 Reference Base  Alberuni's India: an account of the religion, philoso... |
|
Alberuni; Sachau, E.C., 1910. Alberuni's India: an account of the religion, philosophy, literature, geography, chronology, astronomy, customs, laws and astrology of India about AD 1030 English edition, with notes and indices, by Edward C Sachau. London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner and Co, vol. 1, pp. i-li, 1-408; vol. 2, pp. 1-431
|
|
|
|
| |
| Location: |
Asia - South Asia - India |
| Subject: |
History |
| Species: |
Asian Rhino Species |
 |
|
|
People relate that in the plains of Kunkan, there lives an animal called sharava (Skr. maisof' sarahha). It has four feet, but also on the back it has something like four feet directed upwards. It has a small proboscis, but two big horns with which it attacks the elephant and cleaves it in two. It has the shape of a buffalo, but is larger than a ganda (rhinoceros). According to popular tales, it sometimes rams some animal with its horns, raises it or part of it towards its back, so that it comes to lie between its upper feet. There it becomes a putrid mass of worms, which work their way into the back of the animal. In consequence it continually rubs itself against the trees, and finally it perishes. Of the same animal people relate that sometimes, when hearing the thunder, it takes it to be the voice of some animal. Immediately it proceeds to attack this imaginary foe ; in pursuing him it climbs up to the top of the mountain-peaks, and thence leaps towards him. Of course, it plunges into the depth and is dashed to pieces. The ganda exists in large numbers in India, more particularly about the Ganges. It is of the build of a buffalo, has a black scaly skin, and dewlaps hanging down under the chin. It has three yellow hoofs on each foot, the biggest one forward, the others on both sides. The tail is not long ; the eyes lie low, farther down the cheek than is the case with all other animals. On the top of the nose there is a single horn which is bent upwards. The Brahmins have the privilege of eating the flesh of the ganda. I have myself witnessed how an elephant coming across a young ganda was attacked by it. The ganda wounded with its horn a forefoot of the elephant, and threw it down on its face. I thought that the ganda was the rhinoceros (or harhadann), but a man who had visited Sufala, in the country of the Negroes, told me that the hark, which the Negroes call iniptld, the horn of which furnishes the material for the handles of our knives, comes nearer this description than the rhinoceros. It has various colours. On the skull it has a conical horn, broad at the root, but not very high. The shaft of the horn (lit. its arrow) is black inside, and white everywhere else. On the front it has a second and longer horn of the same description, which becomes erect as soon as the animal wants to ram with it. It sharpens this horn against the rocks, so that it cuts and pierces. It has hoofs, and a hairy tail like the tail of an ass.
|
|
|
File available
details
Original text on this topic: