28 A Short History of Ayurvedic Veterinary Literature
are the most interesting to the modern student. It may here be
mentioned that the old Indian method of measuring elephants was by throw-
ing a rope over the animal with both ends brought to the ground on either
side. The length of the rope was then halved and this measure regarded as
the animal's height, not that from the shoulder, as today. This accounts
for the extraordinary height attributed to elephants in the past in India.
(ii) Breeding Areas
It is, unfortunately, not possible here to trace the origins of Indian
domestic animals, though the study, which should be one of vital interest to the
modern stock breeder, has received a minimum of attention, in spite of an
abundance of material available on the subject. It is, however, of interest
to note that, as early as 3000 B. C., the cow, the buffalo, the elephant, the
ass, the goat, the sheep, the pig, the camel, the cat and, possibly, the horse
and the dog had been domesticated. It is, of course, well known that the
common domestic humped cattle of India, Bos indicus, belong to an entirely
different species from the tame animals of Europe and Northern Asia, Bos
taurus. Already, by the Indus Valley period, two varieties of cattle were
known, the massive, long-horned humped form and a smaller form with
short horns, which may possibly have been humpless. This latter variety
is only found in the upper strata of the Mohenjodaro site but there are abund-
ant remains of humped bulls in every stratum, which indicates that at that
time ' the Indus valley must have been specially rich in this fine breed of
cattle, which is closely allied, if not identical with, the magnificent white and
grey breed still common in Sind, Northern Gujarat and Rajputana but wholly
different from the small humped cattle of central India '. (Sir John Marshall).
The fact that this grey-white breed existed in Sind before the Aryan invasion,
contradicts Sir Arthur Olver's contention that it was introduced into India
by the Rig Vedic invaders.
Later the Rig Veda describes the river Gomal, a tributary of the Indus,
as ' possessing kine ': while Mathura, the land of Krishna and his milkmaids
must, undoubtedly, at one time have been famous for its milch cows. Huien
T'sang writes of ' numerous oxen ' in Parayatra (or Bairat), while the ' in-
habitants of Sind ' he says ' supported themselves by rearing cattle '. Much
later, Marco Polo came across, on the eastern shores of the Persian Gulf, a
type of cattle then unfamiliar to him, which he describes as '
a species
of large white oxen, with smooth coats.... horns thick and obtuse and having
between the shoulders a gibbous rising or hump.... They are beautiful
animals and very strong.' These, one may legitimately infer to have been
descendants of Indian breeds, possibly those with which Alexander the Great
started on his return home from India. In Masulipatam, the same writer
remarks, ' they have cattle enough '. Nicolo Conti, in the 15th century, des-
cribes wild cattle with manes and long horns as still found in great abundance
in the neighbourhood of Calicut.
Abul Fazl wrote ' Every part of the empire produces good oxen but those
of Gujarat are esteemed the best
There are also abundance of fine
oxen in Bengal and the Deccan
Many cows at Delhi give daily 20
quarts of milk each ... In the neighbourhood .. of Kashmir are the Katars,