International Conference on Asian Elephants in Culture & Nature
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Item Elephants and Gods: A Sacred Alliance(Centre for Asian Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Palande-Datar, S.K.; Khare, A.V.Stories of elephant in life and legends have captured the imagination for the countless generations of Indian subcontinent. The very form of the elephant triggers awe, delight and extraordinary grandeur, in one’s mind. Thus, it is no wonder that it has been assimilated and internalised in legends and stories of Indian subcontinent. Throughout the history, cannons of all the three main religious traditions of India are filled with mythological stories where elephants are part of central story, in association with Gods and Goddesses. Both malevolent and benevolent aspects of elephants are superbly utilised in the description of deity and/or mythological narratives. Various shilpa texts further stress and elaborate on the iconographic elephant association, brought out by these sacred texts. These iconological associations take its form in the sculptural compositions found in religious complexes across Indian subcontinent. So much so, that the very deity can be identified with the specific elephant aspect. The common examples are easily observed in the story of Ganeśa or in the form of Gaja-Lakṣmī. The paper, thus, aims at tracing this sacred alliance between elephants and religious pantheons in Brahmanical, Jaina and Buddhist traditions of India through prominent examples. It attempts to comparatively evaluate the textual narratives and sculptural art.Item The Indian War Elephant: Fascinating Tales from its Historical Past(Centre for Asian Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Dasture, P.One of the most interesting and unusual uses of animals in history was the engagement of war elephants. Working with animals on the battlefield had both advantages and disadvantages and this was particularly true of the war elephant, whose usage through time had varying results. The elephant was the only animal that humankind used as a significant combatant, systematically and on a large scale, India being one of the first countries to utilize it. Horses were never actual fighters, rather vehicles for carrying soldiers in the battle. The elephants were military units with elephant-mounted troops; they were first employed in India, the practice subsequently spread across south-east Asia and even westwards towards the Mediterranean. Through a good part of Indian history, the elephant has been a famous participant as a highly valued war machine in military actions. In India, elephants were not only fighters but also siege weapons. From the fighting tower, to the howdah, to the armour to the tusk swords, all made the elephant rather formidable. This paper intends to look at the necessity of the increased employability of the war elephants in Indian history; their functions, advantages and disadvantages as well as the countermeasures used against them. This paper narrates tales of battles from the Indian past where the war elephant was an integral part of the outcome of the combat. Moreover, the elephant when not in war was also used as a medium of imparting punishment, where the perpetrator would publically be crushed to death under the foot of an elephant.Item Elephants their Habitats: Uses and Maintenance in Medieval India(Centre for Asian Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Khan, E.The growth of objective pictures of birds and animals, plants and flowers, etc., during the sixteenth-seventeenth century reflects the passion of the Mughal emperors for nature and wild life. Akbar had as many as 101 elephants for his personal use, each given a name, an exalted position, trained staff for proper upkeep, special diet, shikar, sport including the elephant fight and for the battle field. There are numerous pictures of elephants in several historical, biographical, religious, and literary manuscripts illustrated for Akbar and other Mughal emperors in his memoirs and other official historical accounts like Baburnama, Tuzuk-iJahangiri, Iqbalnama-iJahangiri, Majalis-iJahngiri, Ain-i Akbari, Akbarnama, Padshahnama, Shajahanama, Maasir-iAlamgiri, Ruqqat-iAlamgiri, etc. In 1616, Muqarrab Khan presented Jahangir with a small elephant brought from Abyssinia. Jahangir took notice of its peculiarities. He writes: “In comparison with the elephants of Hindustan, it presents some peculiarities. Its ears are larger than the ears of the elephants of this place, and its trunk and tail are longer.” Here, he also takes notice of a young elephant (African) presented to his father Akbar by Itimad Khan of Gujarat in the year 1567. Both the Persian and the Mughal court provided a logical basis to the artist’s acquaintance with animal character and behaviour. Among such works at the Mughal atelier, the most favourite texts were the Anwar-iSuhaili, the Iyar-i Danish and the Ajaib-al Makhluqat in which the animals are the main characters and an integral part of most of the themes. Numerous copies of these manuscripts repeatedly illustrated at the Mughal atelier during sixteenth century bear testimony to the depiction of wild-life. The theme of animal fight mainly illustrates combats between cocks, goats, rams, deer, buffaloes, camels and elephants. These, as a matter of rule, show careful studies of animals engaged in violent action. An attempt has been made in the research paper to use the text of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in perspective of ecology or the environment, to find out what was the condition of elephants, their habitats, distributions, uses and maintenance during the medieval period.