History of the horse in the Indian subcontinent

Last updated

Horse-drawn chariot carved onto the mandapam of Airavatesvara Temple, Darasuram, c. 12th century. Horse drawn chariot Darasuram.jpg
Horse-drawn chariot carved onto the mandapam of Airavatesvara Temple, Darasuram, c. 12th century.
Krishna, Arjuna at Kurukshetra, 18th- to 19th-century painting. Krishna and Arjun on the chariot, Mahabharata, 18th-19th century, India.jpg
Krishna, Arjuna at Kurukshetra, 18th- to 19th-century painting.

The horse has been present in the Indian subcontinent from at least the middle of the second millennium BC, [1] more than two millennia after its domestication in Central Asia. [2] The earliest uncontroversial evidence of horse remains on the Indian Subcontinent date to the early Swat culture (around 1600 BCE). While horse remains and related artifacts have been found in Late Harappan (1900-1300 BCE) sites, indicating that horses may have been present at Late Harappan times, [3] horses did not play an essential role in the Harappan civilisation, [4] in contrast to the Vedic period (1500-500 BCE). [5] The importance of the horse for the Indo-Aryans is indicated by the Sanskrit word Ashva , "horse," which is often mentioned in the Vedas and Hindu scriptures.

Contents

Paleolithic

During the Late Pleistocene, a species of equine, Equus namadicus , was native to the subcontinent, but it was extinct by the start of the Holocene. [6] Equus namadicus is considered a "stenonine horse", meaning that it is probably more closely related to zebras and asses than to true horses. [7]

Domestication

Domestication of the horse before the second millennium BC appears to be confined to its native habitat, the Great Steppe. There is increasing evidence that horses were domesticated in the Eurasian Steppes around 3500 BC. [8] [web 1] [web 2] Recent discoveries in the context of the Botai culture suggest that Botai settlements in the Akmola Province of Kazakhstan are the location of the earliest domestication of the horse. [9]

Use of horses spread across Eurasia for transportation, agricultural work, and warfare. The horse only appears in Mesopotamia from around 1800 BC as a ridden animal and acquires military significance with the invention of the chariot.

Indus Valley Civilisation

Proponents of Indigenous Aryanism believe that the Indus Valley civilisation was Aryan and Vedic. [10] There are two common objections against such a correlation: "the Rg Vedic culture was pastoral and horse-centered, while the Harappan culture was neither horse-centered nor pastoral"; [note 1] [5] and "the complete absence of the modern horse (equus caballus)." [note 2] Support for the idea of an indigenous Indo-Aryan origin of the Indus Valley Civilisation mostly exists among Indian scholars of Hindu religion and the history and archaeology of India, [11] [12] [13] [14] and has no support in mainstream scholarship. [note 3]

The paucity of horse remains in pre-Vedic times could be explained by India's climatic factors which lead to decay of horse bones. Horse bones may also be rare because horses were probably not eaten or used in burials by the Harappans. [15] [16] Remains and artifacts ascribed to domesticated horses are limited to Late Harappan times [17] [5] [note 10] indicating that horses may have been present at Late Harappan times, [3] "when the Vedic people had settled in the north-west part of the subcontinent." [5] It can therefore not be concluded that the horse was regularly used, or played a significant role, in the Harappan society. [4]

Horse remains from the Harappan site Surkotada (dated to 2400-1700 BC) have been identified by A.K. Sharma as Equus ferus caballus. [subnote 3] The horse specialist Sandor Bökönyi (1997) later confirmed these conclusions, and stated the excavated tooth specimens could "in all probability be considered remnants of true horses [i.e. Equus ferus caballus]". [subnote 4] Bökönyi, as cited by B. B. Lal, stated that "The occurrence of true horse (Equus caballus L.) was evidenced by the enamel pattern of the upper and lower cheek and teeth and by the size and form of incisors and phalanges (toe bones)." [subnote 5] However, archaeologists like Meadow (1997) disagree, on the grounds that the remains of the Equus ferus caballus horse are difficult to distinguish from other equid species such as Equus asinus (donkeys) or Equus hemionus (onagers). [24]

Colin Renfrew (1999) remarked that "the significance of the horse [...] has been much exaggerated." [25] [note 11]

Vedic period

Early Vedic Period. Early Vedic Culture (1700-1100 BCE).png
Early Vedic Period.

Sites such as the BMAC complex are at least as poor in horse remains as the Harappan sites. [11] [note 12] The earliest undisputed finds of horse remains in South Asia are from the Gandhara grave culture, also known as the Swat culture (c. 1400–800 BCE), [5] related to the Indo-Aryans [27] and coinciding with their arrival in India. [28] Swat valley grave DNA analysis provides evidence of "connections between [Central Asian] Steppe population and early Vedic culture in India". [28]

Horses were important in the lifestyle of the Indo-Europeans. [29] Ashva , a Sanskrit word for a horse, is one of the significant animals referred to in the Vedas [30] and several other Hindu scriptures, and many personal names in the Rigveda are also centered on horses. [29] Derived from asva, its cognates are found in Indo-European languages like Sanskrit, Avestan, Latin and Greek (such as hippos and equus). [29] There are repeated references to the horse in the Vedas (c. 1500–500 BCE). In particular, the Rigveda has many equestrian scenes, often associated with chariots. The Ashvamedha or horse sacrifice is a notable ritual of the Yajurveda.

As horses were difficult to breed in the Indian climate, they were imported in large numbers, usually from Central Asia, but also from elsewhere. Horse traders are already mentioned in Atharvaveda 2.30.29. A painting at Ajanta shows horses and elephants that are transported by ship. [31] Trautmann (1982) thus remarked that the supply and import of horses has "always" been a preoccupation of the Indians, and "it is a structure of its history, then, that India has always been dependent upon western and central Asia for horses." [11]

See also

Notes

  1. R.S. Sharma (1995), as quoted in Bryant 2001
  2. Parpola (1994), as quoted in Bryant 2001
  3. No support in mainstream scholarship:
    • Thapar 2006: "there is no scholar at this time seriously arguing for the indigenous origin of Aryans". [note 13]
    • Wendy Doniger (2017): "The opposing argument, that speakers of Indo-European languages were indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, is not supported by any reliable scholarship. It is now championed primarily by Hindu nationalists, whose religious sentiments have led them to regard the theory of Aryan migration with some asperity." [web 4]
    • Girish Shahane (September 14, 2019), in response to Narasimhan et al. (2019): "Hindutva activists, however, have kept the Aryan Invasion Theory alive, because it offers them the perfect strawman, 'an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument' ... The Out of India hypothesis is a desperate attempt to reconcile linguistic, archaeological and genetic evidence with Hindutva sentiment and nationalistic pride, but it cannot reverse time's arrow ... The evidence keeps crushing Hindutva ideas of history." [web 5]
    • Koenraad Elst (May 10, 2016): "Of course it is a fringe theory, at least internationally, where the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) is still the official paradigm. In India, though, it has the support of most archaeologists, who fail to find a trace of this Aryan influx and instead find cultural continuity." [note 14]
    • Witzel 2001, p. 95: [the] "indigenous Aryans" position is not scholarship in the usual sense, but an "apologetic, ultimately religious undertaking": [note 15]
  4. Sharma et al. (1980) p.220-221, as cited in Bryant 2001, p. 170
  5. Alur 1971 p.123, as cited in Bryant 2001, p. 170
  6. Bholanath (1963), as cited in Bryant 2001, p. 270
  7. Bholanath (1963), as cited in Bryant 2001, p. 270
  8. Sharma 1992-1993, as cited in Bryant 2001, p. 271
  9. Sharma (1995) p.24, as cited in Bryant 2001, p. 271
  10. The finds include deposits at Mahagara near Allahabad, dated to around 2265 BC to 1480 BC, described as Equus ferus caballus Linn; [note 4] Hallur in Karnataka, c.1500 - 1300 BC, described as Equus ferus caballus; [note 5] Mohenjo-Daro; [subnote 1] Harappa ("small horse"); [note 6] Lothal, a terracotta figurine and a molar horse tooth, dated to 2200 BC; [note 7] [18] [19] Kalibangan; [note 8] and Kuntasi, dated to 2300–1900 BC. [note 9] An alleged clay model of a horse has been found in Mohenjo-Daro and an alleged horse figurine in Periano Ghundai in the Indus Valley. [subnote 2] According to Erwin Neumayer, Daimabad bronze "chariot" had "a yoke fit for the neck of horses rather than cattle." [web 3] According to Pigott (1970), various copper vehicle toys having animals with arched neck, described as bulls by some scholars, possibly are of horses. [20] Several chalcolithic period scenes depicted in rock art of India show chariot driven by horses as well. A daimabad cylinder seal dated to 1400-1000 BC depicts a horse driven cart. [21] [22] [23]
  11. Renfrew's statement refers to his own Anatolian hypothesis, which is criticized by mainstream scholarship on similar grounds.
  12. Hastinapur (8th century BCE) is likewise poor in horse remains, even though it is considered as Indo-Aryan. [26]
  13. Thapar 2006.
  14. Koenraad Elst (May 10, 2016), Koenraad Elst: "I am not aware of any governmental interest in correcting distorted history", Swarajya Magazine
  15. Witzel 2001, p. 95.
  1. Sewell and Guha (1931), as cited in Bryant 2001, p. 270
  2. Bryant 2001, p. 171, with reference to Mackay 1938 and Piggott 1952.
  3. Sharma (1974), as cited in Bryant 2001, p. 271
  4. Bökönyi (1997), as cited in Bryant 2001, p. 272
  5. Lal 1998, p. 111, quoted from Bökönyi's letter to the Director of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1993-12-13.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cemetery H culture</span> Bronze Age culture in the Punjab

The Cemetery H culture was a Bronze Age culture in the Punjab region in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, from about 1900 BCE until about 1300 BCE. It is regarded as a regional form of the late phase of the Harappan civilisation, but also as the manifestation of a pre wave phase of Indo-Aryan migrations, predating the migrations of the proto-Rig Vedic people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarasvati River</span> River mentioned in the Vedas and ancient Indian epics

The Sarasvati River is a mythologized and deified ancient river first mentioned in the Rigveda and later in Vedic and post-Vedic texts. It played an important role in the Vedic religion, appearing in all but the fourth book of the Rigveda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indo-Aryan peoples</span> Indo-European ethnolinguistic groups primarily concentrated in South Asia

Indo-Aryan peoples are a diverse collection of peoples speaking Indo-Aryan languages in the Indian subcontinent. Historically, Aryans were the Indo-Iranian speaking pastoralists who migrated from Central Asia into South Asia and introduced the Proto-Indo-Aryan language. The early Indo-Aryan peoples were known to be closely related and belonging to the same Indo-Iranian group that have resided north of the Indus River; an evident connection in cultural, linguistic, and historical ties. Today, Indo-Aryan speakers are found south of the Indus, across the modern-day regions of Bangladesh, Nepal, eastern-Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and northern-India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indo-Aryan migrations</span> Migrations of Indo-Aryans into the Indian subcontinent

The Indo-Aryan migrations were the migrations into the Indian subcontinent of Indo-Aryan peoples, an ethnolinguistic group that spoke Indo-Aryan languages. These are the predominant languages of today's Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, North India, Eastern Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ochre Coloured Pottery culture</span> Bronze Age culture of the Indo-Gangetic Plain

The Ochre Coloured Pottery culture (OCP) is a Bronze Age culture of the Indo-Gangetic Plain "generally dated 2000–1500 BCE," extending from eastern Punjab to northeastern Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Painted Grey Ware culture</span> North Indian Iron Age culture

The Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) is an Iron Age Indo-Aryan culture of the western Gangetic plain and the Ghaggar-Hakra valley in the Indian subcontinent, conventionally dated c.1200 to 600–500 BCE, or from 1300 to 500–300 BCE It is a successor of the Cemetery H culture and Black and red ware culture (BRW) within this region, and contemporary with the continuation of the BRW culture in the eastern Gangetic plain and Central India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gandhara grave culture</span> Aspect of Pakistani history

The Gandhara grave culture of present-day Pakistan is known by its "protohistoric graves", which were spread mainly in the middle Swat River valley and named the Swat Protohistoric Graveyards Complex, dated in that region to c. 1200–800 BCE. The Italian Archaeological Mission to Pakistan (MAIP) holds that there are no burials with these features after 800 BCE. More recent studies by Pakistani scholars, such as Muhammad Zahir, consider that these protohistoric graves extended over a much wider geography and continued in existence from the 8th century BCE until the historic period. The core region was in the middle of the Swat River course and expanded to the valleys of Dir, Kunar, Chitral, and Peshawar. Protohistoric graves were present in north, central, and southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as well as in north-western tribal areas, including Gilgit-Baltistan province, Taxila, and Salt Range in Punjab, Pakistan, along with their presence in Indian Kashmir, Ladakh, and Uttarakhand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ghaggar-Hakra River</span> Intermittent river in India and Pakistan

The Ghaggar-Hakra River is an intermittent river in India and Pakistan that flows only during the monsoon season. The river is known as Ghaggar before the Ottu barrage at 29.4875°N 74.8925°E, and as Hakra downstream of the barrage in the Thar Desert. In pre-Harappan times the Ghaggar was a tributary of the Sutlej. It is still connected to this paleochannel of the Sutlej, and possibly the Yamuna, which ended in the Nara River, presently a delta channel of the Indus River joining the sea via Sir Creek.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kalibangan</span> Town on the banks of the Ghaggar River in India

Kalibangān is a town located at 29.47°N 74.13°E on the left or southern banks of the Ghaggar in Tehsil Pilibangān, between Suratgarh and Hanumangarh in Hanumangarh District, Rajasthan, India 205 km. from Bikaner. It is also identified as being established in the triangle of land at the confluence of Drishadvati and Sarasvati Rivers. The prehistoric and pre-Mauryan character of Indus Valley civilization was first identified by Luigi Tessitori at this site. Kalibangan's excavation report was published in its entirety in 2003 by the Archaeological Survey of India, 34 years after the completion of excavations. The report concluded that Kalibangan was a major provincial capital of the Indus Valley Civilization. Kalibangan is distinguished by its unique fire altars and "world's earliest attested ploughed field". It is around 2900 BC that the region of Kalibangan developed into what can be considered a planned city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B. B. Lal</span> Indian writer and archaeologist (1921–2022)

Braj Basi Lal was an Indian writer and archaeologist. He was the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) from 1968 to 1972 and has served as Director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla. Lal also served on various UNESCO committees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surkotada</span> Archeological site in Kutch, Gujarat, India

Surkotada is an archaeological site located in Rapar Taluka of Kutch district, Gujarat, India which belongs to the Indus Valley civilisation (IVC). It is a smaller fortified IVC site with 1.4 hectares in area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ratha</span> Indo-Iranian term for a spoked-wheel chariot

Ratha is the Indo-Iranian term for a spoked-wheel chariot. The term has been used since antiquity for both fast chariots and other wheeled vehicles pulled by animals or humans, in particular the large temple cars or processional carts still used in Indian religious processions to carry images of a deity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pottery in the Indian subcontinent</span>

Pottery in the Indian subcontinent has an ancient history and is one of the most tangible and iconic elements of Indian art. Evidence of pottery has been found in the early settlements of Lahuradewa and later the Indus Valley Civilisation. Today, it is a cultural art that is still practiced extensively in the subcontinent. Until recent times all Indian pottery has been earthenware, including terracotta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous Aryanism</span> View that the Indo-Aryans are indigenous to India

Indigenous Aryanism, also known as the Indigenous Aryans theory (IAT) and the Out of India theory (OIT), is the conviction that the Aryans are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homeland in India into their present locations. It is a "religio-nationalistic" view on Indian history, and propagated as an alternative to the established migration model, which considers the Pontic–Caspian steppe to be the area of origin of the Indo-European languages.

Hallur is an archaeological site located in the Haveri district, in the Indian state of Karnataka. Hallur, South India's earliest Iron Age site, lies in a semi-arid region with scrub vegetation, located on the banks of the river Tungabhadra. The site is a small mound about 6.4 m high. The site was first discovered by Nagaraja Rao in 1962, and excavated in 1965. Further sampling was carried out in the late 1990s for the recovery of archaeobotanical evidence and new high precision radiocarbon dates

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vedic period</span> Ancient South Asian historical period

The Vedic period, or the Vedic age, is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas, was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the urban Indus Valley Civilisation and a second urbanisation, which began in the central Indo-Gangetic Plain c. 600 BCE. The Vedas are liturgical texts which formed the basis of the influential Brahmanical ideology, which developed in the Kuru Kingdom, a tribal union of several Indo-Aryan tribes. The Vedas contain details of life during this period that have been interpreted to be historical and constitute the primary sources for understanding the period. These documents, alongside the corresponding archaeological record, allow for the evolution of the Indo-Aryan and Vedic culture to be traced and inferred.

Bara Culture was a culture that emerged in the eastern region of the Indus Valley civilization around 2000 BCE. It developed in the doab between the Yamuna and Sutlej rivers, hemmed on its eastern periphery by the Shivalik ranges of the lower Himalayas. This territory corresponds to modern-day Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh in North India. Older publications regard the Baran pottery to have initially developed independently of the Harappan culture branch of the Indus Valley Civilization from a pre-Harappan tradition, although the two cultures later intermingled in locations such as Kotla Nihang Khan and Bara, Punjab. According to Akinori Uesugi and Vivek Dangi, Bara pottery is a stylistic development of Late Harappan pottery. In the conventional timeline demarcations of the Indus Valley Tradition, the Bara culture is usually placed in the Late Harappan period.

The history of horse domestication has been subject to much debate, with various competing hypotheses over time about how domestication of the horse occurred. The main point of contention was whether the domestication of the horse occurred once in a single domestication event, or that the horse was domesticated independently multiple times. The debate was resolved at the beginning of the 21st century using DNA evidence that favored a mixed model in which domestication of the stallion most likely occurred only once, while wild mares of various regions were included in local domesticated herds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sinauli</span> Archaeological site in Uttar Pradesh, India

Sinauli is an archaeological site in western Uttar Pradesh, India, at the Ganga-Yamuna Doab. The site gained attention for its Bronze Age solid-disk wheel carts, found in 2018, which were interpreted by some as horse-pulled "chariots".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jhukar phase</span>

The Jhukar phase was a phase of the Late Harappan culture in Sindh that continued after the decline of the mature Indus Valley civilisation in the 2nd millennium BC. It is named after the archaeological type site called Jhukar in Sindh. It was, in turn, followed by the Jhangar phase.

References

  1. "Harappan horse myths and the sciences". The Hindu .
  2. "Horse sense on Harappa: An excerpt from Tony Joseph's book "Early Indians"".
  3. 1 2 Bryant 2001, p. 270-271, 273.
  4. 1 2 Bryant 2001, p. 273.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Reddy 2006, p. A93.
  6. Jukar, A. M.; Lyons, S. K.; Wagner, P. J.; Uhen, M. D. (2021-01-15). "Late Quaternary extinctions in the Indian Subcontinent". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 562: 110137. Bibcode:2021PPP...56210137J. doi: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2020.110137 . ISSN   0031-0182. S2CID   228877664.
  7. Cirilli, Omar; Machado, Helena; Arroyo-Cabrales, Joaquin; Barrón-Ortiz, Christina I.; Davis, Edward; Jass, Christopher N.; Jukar, Advait M.; Landry, Zoe; Marín-Leyva, Alejandro H.; Pandolfi, Luca; Pushkina, Diana; Rook, Lorenzo; Saarinen, Juha; Scott, Eric; Semprebon, Gina (September 2022). "Evolution of the Family Equidae, Subfamily Equinae, in North, Central and South America, Eurasia and Africa during the Plio-Pleistocene". Biology. 11 (9): 1258. doi: 10.3390/biology11091258 . ISSN   2079-7737. PMC   9495906 . PMID   36138737.
  8. Matossian 2016, p. 43.
  9. Outram 2009.
  10. Bryant 2001, p. "It is claimed that the Aryans created the Harappan culture.".
  11. 1 2 3 Bryant 2001.
  12. Bryant & Patton 2005.
  13. Singh 2008, p. 186.
  14. Bryant 2001, p. 194.
  15. S.P. Gupta. The dawn of civilization, in G.C. Pande (ed.)(History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, ed., D.P. Chattophadhyaya, vol I Part 1) (New Delhi:Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 1999)
  16. Bryant 2001, p. 173.
  17. S.R. Rao (1985) Lothal - A Harappan Port Town
  18. "Horse Head". Museums of India. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
  19. Piggott, Stuart (1970). "Copper Vehicle-Models in the Indus Civilization". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 102 (2): 200–202. doi:10.1017/S0035869X00128394. ISSN   0035-869X. JSTOR   25203212. S2CID   163967541.
  20. Sali, S. A. "Daimabad : 1976-79". INDIAN CULTURE. p. 499. Retrieved 2020-08-12.
  21. Singh, Upinder (2008). A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. Delhi: Pearson Education. pp. 229–233. ISBN   978-81-317-1120-0.
  22. "Excavations - Important - Maharashtra". Archaeological Survey of India . Retrieved 1 September 2010.
  23. Bryant 2001, pp. 169–175.
  24. Bryant 2001, p. 120.
  25. Thapar 1996, p. 21.
  26. Kennedy 2012, p. 46.
  27. 1 2 Narasimhan et al. 2018.
  28. 1 2 3 Reddy 2006, p. A-93.
  29. www.wisdomlib.org (2021-08-27). "Rig Veda 10.75.8 [English translation]". www.wisdomlib.org. Retrieved 2023-02-17.
  30. Himanshu Prabha Ray, Early Coastal Trade in the Bay of Bengal, In: Julian Reade (ed.) The Indian Ocean in Antiquity. London: Kegan Paul Intl. 1996

Sources

Printed sources
Web-sources
  1. "What We Theorize – When and Where Domestication Occurred". International Museum of the Horse. Archived from the original on 19 July 2016. Retrieved 2015-01-27.
  2. "Horsey-aeology, Binary Black Holes, Tracking Red Tides, Fish Re-evolution, Walk Like a Man, Fact or Fiction". Quirks and Quarks Podcast with Bob Macdonald. CBC Radio. 2009-03-07.
  3. Chariots in the Chalcolithic Rock Art of Indian A Slide Show, Neumayer Erwin
  4. Wendy Doniger (2017), "Another Great Story"", review of Asko Parpola's The Roots of Hinduism; in: Inference, International Review of Science, Volume 3, Issue 2
  5. Girish Shahane (September 14, 2019), Why Hindutva supporters love to hate the discredited Aryan Invasion Theory, Scroll.in

Further reading