Hastin
Hastin (हस्तिन्) is a term for 'elephant' used in Vedic texts. Other terms for 'elephant' include Ibha (इभ) and Vārana (वारण).
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[edit]- By separating the meaning of the Vedic varana from the classical one, Roth allowed himself to be led to believe that the elephant was still foreign to the songs of the Rigveda. If this statement were correct, the Vedic Indians would not have been Indians at all, for the elephant is inseparable from India. But as shown, it is erroneous.
- Richard Pischel, Karl F. Geldner - Vedische Studien Vol. 1 -Verlag von W. Kohlhammer (1889) pp. xv-xvi
From Hindu-Buddhist texts
[edit]- Child of a double birth he grasps at triple food; in the year's course what he hath swallowed grows anew. He, by another's mouth and tongue a noble Bull, with other, as an elephant, consumes the trees.
- Rigveda, I, 140, 2, as translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith (1889)
- Mighty, with wondrous power and marvellously bright, selfstrong like mountains, ye glide swiftly on your way. Like the wild elephants ye eat the forests up when ye assume your strength among the bright red flames.
- Rigveda, I, 64, 7, as translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith (1889)
- The people deck him like a docile king of elephants.
- Rigveda 9:57:3, as translated by Ralph Griffith (1889), quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.
- Keep five yards from a carriage, ten yards from a horse, and a hundred yards from an elephant; but the distance one should keep from a wicked man cannot be measured.
- Indian proverb, The Little Red Book of Horse Wisdom (2012), p. 71
- 群盲評象
- 涅槃経 (Nirvana Sutra)
- Translation: A crowd of blind people evaluate an elephant.
- A metaphor of unenlighted people and their relation to the right knowledge.
