Follow the Elephant

About the Speaker

Thomas R. Trautmann is Professor Emeritus of History and Anthropology at the University of Michigan. His fields of study are the history of ancient India, the history of anthropology, kinship systems of India, and the environmental history of India. Among his books are Dravidian Kinship (1981), Aryans and British India (1997), The Aryan Debate (2005), Languages and Nations: The Dravidian Proof in Colonial Madras (2006), India: Brief History of a Civilization (2011), Arthashastra: The Science of Wealth (2012) and Elephants and Kings: An Environmental History (2015).

Abstract

When we follow the elephant, we discover a three-thousand-year history during which regions as distant as Rome and the western edge of China have followed the example of India. Owing to the practices of India’s kings, there are more Asian elephants in India today than in any other country.

Report

The talk covered four aspects of the War elephant: the nature, the invention, the spread and the legacy. I would like to organise my paper along these lines: the history and nature of the War Elephant, the spread and the use of them in different armies and finally what the study of the war elephant means to the environment history of South Asia.

As Professor Trautman argued, the relationship that elephants have with war is one of deep history, but which seamlessly converges into the present. The elephant was a worldwide phenomenon but was developed as a war elephant in South Asia, in the Vedic period. Professor Trautman argued that the Romans had a pretty negative view of them in warfare. In South Asia, the elephant existed in the period of the Harappan Civilization, but not much is known about that. The situation is similar in ancient Egypt. The Elephant was developed as an instrument of War only after 1000 BC, in the post-Rigvedic period.

The nature of the War Elephant also possesses an interesting challenge to the historian. The war elephant could enter a trance or madness, called nasha, which is often described in the sources that describe the war elephants^[1]. The role of the mahout is thus very important to the control of the War Elephant. Professor Trautman also pointed to an interesting contradiction about how elephants that were so crucial to war, were often hunted as well. One of the reasons for the same could this trance or madness.

The next segment relates to the spread of the War Elephant, which spread far and wide in other parts of Asia. The earliest sources found in China also mention elephants. Therefore the question remains, how did the War Elephant spread in this vast terrain of land? Professor Trautman argued that this was done through the spread of Jainism and Buddhism. It spread widely through South East Asia, and also in Western Asia, going up to Northern Africa. The War Elephant become a part of the fourfold army set-up with Foot soldier, the horse and the chariot. Alexander encountered them too, and so did Tolemy. Later during the post Janapada period, the east of India came to be a military power centre due to the superior War Elephants.

So, what does the War Elephant mean in the larger context of Environmental History? As Professor Trautman pointed out, India was the centre of elephant conservation, while they were routinely persecuted in China. Therefore the legacy of protecting wild animals is printed in the History of India. I would like to reflect on the material from the lecture and would like to comment that study of the War Elephant and its importance in Ancient Indian Armies give us a better sense of the ritualistic importance of Elephants in Contemporary India.

By Pratiti, Undergraduate Batch of 2020

[1] Well exemplified in the cover of Professor Trautman’s Book, Elephants and Kings: An Environmental History.