Hastin
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Hastin (हस्तिन्) is a term for 'elephant' used in Vedic texts. Other terms for 'elephant' include Ibha (इभ) and Vārana (वारण).
Quotes
[edit]- Asian elephants were domesticated at least as far back as 3500 B.C.E. by the Harappan people of the Indus Valley.
- Ivory in World History - Early Modern Trade in Context. Chaiklin, Marta. pp. 530-542, in History Compass, (journal), Blackwell Publ. Ltd., Oxford, 2010. page 534. Quoted in [1]
- 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; in addition to hastin and varana, athari and apsas could also be identified as Vedic words for "elephant". A further joint examination of the words ibha and ibhya has also shown us... that ibha also means nothing other than what it means in classical Sanskrit, namely "elephant". ... Not only ibha, but also ibhya has exactly the same meaning as in classical Sanskrit, and Sayana got it right because he was familiar with Indian views.
- Richard Pischel, Karl F. Geldner - Vedische Studien Vol. 1 -Verlag von W. Kohlhammer (1889) pp. xv-xvi
Quotes 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 1.140.2
- 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 1.64.7
- The people deck him like a docile king of elephants.
- Rg-Veda 9:57:3, thus translated by Ralph Griffith: The Hymns of the Rg-Veda, p.488., quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.
- 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.
- 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, p. 71
Quotes about ancient Indian ivory trade
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[edit]- An elephant tusk from level IIA at Mehrgarh in Pakistan, c.5500 BC, grooved by artisans, is the earliest evidence for the working of an Asian elephant's tusks.
- Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence. Moorey Peter Roger Stuart, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994. page 116, citing (Jarrige 1984:24). 1984 'Chronology of the Earlier Periods of the Greater lndus as seen from Mehrgarh, Pakistan', in Allchin (cd.) 1984, 21·-8. Quoted in [2]
- A seal and a gaming piece of elephant ivory from Mundigak (III) in Afghanistan, c.3000 BC, are the earliest ivory artefacts so far discovered outside India.
- Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence. Moorey Peter Roger Stuart, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994., page 116 , citing (Jarrige and Tosi 1981:39) JARRIGE, J . .I., and TOSI, M. 1981 'The Natural Resources of Mundigak', in Hartel (cel.) 1981, 115-42..Quoted in [3]
- At this time (c. 2150-2000 BC) ivory from Meluḥḥa is mentioned only in connection with ivory bird figurines. Otherwise, in the body of texts from Ur dating to about 2000 BC ivory is attributed to Dilmun (Bahrain), where it had presumably been shipped up the Gulf from the Indus, where ivory was plentiful on the sites of the Harappan period, both as tusks and as objects.
- Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence. Moorey Peter Roger Stuart, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994. p 118. Quoted in [4]
- It is probable that at the time when south Mesopotamia was in contact with the Indus by sea, directly or indirectly, from the middle of the third millennium BC to about 1700 BC, ivory was regularly traded.
- Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence. Moorey Peter Roger Stuart, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994. p 118.
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[edit]- By the late Early Dynastic era, as references to ivory figurines in the pre-Sargonic texts from Lagash attest, ivory objects had begun to reach southern Mesopotamia. While these, in theory, could have come from either Africa or the Indus region, it is generally believed that the ivory was of Indian origin for the earliest representation of an elephant in Mesopotamia, ... is definitely of the Indian as opposed to the African country. Third millennium representations of elephants in Mesopotamia are, however, extremely rare and aside from the Tell Asmar seal just mentioned none of the other elephants can be taken as confirmed [… but ...] ivory was certainly reaching the area.
- A text from the time of Gudea and Ur-Baba, which is a list of items dedicated to a temple preserves the earliest attestation of ivory (zu-am-si) arriving in Mesopotamia in raw form, listing two pieces of ivory by length and thickness. The evidence of ivory import continues to grow during the succeeding Ur III period. Most of our information comes from Ur, at this time the main gateway for goods entering the region from the south and east [….] in contrast to the pre-Sargonic texts mentioning the import of finished goods in ivory, the craftsmen of Ur were in receipt of sizable quantities of raw ivory, which they then fashioned themselves into objects.
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[edit]- Ivory objects from the Iberian peninsula dated from the Chalcolithic at about 3000 BC [....] brought in by sea" [excavated from the metropolis of Los Millares in the south-east of Spain on the Mediterranean Sea] "revealed a majority of Asian ivory (Elephas maximus)", [but African ivory is not found here] "before the Early Bronze Age (end of the third and first half of the second millennium BC)" ... Whereas in Portugal are found a majority of African savannah elephant in the early chalcolithic, in south-eastern Spain on the contrary we cannot identify this type of ivory before the Early Bronze Age (end of the third and first half of the second millennium BC). So the analysis of ivory from various tombs from the metropolis of Los Millares revealed a majority of Asian ivory (Elephas maximus). The situation in south-western Atlantic Spain, on the other hand, coincides with the one in Portugal, where African savannah elephant ivory can be found in the Early Chalcolithic. This speaks for the existence of an Atlantic route of contact and exchange for the western part of the Iberian Peninsula already in the first half of the third millennium BC.
