IVORY 



THE ELEPHANT 



Indian 

 Elephant. 



Kheddahs. 



African 

 Elephant. 



European 

 Travellers. 



The White 

 Elephant. 



Howdah. 



Baber's 

 Account. 



Bearing under 

 Domestication. 



ELEPHANT. No account of Ivory would be complete without some mention 

 of the ELEPHANT. In the Dictionary will be found a fairly detailed account 

 of the Indian species. From the most ancient classic times this sagacious 

 and most useful animal has been known, and the methods of capturing and 

 taming it can hardly have been changed materially for the past two thousand 

 years. The Hindu god Ganesha (son of Siva) is represented with an elephant's 

 head on the body of a man. In the Rig Veda the elephant is the animal 

 with a hand, and in the Atharvan he is the mightiest of animals. In the wars 

 of the Eamayana and the Mahabharata, elephant corps were employed and 

 Indra's Vahan is the elephant Airavat. According to Monier Williams (Buddhism, 

 23-4, 84, 525), the elephant is with the Buddhists the most sacred of animals. 

 Among European writers, Megasthenes (300 B.C.), Strabo (25 B.C.), Arrian 

 (Indika, 150 A.D.; ed. McCrindle, 213) and ^Elian (250 A.D.) give full par- 

 ticulars regarding the manner of hunting and capturing the elephant, the degree 

 of its domestication and its use in warfare. Strabo (xv., 1, 41-3, 7047) gives a 

 chapter on the kheddahs that might be read as an abridgment of Sanderson's 

 corresponding chapter in Thirteen Years Among the Wild Beasts of India. The 

 African elephant appears to have similarly been tamed, and the Carthaginians 

 employed them as fighting animals. The inscription at Adule (recorded by 

 Cosmas, 545 A.D.) alludes to this special use. [Of. Vincent, Periplus, app., 56.] 

 During the ascendency of the Roman Empire, elephants became quite common 

 in Europe ; but they ultimately disappeared, and for several centuries seem 

 to have been altogether forgotten, and what is most significant, the African 

 elephant, since the fall of Carthage, has hardly since been in such a complete 

 state of domestication. 



Passing over a gap of several centuries, little is said even of the Indian ele- 

 phant, till Abd-er-Razzak (Narr. of Journ. in 2nd., 1442, in India in 1 5th Century, 

 (Major, transl.), 27, 36) described the elephants owned by the King of Vijayanagar 

 near Bellary, and the method of capturing and taming them then prevalent. 

 Nicolo Conti, speaking of Ava (Travels in the East, in India in 15th Century, 

 11-2, 37), alludes to the white elephant owned by the king. Athanasius Nikitin 

 (Travels in India in 15th Century, 12) discusses the elephants seen by him. 

 Varthema (Travels, 1510 (ed. Hakl. Soc.), 125-31) gives a most graphic account 

 of the city of Vijayanagar and vivifies the ruined elephant stables, which in 

 their desolation are to-day objects of special inspection by the curious. Garcia 

 de Orta published at Goa the first edition of the Colloquies (1563, xxi.), and 

 in that work we are given the Arabic name fit, the Deccan name ati, the Kan- 

 arese aceti, the Malabar aue, and the Ethiopian ytembo. Mention is made of the 

 large amount of African ivory annually imported into Cambay, and of the ex- 

 istence of wild elephants in Orissa, Bengal, Patna, Pegu, Martaban, Ceylon and 

 Siam. This is followed by Acosta (Tract, de las Drogas, 1578, 417-48), who 

 gives for the time when produced two admirable plates showing the wild and 

 tame elephant with its war howdah. In the Voyage of Linschoten, some 

 additional useful facts are told of Indian elephants. Baber (Memoirs, 1525 

 (Leyden and Erskine, transl.), 315-6) enumerates and briefly describes the 

 animals and plants seen by him in India which he regarded as peculiar to that 

 country, and assigns the first place to the elephant, which he speaks of as abun- 

 dant in parts of the country where, during the memory of living man, no wild 

 elephants have been known. AbulFazl (Ain-i-Akbari, 1590 (Blochmann, transl.), 

 117, etc.) details the particulars of the Emperor's elephant stables, and of the 

 rearing of that animal under domestication. Barbosa (Coasts East Africa and 

 Malabar (ed. Hakl. Soc.), 167-8) furnishes an account of how elephants were 

 caught in Ceylon and exported to India. Subsequent to the dates mentioned, 

 many European authors have contributed to the stock of present-day knowledge 

 regarding this most useful animal. [Cf. Pyrard, Voy. E. Ind., etc., 1601 (ed. 

 Hakl. Soc.), ii., 343-6 ; Clusius, Hist. Exot. PL, 1605, 166, 260; Terry, Voy. E. 

 Ind., 1622 (ed. 1777), 134 (gives a long and most interesting account of the 

 domestication and uses of the elephant in India) ; Mandelslo, Travels, 1662, in 

 Olearius, Hist. Muscovy, etc., 51 ; Tavernier, Travels Ind., 1676, ii., 161, 317 ; 

 Thevenot, Travels in Levant, Indostan, etc., 1687, pt. iii., 45 ; Ovington, Voy. 

 Suratt, 1689, 191-4; Fryer, New Ace. E. Ind. and Per 8., 1672-81, 35, 96, 211; 

 Milburn, Or. Comm., 1813, i., 63 ; etc., etc. For recent works consult citation given 

 in the D.E.P., iii., 208-9; also Journ. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc., 1895-7, x., 133-5 ; 

 The Elephant in Burma, 1897-8, xi., 322-6, 335 ; 1903, xiv., 151-5 ; Jardine, 

 Elephant Shooting, xiv., 160-2 ; Blanford, Fa. Br. Ind. (Mammalia), 463-7.] 



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