Matangalila and Hastyayurveda (study)
by Chandrima Das | 2021 | 98,676 words
This page relates ‘Concluding Remarks’ of the study on the Matangalina and Hastyayurveda in the light of available epigraphic data on elephants in ancient India. Both the Matanga-Lila (by Nilakantha) and and the Hasti-Ayurveda (by Palakapya) represent technical Sanskrit works deal with the treatment of elephants. This thesis deals with their natural abode, capturing techniques, myths and metaphors, and other text related to elephants reflected from a historical and chronological cultural framework.
Concluding Remarks
Using a homogenous random sampling process here in this chapter we have analysed all epigraphic records published in the Epigraphia Indica and have used other sources for corroborating this data collected from inscriptions to show the varied references to the elephants and their use in early India in the human lives. Besides this we have also attempted a socio cultural study by understanding the use of elephants as metaphor, assigning them a specific numeriacal value i.e. eight which comes from the eight cardinal points or direction the four major and the four at each interseaction which led to the coining of the term aṣṭa-dikgaja. We have critically analysed each metaphor in this chapter and also tabulated the data as and where necessary.