Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/160

 eating" (purushād). The relation of the tiger to the lion in the Vedas therefore furnishes peculiarly interesting evidence of the eastward migration of the Aryans during the Vedic period.

Somewhat similar is the position of the elephant. It is explicitly referred to in only two passages of the Rigveda, and the form of the name applied to it, "the beast (mṛiga) with a hand (hastin)," shows that the Rishis still regarded it as a strange creature. One passage seems to indicate that by the end of the Rigvedic period attempts were made to catch the animal. That the capture of wild elephants had in any case become a regular practice by 300 B.C. is proved by the evidence of Megasthenes. To the Atharva- and the Yajur-vedas the elephant is quite familiar, for it is not only frequently mentioned, but the adjective hastin, "possessing a hand" (i.e. trunk), has become sufficiently distinctive to be used by itself to designate the animal. The regular home of the elephant in Northern India is the Terai or lowland jungle at the foot of the Himālaya, extending eastward from about the longitude of Cawnpore.

The wolf (vṛika) is mentioned more frequently in the Rigveda than the lion himself, and there are many references to the boar (varāha), which was hunted with dogs. The buffalo (mahisha), in the tame as well as the wild state, was evidently very familiar to the poets, who several times allude to its flesh being cooked and eaten. There is only one reference to the bear (ṛiksha). The monkey (kapi) is only mentioned in a late hymn (x. 86), but in such a way as to show that the animal had already been tamed. The later and ordinary Sanskrit name for monkey, vānara ("forest-animal"), has survived in the modern vernaculars, and is known to readers of Mr.