the chandella horse of khajuraho: with comments on the origin of early indian horses

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The Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Chandelia Horse of Khajuraho with comments on the origin of early Indian horses By H. EPSTEIN Receipt of Ms. 4. 1. 1972 1. The Chandella Horse and its Indian Relatives Khajuraho, a little village in the northern part of Madhya Pradesh in central India, is famous for the magnificent Indo-Aryan architecture of its shrines, which were dedicated by the Chandella sovereigns of Jejakabhukti (Bundelk- hand) to Siva, Vishnu and the Jain patriarchs between A. D. 950 and 1050. The Lakshmana (Ramchandr or Chaturbhuj) temple, one among more than SO shrines built by the Chandellas at Khajuraho, was erected by Lakshvarman (c. A. D. 925-954) and dedicated by his son, Dhang, in A. D. 954. The friezes on its plinth and the moulding of the basement terrace depict fighting scenes - infantry, elephantry and cavalry. The horses are of a peculiar type, which recurs in friezes of the west balcony of the inner sanctuary of the Kandariya Mahadeo temple, and of the south balcony of the Vishwanath temple of Khajuraho. The importance of the horse in the Chandella kingdom may be gauged Fig. 1. Ram-headed horse in a wall relief at a Khajuraho temple 2. Tierziichrg. Ziid~tgsbiol. 89 (1972) 170-177 @ 1972 Verlag Paul Parey, Hamburg und Berlin

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T h e Hebrew Univers i ty of Jerusalem

The Chandelia Horse of Khajuraho with comments on the origin of early Indian horses

By H. EPSTEIN

Receipt of Ms. 4 . 1. 1972

1. The Chandella Horse and its Indian Relatives

Khajuraho, a little village in the northern part of Madhya Pradesh in central India, is famous for the magnificent Indo-Aryan architecture of its shrines, which were dedicated by the Chandella sovereigns of Jejakabhukti (Bundelk- hand) to Siva, Vishnu and the Jain patriarchs between A. D. 950 and 1050.

The Lakshmana (Ramchandr or Chaturbhuj) temple, one among more than SO shrines built by the Chandellas a t Khajuraho, was erected by Lakshvarman (c. A. D. 925-954) and dedicated by his son, Dhang, in A. D. 954. The friezes on its plinth and the moulding of the basement terrace depict fighting scenes - infantry, elephantry and cavalry. The horses are of a peculiar type, which recurs in friezes of the west balcony of the inner sanctuary of the Kandariya Mahadeo temple, and of the south balcony of the Vishwanath temple of Khajuraho.

The importance of the horse in the Chandella kingdom may be gauged

Fig. 1. Ram-headed horse in a wall relief at a Khajuraho temple

2. Tierziichrg. Ziid~tgsbiol. 89 (1972) 170-177 @ 1972 Verlag Paul Parey, Hamburg und Berlin

T h e Chandella Horse of Khajuraho 171

Fig. 2-3. Ram-headed horses i n wall relicfs at a Khajuraho temple

from the number of horsemen in King Vidyadhara’s army in the battle with Sultan Mahmud in A. L). 1022, as recorded by different Muslim chroniclers: 5600 by Ibn-ul-Athir and 36 000 by both Nizamuddin and Gardizi (RAY, 1936).

Like the elephants, the horses in the temple friezes at Khajuraho are carved with remarkable precision in a naturalistic style, showing every particular of conformation as well as of bridle, neck band, breast plate and saddlery. Judg- ing from a comparison with the horsemen, foot soldiers and elephants pre- ceding or following them, the Chandella horses seem to have been above pony size. In general type they resembled the iron-age horses of Spain and the

172 H . Epstein

Fig. 4. Ram-headed horses in a wall relief at a Fig. 5. Head of a Kathiawar mare Khajuraho temple (after HAYES)

strong and sturdy horses of the mediaeval knights of western Europe. Their most conspicuous features were the strongly convex profile of the head, the arched neck, strong level back, and rounded croup.

The peculiar conformation of the Chandella horses, as represented a t the Khajuraho shrines, doubtless derives from the actual conformation of the horses bred by the Rajputs of northern, western and central India (the Chan- dellas regarded themselves as a Rajput clan - SMITH, 1930) at the end of the first millennium A. D. rather than from the style of sculpture which was elaborated under Mahendrapala (A. D. 885-905) in the Pratihara culture of Kanauj, the imperial capital of a Rajput kingdom in northern India, to which the early rulers of the Chandella dynasty were feudatories (GOETZ, 1959; LAL, 1969).

The suggestion that the horses represented in the Khajuraho friezes show the actual type of horse bred in the Rajput kingdoms a t the end of the first and the beginning of the second millennium A.D. is supported by good evidence .

In the Kathiawar peninsula, which during the period when the Chan- della horses were sculptured was under Rajput rule, horses with a convex profile of the head are bred to this day. The Kathiawar shows considerable variability in size. LOWE and SAENGER (1961) give a height of 130-132 m i ; HAYES (1930) mentions a Kathiawar mare which stood 14.3 hands at the withers, while RIDGEWAY (1905) wrote that “the Kathiawar horses are often fifteen to sixteen hands in height.” SHAHI (1942) ventured the following opinion on the origin of the Kathiawar: Its ancestors “are said to be imported Arab stallions, a shipload of which was wrecked on the west coast of India: thus Arab horses ran wild in the jungles of Kathiawar and Bombay. That i t possesses a considerable strain of the Arab is evidenced by the head of the

The Chandella Horse of Khajuraho 173

Fig. 6 . Skull of a Kathiawar mare (after EWART)

animal . . .” As a matter of fact, the original Kathiawar has a strongly convex profile of the head, which is quite foreign to the Arab. However, Arab blood, whether from the above or another source, has doubtless influenced the original Kathiawar, as it has all other breeds of Indian horses; this is suggested by the straight profile of the head seen in some Kathiawar ponies. But this is not typical.

Horses with a convex profile of the head were bred in India already before the time of the Rajputs. A ram-headed horse is included in a wall painting in the Ajanta caves of the Deccan, dated to A. D. 400-700. Still earlier, horses with a similar conforination of the head are represented in reliefs decipting ‘The Great Departure of Buddha’ on the east and north gates of the Great Stupa at Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh (at no great distance from Khajuraho), dated to the first century B. C. (SCHULBERG et al., 1968).

2. On the Origin of the Chandella Horse

Horses and war chariots reached India first with the Aryan invasions which are dated to the middle of the second millennium B. C. They came from the northern grassland zone, the same area of dispersal from which the horse also reached Persia, northern Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Syria.

Elements of the complicated ritual of the ancient Indian horse sacrifice are found among the Altai Turks of modern times, and survived until the twelfth century A. D. in Ireland. The war chariot of the Aryans in India was essentially the same vehicle as that known from other areas surrounding the Eurasian steppes, such as China, Iran, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Syria, Myce- naean and Homeric Greece, and Britain. The Aryan chariot, as it appears in the Rigveda, has a name (ratha) which is an Indo-European word for wheel, represented by the Latin rota, Celtic roth, Old High German rad, and Lithuanian ratas; and similarly common to the whole language group are the words for wheel, axle, nave, and yoke (PIGGOTT, 1952). A treaty of the Hittite King Subilulimna and the Mitannian Mattiwaza in c. 1380 B. C. men-

174 H . Epstein

gate of the Great Stupa at Sanchi (1st century B. I Fig. 7. Head of an Indian horse in a wall painting Fig. 8. Ram-headed horse in a relief at the no in the Ajanta caves (A.D. 400-700)

tioiis the names of Mitra, Varuna and Indra, gods of the Rigvedic Aryans of India, and among the Boiazkoy tablets is a treatise on horse training by Kikkuli of Mitanni using chariot-racing terms in virtually pure Sanskrit (ALLCHIN 1968).

We are still ignorant of the racial type of the earliest horses of India. The horses represented at Susa in Elam (Iran) (3000-2800 B. C.), Maikop in the northern Caucasus (2400-1800 B. C.), and in the Tripolye A phase of Luka- Vrublevetskaya on the Dnjester (before 2500 B. C.) have been referred to Equus przewalskii (EPSTEIN, 1971). They are cranially distinct from the type of domestic horse represented in early monuments from Luristan, Assyria, Egypt and Greece, which resembles the Arab in the straight or concave facial profile and short nasal part of the head.

Horses of the latter type are also represented i n several Indian sculptures, but all of these are traceable either to Iranian and Gresk or to Muslim in- fluence. A horse in a style combining Iranian and Hellenistic features, i. e. a short head, straight facial profile, deep mandible, only slightly rounded croup, and high tail carriage, is sculptured on the plinth of the lion capital of a memorial from the Maurya period (322-185 B. C.), that once stood in the Deer Park at Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh. The Sarnath horse is attributed to foreign sculptors from Iran and the Hellenistic colonies on India’s northern and western frontiers. Its closest geographical parallel is the horses on silver bowls made in Bactria during the Hellenistic occupation (KOWLAND, 1953). A similar horse with a straight profile of the head, level croup and high tail

The Chandella Horse of Khajuraho 175

carriage is carved i n a relief panel from the eighth century A. D., illustrating the life of Bodhisattva, in the gallery at Borobodur.

In his discussion of the reasons for the failure of the Iiajputs to defend their kingdoms against the Muslim (Turko-Afghan) invasions early i n the present millennium, MUKEKJEE (1959) asserts that “India had no well-bred horses, or mules; for these she had to depend upon Azov, Arabia and Persia.” However, while it is true that horses were introduced into India from various foreign sources, such as Afghanistan, Iran and the northern steppes, and later also from Arabia, there is no evidence that these did not serve as foundation stock for well-bred local varieties. Indeed, BASHAM (1956) states that horses were bred in Sind and north-western India, though they did not thrive i n the Deccati. Climatically the region of the Rajput kingdoms was previously far wetter than it is to-day, and forests still covered what are now vast plains or deserts (THAPAK, 1966).

From the convex profile of the head of the Chandella horse we may infer that it did not originate from Persia or Arabia where this type of horse was not bred. Its ancestors must have come from the northern steppes via Afgha- nistan. They may have been the horses introduced by the Aryans in the second millennium B. C. This is suggested by the paintings in the Alaiita caves and the carvings at Sanclii, the latter dating from a time long before the Raiputs established their rule over northern India. At the end of the last pre-Christian niilleiiiiium northern India was successively invaded by Greeks from Bactria, Parthians from Persia, Scythians from Bactria, and Kushans from Central Asia, all of whom were in possession of horses. Later, horses from the northern steppes were also introduced by the ancestors of the Rajputs who were either descended from Huns settled in northern and western India or from those tribes and peoples who entered India with the White H u n invaders from Bactria during the 5th-6th centuries A. D. (THAPAR, 1966).

Ram-headed horses were bred over a wide area in Asia and Europe. In addition to the Caucasus, they were common in China during the Han dynasty (206 B. C.-A. D. 220). Until recently, the Ili horse of Sinkiang was bred with a strongly convex profile. Among Kazakh and Kirgiz ponies this facial profile is still frequent (EPSTEIN, 1969). It was characteristic of the iron-age horses of Spain and their African derivatives, i. e. the Barb and Dongola, and is a conspicuous characteristic of the Kladruby of Czechoslovakia, likewise des- cended from Spanish stock. Again, the ponies of the Gallo-Roman period of France and the Roman-British period of Britain had a convex facial profile, and many unimproved forest and moorland ponies of northern Europe and some of the recent heavy draught breeds are similarly distinguished.

There exists therefore a marked difference in the contour line of the head between these Eurasian, iiicludinr the Chandella, horses and those of classical Assyria, Egypt and Greece as well as the recent Arab and its derivatives.

Several authors, mainly under the influence of ANTONIUS (1922), have attributed the concave or straight cranial profile, wide forehead and short nasal part of the Arab and related breeds to their descent from a wild ancestor of their own, i. e. the tarpan of southern Russia, assumed to have been craniologically distinct from Equus przewalskii. From this theory it would follow that the horses introduced into Iran, northern Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Syria, Greece, Egypt and Arabia were of a different racial origin from those carried into north-west India. But this theory is difficult to reconcile with the fact that the early Indian horses came from the same region in the northern grassland zone as did those of Iran, Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia, and

176 H . Epstein

that they were introduced by invaders possessing the same elements of culture and speaking the same or a nearly related Indo-Iranian tongue.

The craniological distinction between the tarpan of southern Russia and Equus przewalskii is also doubtful. The tarpan embodied certain cranial features that were previously regarded as typical of Equus przewalskii. O n the other hand, Equus przewalskii may have either a convex, straight or concave profile; and these different cranial types may appear even in the same family. Some Equus przewalskii skulls are quite tarpan-like (HERRE, 1939). Different contour lines of the head are also apparent in the wild horses represented in palaeolithic engravings and paintings on cave walls in France (BOURDELLE, 1938). NOBIS (1962) inferred from the high variability of the cranial profile in Fjord and Iceland ponies, which may be either straight, concave or convex, that “cranial profiles are no racial characteristics”.

I t would therefore appear that in every breed of horse its characteristic profile of the head is due to local fashion and the selection of appropriate breeding stock. This would also apply to the horses of the Rajputs, including the Chandella horse of Khajuraho, and the ram-headed horses of pre-Rajput India. Hence, the difference in cranial conformation between early Indian horses and those of south-west Asia, Egypt and Greece should be attributed, not to different racial origins but to different ideals of a horse’s beauty developed by early breeders of the animal in different regions.

Summary

Khajuraho, a little village in the northern part of Madhya Pradesh in central India, is famous for the Indo-Aryan architecture of its shrines, which were erected by the sovereigns of the Rajput clan of the Chandellas between A. D. 950 and 1050. In some of the temples are reliefs of horses with a strongly convex profile of the head, arched neck, straight back, and rounded croup. Similar Indian horses are represented in an earlier wall painting in the Ajanta caves of the Deccan (A. D. 400-700) and in reliefs a t the Great Stupa of Sanchi (first century B. C.). They still occur in Kathiawar which at the time of the Chandella dynasty of Khajuraho was under Rajput rule.

Horses reached India first with the Aryan invasions about the middle of the second millennium B. C., later from Bactria, Iran and Central Asia, and in more recent times also from Arabia. Ram-headed horses were bred in the Caucasus, China, Spain, Gaul and Britain in early times; a t present they still occur in Sinkiang, North Africa, Kladruby, and in several heavy draught and northern pony breeds. The difference between the ram-headed horses of Khajuraho and other parts of India and the horses of the ancient Assyrians, Egyptians and Greeks, which, although derived from the same northern breeding area as the ram-headed horses of India, resemble the Arab in the conformation of the head and croup, is attributed to different ideals of a horse’s beauty developed by early breeders of the animal in different regions.

Zusammenf assung

Khajuraho, ein kleines Dorf im nordlichen Teil von Madhya Pradesh in Zen- tral-Indien, ist wegen seiner indo-arischen Tempelarchitektur beruhmt. In

The Chandella Horse of Khajuraho 177

einigen Tempeln, die von den Herrschern des Rajput-Clans der Chandellas in den Jahren 950-1050 n. Chr. errichtet wurden, befinden sich Reliefs von Pferden mit ausgepragtem Ramskopf, stark gebogenem Hals? geradem Rucken und runder Kruppe. Ahnliche indische Pferde erscheinen in einer fruheren Wandmalerei in den Ajantahohlen im Dekkan (400-700 n. Chr.) und in Reliefs an der Groi3en Stupa von Sanchi (erstes Jahrhundert v. Chr.). Sie sind noch heute in Kathiawar, das zur Zeit der Chandelladynastie von Khajuraho von Rajputs beherrscht wurde, anzutreffen.

Pferde erreichten Indien zuerst vom Nordwesten im Zuge der arishen In- vasionen um die Mitte des zweiten Jahrtausends v. Chr. und spater von Bak- trien, Persien und Mittelasien, in jungerer Zeit a u h von Arabien. Ramskopfige Pferde wurden in der Fruhzeit im Kaukasus, China, Spanien, Gallien und Britannien gezuchtet und kommen gegenwartig noch in Sinkiang, Nordafrika, Kladrub und bei einigen Kaltblut- und nordlichen Ponyrassen vor. Der Unter- skied zwischen den ramskopfigen Pferden von Khajuraho und anderen Ge- genden Indiens und den Pferden der alten Assyrier, Agypter und Griechen, die, obwohl aus dem gleichen nordlichen Zuchtgebiet wie die ramskopfigen Pferde Indiens stammend, in der Form des Kopfes und der Kruppe dem arabischen Pferd ahnlich sind, wird auf ein verschiedenes Schonheitsideal der Zuchter und entsprechende Zuchtwahl zuruckgefuhrt.

References

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ANTONIUS, O., 1922: Grundzuge einer Stammesgeschichte der Haustiere. Jena. BASHAM, A. L., 1956: The Wonder that was India. London. BOURDELLE, E., 1938: Essais d’une Ctude morphologique des CquidCs prChistoriques de la

France d’aprks les gravures rupestres. Mammalia, 11, 1. Paris. EPSTEIN, H., 1969: Domestic Animals of China. Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux,

Farnham Royal, Bucks. England. - 1971: The Origin of the Domestic Animals of Africa. 2 vols. Leipzig: Edition Leipzig;

New York, London, Munich: Africana Publishing Corporation. GOETZ, H., 1959: Five Thousand Years of Indian Art. London: Methuen. HAYES, M. H., 1930: Points of the Horse. (5th ed.). London. HERRE, W., 1939: Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Wildpferde. Z. Tierzuchtg. Zuchtgsbiol. 44,

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