Historical significance of Elephant lore

Hastyāyurveda and Mātaṅgalīlā are written in the form of dialogue between King of Aṅga Romapāda and sage Pālakāpya. Explaining the name of Romapāda Mātaṅgalīlā says “Roma” is the name for lotus ascribed by the scholars; as the foot or “pāda” of the king was marked with lotus symbol, he was called Romapāda^[1] -

“rometi nāma Padmasya vikhyāta pūrvasūribhiḥ /
tenaivāṅkitapādatvād Romapāda iti smṛtaḥ //”^[2]

To identify King Romapāda H.P. Shastri indicates that King Romapāda or Lomapāda of Aṅga territory is familiar to Bengal^[3]. Aṅga is situated in eastern part of Bihar, near present day Bhagalpur. But during the reign of Romapāda it would have extended from parts of Bihar to the coastal areas of West Bengal. As he adopted Śāntā, the daughter of king Daśaratha.The identification of Romapāda has several controversies. According to Bālakāṇḍa of Rāmāyaṇa Daśaratha and Romapāda were identical. However both were probably mythical characters. Trautmann in his work has emphasised on the fact that the kingdom of Aṅga was associated with tamed elephants as early as the later Vedic period^[4] and a king Romapāda of that kingdom was an ally of Prince Rāma in the Rāmāyaṇa. But the connection of this wellknown king with this hitherto unknown sage appears to be a late formation. According to Śivdatta Śarman Pālakāpya was the contemporary of the Aṅga king Romapāda.^[5] The narrative hence indicates that even though Romapāda was a mythical character the backdrop in which the narrative proceeds is a typical of early historic phase.

Trautmann attributed Pālakāpya muni the authorship of two texts Gajaśāstra and Hastyāyurveda. Nīlakaṇṭha, author of the Mātaṅgalīlā attributes the substance of his work to Pālakāpya as well.^[6] Some other works such as Gajacikitsā, Gajaparikṣā and Gajadarpaṇa are also known to have been authored by Pālakāya. This was an attempt to gain legitimacy for such texts but its historicity is highly doubtful. But Pālakāpya is practically unknown outside the elephant-science literature. Pālakāpya is supposed to have expounded elephant science to King Romapāda in the middle Ganga valley, at moment of first capture and taming of wild elephants.^[7] He also states that the story of first domestication and the formulation of elephant science by the sage Pālakāpya are emblematic of human-elephant conflict on the crop-raiding by elephants. As because the text mentions that elephants were responsible for destroying the crops in the kingdom of Aṅga during the reign of Romapāda.^[8] The problem of protecting crops from wild animals, especially the adult male elephant, was the reason for the incorporation of this element in the texts. Harassment can provoke elephants to rampage, endangering both elephants and farmers.

It is interesting to note that Pālakāpya is portrayed as a sage who was fond of elephants, was well versed in medicine and was a physician of elephants and he taught this knowledge to the king of Aṅga, Romapāda. This reminds us about the king of Kāśi Dhanvantari who was an expert surgeon and taught surgery to Suśruta and his fellow classmates. The ruling class was interested in learning medical science and veterinary science.

As for the geographical context it is worth mentioning here that the text mentions a specific locale for Romapāda. It goes on to mentions that when king met Pālakāpya first time, asked him his identity. Pālakāpya then answered like this “in the country which borders on the Himālaya and through which the Lauhitya flows towards the sea there lived a Muni. He was my father, my mother being a Kareṇu or she elephant”.^[9] The first chapter of Mātaṅgalīlā throw light on the birth of Muni Pālakāpya. There was a lovely nymph named Rucirā. She was fashioned by the Creator as he fashioned Speech, by collecting the beauties belonging to sprites, men demons and gods. But once she was cursed by Fate (Brahmā) because of her evil pride. Hence she was born as a daughter of the tribe of Vasus, from Bhārgava, and was named Guṇavatī. Her great curiosity led her once to the hermitage of Mātaṅga. Thinking “Nay, she has been sent by Indra to disturb my penance!” he cursed her, and she became an elephant cow. Then the sage, realizing that she was innocent, straightway said to her: “Fair elephant cow, when from drinking the seed of the hermit Sāmagāyana a son shall be born to you, then your curse shall come to an end”. “A certain Yakṣī (female sprite) once appeared to the hermit Sāmagāyana in a dream. Then the noble hermit straightway went out from the hermitage and passed water. With the urine, seed came forth. That she drank when the hermit had re-entered the house, and speedily the elephant cow conceived and brought forth a son, from her mouth”. Giving her son with joy to the sage, she left the form of an elephant cow and quickly went to heaven, freed from her curse, in peace. Pleased that hermit Sāmagāyana then performed the birth rite and other rites for him, and in accordance with (the instructions of) a heavenly voice gave him the name of Pālakāpya^[10]. He lived and moved with elephants. They were his friends, relatives and companions. He took care of elephants and nourished and cherished them, hence his name was “Pāla”, and the suffix “Kāpya” denoted the gotra or family in which he was born. He was an expert in the treatment of elephants^[11]. The above narratives give us a fair idea of the creation myths surrounding the science of elephantology.

Pālakāpya is mentioned to have belonged to the Kāpya gotra this is an unknown gotra and hence he was not a Brāhmaṇa. Aśvalāyana, Baudhāyana and other sūtras do not mention the name of Kāpya as one of the Munis who founded a gotra. The Kāpya gotra seems to have been of non-brahmanical origin or of indigenous origin and would have been known only in Bengal. Pālakāpya was an inhabitant of Bengal and was born and educated in a country watered by the Lauhitya, or the Brahmaputra, between the Himalaya and the sea. Although, therefore, his treatise was written and published in Campānagara, the capital of Aṅga. It was probably in Bengal that elephants were first domesticated, trained utilized in the service of mankind.

A close study of Pālakāpya’s text reveals that it was originally composed in an indigenous language and later was translated into Sanskrit as it does not always follow the rules of Sanskrit Grammar. However the antiquity of the work cannot be ascertained. It is interesting to note that Kālidāsa mentions it as an ancient sūtra. In the sixth canto of Raghuvaṃśa, Sunanda alluding to the Rājā of Aṅga says, “we learn from an ancient tradition that the Sūtrakāras themselves train the elephants of the king; hence it is that he enjoyed on earth the prosperity of Indra”.^[12]

In Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra there is a chapter entitled “Hastipracāra”, which mentions elephant physicians. Kauṭilya says that if an elephant while going from one place to another is suddenly taken ill or disabled or if mada (must) flows from its temples, it is the duty of the physician to treat it. From this the inference is irresistible that the science of the treatment of elephants had been in existence before Kauṭilya’s time. The form in which the sūtras are written also reflects the antiquity of the work.

Its sūtras were composed at a time, identical with what Max Muller calls the Sūtra period. According to Buhler the sūtras of Vaśiṣṭha and Gautama were anterior to those composed by āpastambha and Baudhāyana in the fifth and sixth century BCE. Pālakāpya was probably a contemporary.^[13]

Another interesting fact may be mentioned here that when we go through the Bower Manuscript (c. 4^th or 5^th century CE)^[14], the Nāvanītaka (Part I, v. 1-13)^[15] it throws light on an assembly of medicinal preceptors and their pupils along with Suśruta and others which took place on the Himalaya, there was a muni named Kāpya. If we follow the date of Suśruta as ascribed by the scholars,^[16] i.e. 5^th century BCE. Kāpya may be the same as Pālakāpya. Mātaṅgalīlā^[17] (Chapter I, v. 5) mentions the name of one Kāpya muni among distinguished sages who were on divine investigation arrived in Campā. If we consider these two sages as one person then it can be presumed that Pālakāpya more or less belonged to the same age, i.e. 5^th century BCE. Kāpya was probably the propagator of the Kāpya gotra as suggested by H.P. Shastri (mentioned above).

Haraprasad Shastri has tried to assign a very early date to the work Hastyāyurveda of Pālakāpya i.e. 5^th or 6^th century BCE.^[18] The work is quoted in Kṣīrasvāmin’s commentary on the Amarakośa; so it cannot be later than the 11^th century CE; an analysis of the contents of Pālakāpya’s treatise has been given by Mukhopadhyaya.^[19] Even if king Romapāda and the elephant-born sage Pālakāpya were real people, for which there is little evidence, the extant texts of elephant science are shown by their content to belong to a period after the Arthaśāstra, which was written much later.^[20]

Franklin Edgerton argues that elephant lore has a long antiquity, reflected by its appearance in the Arthaśāstra. In his view the specialised treatises on elephant lore come after the Arthaśāstra. Trautmann also supports this, according to him this is supported by the fact that the Arthaśāstra neither speaks of an elephant science as it would have been included if such contemporary literature existed nor does it attribute elephant lore to holy personages of mythical origin as similar specialised treatises do.^[21]

From an overall discussion, according to the two texts, its readers can be divided into two categories. Another text to keep in mind here is Gajaśāstra, one of the treatises on elephants in ancient India, the importance of which will be discussed in following chapters. The table given below shows the target readers of such texts:

[Table 7: Target readers of the texts]

Name of the text	Content & Context	Intended audiences / Readers
Mātaṅgalīlā	Mythical origin of elephants, their classification, good and bad qualities, age, capturing and training of elephants, commercial importance and qualities and duties of different officials related to elephants	Officers-in-charge of elephants, catchers, tamers, mahaut etc.
Hastyāyurveda	Exclusively medical text for elephants	Elephant physicians and their students and other elephant experts as well
Gajaśāstra	It is a multipurpose text for elephants	Elephant experts and physicians

Therefore we can perceive that texts were composed especially on elephants highlighting various aspects like their mythical origin, life cycle, capturing techniques, types, qualities, etc. Mātaṅgalīlā and Hastyāyurveda are two imperative texts on elephants with different focus. Scholars are not unanimous about the exact time of their composition and compilation. Though the styles of composition of both the texts are similar to other texts composed in early historic period, yet they went through a process of evolution and interpolations.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Franklin Edgerton. The Elephant-Lore of the Hindus, Chapter XII, v. 29, p. 112.

[2]:

Gaṇapati Sāstrī. ed.The Mātaṅgalīlā of Nīlakaṇṭha, Chapter XII, v. 29, p. 40.

[3]:

H.P. Shastri. “Contribution of Bengal to Hindu Civilization”, Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol. V, Part III, 1919, p. 310.

[4]:

Thomas R. Trautmann. Elephants and Kings An Environmental History, p.147.

[5]:

Śivadatta Śarmaṇa. ed. Pālakāpyamuniviracita Hastyāyurvedaḥ, (Hastyāyurvedaprastāvanā), p. 2.

[6]:

Thomas R. Trautmann. Elephants and Kings An Environmental History, p.147.

[7]:

Ibid.

[8]:

Thomas R. Trautmann. Elephants and Kings An Environmental History, p.338.

[9]:

H.P. Shastri. “Contribution of Bengal to Hindu Civilization”, Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol. V, Part III, 1919, p. 311.

[10]:

Franklin Edgerton. The Elephant-Lore of the Hindus, pp. 47-46.

[11]:

H.P. Shastri. “Contribution of Bengal to Hindu Civilization”, Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol. V, Part III, 1919, pp. 311-312.

[12]:

Ibid., pp.312-313.

[13]:

H.P. Shastri. “Contribution of Bengal to Hindu Civilization”, Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol. V, Part III, 1919, pp. 313.

[14]:

A.F. Rudolf Hoernle. The Bower Manuscript, Calcutta: Archaeological Survey of India, 1897.

[15]:

V.N. Pandey & Ayodhya Pandey, “A Study of The Nāvanītaka: The Bower Manuscript”, Bulletin of the Indian Institute of History of Medicine, Vol.18, p.1.

[16]:

P. Ray, et al. Suśruta Saṃhitā: a scientific synopsis, New Delhi: Indian National Science Academy, 1980.

[17]:

Franklin Edgerton. The Elephant-Lore of the Hindus, p.42.

[18]:

H.P. Shastri. “Contribution of Bengal to Hindu Civilization”, Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol. V, Part III, 1919, pp. 312-313.

[19]:

G.J. Meulenbeld. The Mādhavanidāna and Its Chief Commentary, Chapters 1-10, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974, p.416.

[20]:

Thomas R. Trautmann. Elephants and Kings An Environmental History, pp.147-148.

[21]:

Thomas R. Trautmann. Elephants and Kings An Environmental History, pp.146-147.