ELEPHANTS, HISTORICAL 145 



The tale given in *'Physiologus," referring to the elephant, 

 runs as follows:* 



"When the elephant has fallen he cannot rise, for his 

 knees have no joints. But how does he fall? When he 

 wants to sleep he leans against a tree, and thus he sleeps. 

 The Indians familiar with this peculiarity of the elephant 

 saw the tree a bit. The elephant comes to lean toward it, 

 and as he draws near to the tree, it falls to the ground, taking 

 him with it. After falling he is not able to rise. He begins 

 to scream. One elephant, and then twelve others arrive to 

 help him^ — in vain, until at last the small elephant appears, 

 lays his trunk around him and lifts him." 



In this form of the recital Doctor Laufer thinks that the 

 elephant has been arbitrarily substituted for the Indian 

 rhinoceros, of which something similar is also told by the 

 Arab merchant, Soleiman, who travelled in India in 851 A. D. 

 As the "Physiologus," in the form it has come down to us, 

 always gives a symbolic Christian interpretation to its reci- 

 tals, so here the fallen elephant represents Adam, the twelve 

 elephants who vainly strive to help him, the twelve minor 

 prophets, and by the small elephant through whose aid he is 

 finally rescued is signified Christ. f 



That war elephants were only to be found in India up to 

 the time of Alexander the Great appears to be fairly well 

 established, at least so far as Western literary sources go. 

 In his "Historia Animalium," Aristotle states that the 

 Indians employed in this way both male and female ele- 

 phants. Nevertheless it is quite possible that some of the 

 African princes had war elephants before this time. From 

 Arrian (Lib. Ill) we learn, indeed, that some fifteen Indian 



*E. Peters, "^'Der griechische Physiologus und seine orientalischen Uebersetzungen," 

 Berlin, 1898, p. 39. Cited in Doctor Laufer's paper. 



fDr. Berthold Laufer, "Arabic and Chinese Trade in Walrus and Narwhal Ivory," 

 Leyden, 1913, p. 51. Reprinted from the T'oung-Pao, Vol. XIV- 



