Matangalila and Hastyayurveda (study)
by Chandrima Das | 2021 | 98,676 words
This page relates ‘Measurement and Age of the Elephants’ of the study on the Matangalina and Hastyayurveda in the light of available epigraphic data on elephants in ancient India. Both the Matanga-Lila (by Nilakantha) and and the Hasti-Ayurveda (by Palakapya) represent technical Sanskrit works deal with the treatment of elephants. This thesis deals with their natural abode, capturing techniques, myths and metaphors, and other text related to elephants reflected from a historical and chronological cultural framework.
Measurement and Age of the Elephants
Gajaśāstra also describes the qualities and auspicious marks of these three categories of elephants i.e. bhadra, manda and mṛga with special reference to the expert opinion of Vyāsa and Vaiśampāyana. It also described marks of different kinds of elephants, kind of elephants‘vocalization, classification of elephant gait, places of auspicious and inauspicious marks on an elephant’s body and their effects, means to avert faults and inauspicious marks on an elephant’s body, great vices in elephants, sizes of different kind of elephants, points of the body for measurement.[1]
As far as the stages of life of elephants is concerned and its details it is narrated in the Fifth Chapter of Mātaṅgalīlā[2]. It states that an elephant calf has no value at all for human possession up to its twelfth year. It is of some worth from twelfth year to twenty fourth year. The highest value of an elephant is considered when its age is between twenty-fourth to its sixtieth year.[3] In this context one can notice that the age of an elephant is counted in 12 year span in ten segments.
Mātaṅgalīlā (Chapter VI) also gives the standard measurement of each of the three main castes; these agree quite well with figures given in other ancient sources and with the data of modern authorities[4]. Technically the length of an elephant is defined as the distance measured from the eye to the root of the tail; his height, the distance from the top of the shoulder to the ground or as Chapter VI[5], one puts it, to the toenail. This definition of height is recognized even in the modern times, too[6].
The measurement of age in twelve year span is mentioned in Mātaṅgalīlā as mentioned above but this pattern was not universal. Arthaśāstra mentions the age of an elephant in a different pattern. Kauṭilya mentions the age and measurement of elephants specifying it as seven, nine and ten aratnis in height, length, girth respectively in his forty year of age is best, thirty and twenty five year old elephants value is of a middle category and lowest below that age. A cub though has been prohibited to be caught, but they can be caught just for fun sake.[7]
According to Mānasollāsa one who exceeds these measurements by a single aratni is called arāla (crooked) and the one that exceeds these standards by two aratnis is called atyarāla (excessively crooked). Both of these being oversize are condemned (v. 223).[8] An elephant that is shorter by one aratni compared to the standard measurements is Madhya (mediocre) and the one shorter by two aratnis is called kaṇiṣṭha (inferior) (v. 224).[9] The elephant, smaller even than the kaṇiṣṭha (inferior) is called vāmana (short) and the one smaller even than vāmana is kubja (hunchbacked). Both these types are the condemned type of elephants (v. 225).[10]
In this context it is worth mentioning that the Greek scholars refer to Indian elephants which were nine cubits in height and five in breadth. The largest elephants were the Praisian and next to these the Taxilan[11].
For different type of elephants see the quotes below from the text Gajaśāstra:[12]
Elephants with smooth tusks, nails, hair and gentle eyes, long ears and bodies like swords, their front parts marked fully and good heads live long.
With seven red parts of the body, raised in six places, with pleasant minds, sweet-scented, the colour of dark clouds, trumpeting, with two or three hairs–these elephants live long. The elephant which has these seven parts of the body red is the best among elephants–the testicles, penis, tongue, lip, vagina and palate.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
― Netrādāpecakaṃ dairdhyaṃ nakhādāskandhamucchrayaḥ I Parīṇāḥ pramātavyaḥ kakṣyāsthāneṣu dantinām II‖ (v. 1)/ “Sañjātamātramṛgajātyagajasya dairdhyaṃ sārdhaikahastamiha caikakarocchrayaḥ syāt I Nāho dvihasta iti ca prativarṣameṣāṃ pañcāṅgulardhiruditā daśavatsarāntam II” (v. 2), Ibid., p. 16 and p. 60, respectively.
[2]:
Franklin Edgerton. tr. The Elephant-Lore of the Hindus, pp. 62-68.
[3]:
ā dvādaśābdād vayasā jaghanyo madhyaścaturviṃśativatsarāt prāk /
ā ṣaṣṭisaṃvatsarataḥ purāyṃ mātaṅgavaryo vayasottamākhyaḥ //
—(v.1), T. Ganapati Sastri. ed. The Mātaṅgalīlā of Nīlakaṇṭha, p. 12. Franklin Edgerton. tr. The Elephant-Lore of the Hindus, p. 63.
[4]:
Franklin Edgerton. tr. The Elephant-Lore of the Hindus, p. 24.
[5]:
[7]:
R.P. Kangle. tr. The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, Part II, v. 11-18, pp. 202-203.
[8]:
Gajanan K. Shrigondekar. ed. Mānasollāsa, Vol. I, p. 49.
[9]:
Ibid.
[10]:
Ibid. and Nalini Sadhale & Y.L. Nene.‘On Elephants in Manasollasa-1.Characteristics, Habitat, Methods of Capturing and Training’, Reproduction from Asian Agri-History, Vol.8, No.1, 2004, pp.5-25 (v. 222-225).