Horses used for war in India

[jijaji]

Recent from Indian Civilization group,

Horses used for war in India

 

 

In the MahAbhAratham, bhagavadgItA parvan, Chapter 20 describes the armies of both sides.

 

In verses 16 and 17 of Chapter 20, sanjaya says that the Kaurava army had 100 thousand elephants and for every elephant there were hundred chariots and for every chariot a hundred horsemen.

 

For every horseman ten archers and for every archer ten infantry men with shields ( based on bhagavad gItA by J.A.B. Van Buitenen.)

 

This would put the number of horses in battle to be several fold greater than that of elephants.

 

This would be:

 

100,000 elephants

10,000,000 chariots

1000,000,000 horses

10,000,000,000 archers

100,000,000,000 infantrymen.

 

I have not been able to factor in the number of aditional horses that needed by the chariots, 1,2, 4, 6 per chariot...

 

How big was the battlefield ?

 

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by jijaji (edited 04-07-2002).]

[gHari]

Sounds like a pile of horse cookies to me. Arjuna's lucky the smell didn't kill him.

[theist]

I pity the clean up crew. YUCK!

[gHari]

Dwarka was inundated by the ocean when Krsna left. Perhaps Kuruksetra was too; quick clean up.

[theist]

That sounds reasonable enough.Hey, maybe that was the time of Noah's flood.

 

Just a wild speculation, I know.

[jijaji]

Boy..how all those horses get into that battlefield?

 

These numbers are obvious exaggeration!

 

jijaji

[Gauracandra]

Maybe they are those little midget horses They are very cute, though I don't know their name. 1 regular horse maybe = 5 midget horses, so divide that number by 5

[theist]

But I thought everyone was ten feet tall back then.That means bigger humans need bigger chariots and so it would take ten or twelve midget horses to pull then at least.

 

Now I'm even more confused.

[Avinash]

If the horses were running very very fast, then according to relativity theory, their lengths were reduced.

 

[theist]

That's it.I've had enough.If you're gonna bring Einstein into it I'm going back to the TV set.

[shvu]

100,000 elephants

10,000,000 chariots

1000,000,000 horses

10,000,000,000 archers

100,000,000,000 infantrymen.

100 billion infantrymen !

 

India's current population is a little over 1 billion and the world population is around 6 billion. If there were a 100 billion infantrymen, who would mostly be young and middle-aged men, adding children, seniors and women etc will take the population of India during the Mahabharata period, to astronomical figures.

 

Possible reasons for such unrealistic numbers are a wild imagination and/or excess Soma juice and/or smoking Pot.

 

Cheers

 

 

[This message has been edited by shvu (edited 04-09-2002).]

[jijaji]

Of course it's exaggeration...

 

[jijaji]

Originally posted by karthik_v:

3 possibilities. One, Mahabharat happened in a different yuga and there was a massive destruction afterwords erasing all traces.

 

> That is only a speculative possibility and does not go along with scriptual quotes as saying that right after Krishna left the planet Kali Yuga was usherd in..

Just a BIG MAYBE...

 

 

Two, Mahabharat happened in a different plane or dimension and not on this physical earth. Three, there have been obvious interpolations and we need not take these details too seriously. Or should I say all the 3?

 

> You are right about the interpolations, present Mahabharata scholars tend to accept that the original Mahabharata called simply 'The Jaya' was only 8,000 verses and was added upon to become 'The Bharata' which was 24,000 until finally it grew to become 100,000 known as the 'Mahabharata'. So yea lots and lots of 'INTERPOLATION'

Again to guess it happened on 'Another Plane' is nothing but a guess as well..kinda grasping at straws..certainly Madhva never said that.

 

BTW, even our GV acaryas have, at times, blindly accepted the baseless dates given by western historians. One such example being SP blindly accepting the date of Buddha. Some mutts, like the Kanchi Sankara mutt, have been more objective in this regard. They never toe the western atheistic lines. They go by srutis and accept the smritis only if they follow the shrutis. False history has no place of significance for them.

 

> Ok

 

 

[This message has been edited by jijaji (edited 04-09-2002).]

[jijaji]

Originally posted by karthik_v:

Alexander hardly proved anything in Punjab. What can one really prove after getting defeated by Porus in just 8 hours and after losing 75% of his forces? His toughest battle before the one on Hydespes was against Darius III, in which he lost 16% of the forces. Darius III himself lost 22% and was routed. Of course, the Eurocentric historians presented a very different picture. Never ask the uncomfortable question as to how someone can emerge the winner after losing 75% of his forces and getting critically injured himself. Also, please don't ask me as to where Bucephalus, the city that Alexander the tyrant built in Punjab after his "victory" is. Fertile imaginations, especially the ones used for wiping off wounded Greek pride and resurrected by Eurocentrics, leave no trace.

good points! damm your smart!

 

love it!

 

 

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by jijaji (edited 04-09-2002).]

[Rati]

Two words: poetic license

[jijaji]

Originally posted by Rati:

Two words: poetic license

from 8,000 to 100,000 verses is a pretty liberal poetic license.

Especially when today some folk take all 100,000 verses to be aparushea, when in fact they were inserted at a latter time for various reasons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by jijaji (edited 04-09-2002).]

[karthik_v]

Originally posted by jijaji:

from 8,000 to 100,000 verses is a pretty liberal poetic license.

Especially when today some folk take all 100,000 verses to be aparushea, when in fact they were inserted at a latter time for various reasons. [This message has been edited by jijaji (edited 04-09-2002).]

But do Hndus really consider Mahabharat or Ramayana to be Apaurusya. Is it not true that only vedas are Apaurusya? I think most schools agree that there have been interpolations in the smritis. That is why, when there is a conflict, they seek the srutis.

 

[jijaji]

The point is karthik_v that many take all 100,000 verses to be the original scripture written by Vyasa when it most certainly is not.

 

[jijaji]

If a Mahabharata war had actually been fought on the scale reported, nearly five million fighting men killed each other in an 18-day battle between Delhi and Thanesar; about 130,000 chariots (with their horses), an equal number of elephants and thrice that many riding horses were deployed. This means at least as many camp-followers and attendants as fighters. A host of this size could not be supplied without a total population of 200 millions, which India did not attain till the British period, and could not have reached without plentiful and cheap iron and steel for ploughshares and farmers' tools. Iron was certainly not available in any quantity to Indian peasants before the 6th century BC. The greatest army camp credibly reported was of 400,000 men under Chandragupta Maurya, who commanded the surplus of the newly developed Gangetic basin. The terms patti, gulma etc., given as tactical units in the M'bh did not acquire that meaning till after the Mauryans. The heroes fought with bows and arrows from their chariots, as if the numerous cavalry did not exist; but cavalry which appeared comparatively late in ancient Indian warfare, made the fighting chariots obsolete as was proved by Alexander in the Punjab.

 

[Avinash]

Two, Mahabharat happened in a different plane or dimension and not on this physical earth.

 

If we believe this, then many incidents mentioned in Mahabharata, Puranas should be assumed to have happened somewhere other than Earth. To take just one example, Bharatvarsa mentioned in Mahabharata can not be the India or any other place on this planet. If that is the case, how are we justified in glorifying the past of this country by quoting verses from our scriptures?

[Avinash]

The point is karthik_v that many take all 100,000 verses to be the original scripture written by Vyasa when it most certainly is not.

 

I agree with this. We know that now also there are many people who have the habit of making modifications in scriptures. Most of them claim that they are just presenting the stories in a different way. But after many years, people may start considering these interpolations as authentic. It is quite possible that interpolations happened in the past too, if we believe that Vyasa wrote Mahbharata a few thousand years back.

 

Let me give an example from Bhagwat Puran. According to Bhagwat Puran Sukdev told Parikshit that he had learnt Bhagwatam from the former's father Ved Vyasa. This means that Ved Vyasa had written Bhagwatam before the dialog between Sukdev and Parikshit mentioned in Bhagwatam took place. But Suta swami (while talking to Saunak and other sages) considered the dialog betwen Sukdev and Parikshit as Bhagwatam. There must have been somebody who wrote the dialog betwen Suta swami and Saunak. This is the Bhagwatam that we read currently. So, we find that there are at least the following four Bhagwatams (there may be more): -

 

1. Taught by Ved Vyasa to Sukdev.

2. Told by Sukdev to Parikshit.

3. Told by Suta Swami to Saunak and other sages.

4. The Bhagwatam as we read curently.

 

These four may be the same in basic teachings (of course that would depend upon what we consider as basic). But the exact contents of the four can not be same.

 

Who wrote the Bhawatam mentioned in (4)?

[abhi_the_great]

Originally posted by Avinash:

1. Taught by Ved Vyasa to Sukdev.

2. Told by Sukdev to Parikshit.

3. Told by Suta Swami to Saunak and other sages.

4. The Bhagwatam as we read curently.

But the exact contents of the four can not be same.

 

Who wrote the Bhawatam mentioned in (4)?

Logically it is possible for Veda Vyas to write the Bhagavatham as Suta speaking it.

 

This provides a feed-back to the source, to doubly ensure that the content and essence is not tampered.

 

A complete, homogenuous, home-grown SYSTEM.

 

Its impossible to counter or understand or perceive how the world was in Dwapara Yuga. We might prove to be great pundits giving logical arguments. But we fail to recognise that our argument are based on our perceptions of the present world. And we are trying to extrapolate or inerpolate it to some other time, som other space.

 

Hope we come up with a fast solution on how exactly the Mahabharath was fought!! WE ARE THE MOST INTELLIGENT, WE CANNOT BE WRONG!!

[karthik_v]

3 possibilities. One, Mahabharat happened in a different yuga and there was a massive destruction afterwords erasing all traces. Two, Mahabharat happened in a different plane or dimension and not on this physical earth. Three, there have been obvious interpolations and we need not take these details too seriously. Or should I say all the 3?

 

BTW, even our GV acaryas have, at times, blindly accepted the baseless dates given by western historians. One such example being SP blindly accepting the date of Buddha. Some mutts, like the Kanchi Sankara mutt, have been more objective in this regard. They never toe the western atheistic lines. They go by srutis and accept the smritis only if they follow the shrutis. False history has no place of significance for them.

[Avinash]

We might prove to be great pundits giving logical arguments. But we fail to recognise that our argument are based on our perceptions of the present world.

 

This is true with all arguments. This is true even with the argument that Ved Vyasa wrote Bhagwtam as Suta speking it.

 

Are you trying to say that Vyasa wrote about future because he knew that Suta would be talking to sages in future? I am not trying to say that it is not possible. I just want to be clear about what you are saying.

[karthik_v]

Originally posted by jijaji:

but cavalry which appeared comparatively late in ancient Indian warfare, made the fighting chariots obsolete as was proved by Alexander in the Punjab. cool:

Alexander hardly proved anything in Punjab. What can one really prove after getting defeated by Porus in just 8 hours and after losing 75% of his forces? His toughest battle before the one on Hydespes was against Darius III, in which he lost 16% of the forces. Darius III himself lost 22% and was routed. Of course, the Eurocentric historians presented a very different picture. Never ask the uncomfortable question as to how someone can emerge the winner after losing 75% of his forces and getting critically injured himself. Also, please don't ask me as to where Bucephalus, the city that Alexander the tyrant built in Punjab after his "victory" is. Fertile imaginations, especially the ones used for wiping off wounded Greek pride and resurrected by Eurocentrics, leave no trace.