Food and Diet of Elephants

As far as their diet is concerned the text mentions that in summer due to the roughness of grass and wood, they should be given rice mixed with guḍa (jaggery).^[1] In case there is need to increase power and spirit the texts prescribe salt in place of jaggery.^[2] These prescriptions are given in the text meant for the veterinary physicians one of the verses also mentions that rice mixed with urine and pollen (parāgaṃ) added with guḍa and mixed with salt should be given by the physician and elephant should be given baths at proper times according to the season.^[3] To keep the animal satisfied texts prescribe that they should be given a diet which include rice as staple especially stewed śāli white as the full moon, mixed with ghee or curd, crushed meat, sugarcane, sweet as nectar, fresh wheat and gruel as well.^[4]

Arthaśāstra specifies the ration for elephants.^[5] The elephants of age thirty and twenty five i.e., value of middling and lower, are said to be given less by a quarter than that for the best. Ration is given according to their height. The food of elephants are mentioned here mentioning their units of measurement such as droṇa, āḍhaka, prastha, pala, bhāra etc. In meal elephants were given rice-grains, oil melted butter, salt, meat, juice or curds for moisturising dry lumps, liquor or milk with sugar as an invigorating drink, green fodder, dry grass and leaves of plants with no limit. Arthaśātra conveys the best kind of śāli rice should be consumed by humans and the inferior kind should be fed to the animals. It gives a surprisingly detail of amount of the śāli rice being given to the elephants.^[6] Trautmann shows the underlying principle of this method is that the smaller amount of rice obtained from milling a unit of paddy the higher the quality, as it is more thoroughly cleaned off the bran. By this process 12 āḍhakas of rice of the lowest quality, milled from 5 droṇas of śāli paddy thus considered merely apt for feeding of a young or kalabha elephant and then the higher qualities given in order to the hierarchy of beings, such as after 12 āḍhaka, 11 is suitable for vicious elephants (vyāla), 10 for riding elephants, 9 for war elephants, 8 for foot soldiers, 7 for chiefs, 6 for the queens and princes and 5 for kings. So unbroken and cleaned one prastha of rice grains are considered as best for the king and broken, uncleaned rice with bran are prescribed best suitable for animals.

Mātaṅgalīlā includes grains especially rice, both raw and cooked. Along with this the text also mentions wheat, barley, beans, other vegetables; grass, other jungle fodder in abundance; ghee (clarified butter), jaggery (a coarse kind of sugar), salt, various spices, sweetened drinks, meat broth and even meat itself, and occasionally strong liquor. The treatise also mentions careful figures of the amounts to be administered of each of the principal article of diet; the amount is made proportional to the animal’s size. Likewise an entire list of grasses to be given to elephants is enlisted in the Yavasadhyāya of Pālakāpya’s Hastyāyurveda (IV, 24ff). The text identifies several types of grasses eaten by elephants, some of which grow in the wild.^[7] Edgerton^[8] points out the matter of prescription of meat (māṃsa) and as food for elephants both in Mātaṅgalīlā (Chapter 11, v.25, 36)^[9] and Hastyāyurveda (IV. 15, 30, 87)^[10] along with Arthaśātra. According to Trautmann, processed and human-like food were taken from the granary or store houses and the food like grass, leaves of trees were collected from the grass cutters and gatherers.^[11] The above data reflects that the elephant abodes and stables were filled with adequate amount of food supply for them.