁶, says:

“The use of the Yak’s tail as a military ornament had nothing to do with the sanctity of the Brahmani ox, but is one of the Pan-Asiatic usages, of which there are so many. A vivid account of the extravagant profusion with which swaggering heroes in South India used those ornaments will be found in P. della Valle, ii, 662.”

For further references see Yule’s Hobson Jobson, under “Chowry” and “Yak.”— n.m.p.