Asva

Asva is a term for "horse" used in Vedic literature.

The horse in Vedic times

It has been claimed that traces of horses are absent from the Indus Valley civilization, while the Vedas make frequent mention of the horse. Still, though the earliest domestication of the horse is widely agreed to have occurred in the grasslands of Central Asia, the first use of horses in South Asia is a topic of great dispute.

Further excavations discovered horses not only in Indus Valley sites but also in pre-Indus sites. Remains of horses have been found among other places in Mahagara near Allahabad (dated to c. 2265 BC to 1480 BC, described as Equus caballus Linn), Hallur in Karnataka (c.1500 - 1300 BC, described as Equus caballus), Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa ("small horse"), Lothal (a terracotta figurine and a molar horse tooth, dated to 2200 BC), Kalibangan, and Kuntasi (dated to 2300 – 1900 BC). A clay model of a horse has been found in Mohenjo-Daro and a horse figurine in Periano Ghundai in the Indus Valley. However, most of these reports have also been criticized because of the difficulty even for specialists to distinguish remains of the Equus caballus Linn from other horse species (see Edwin Bryant. 2001: 169-175).

Horse remains from the Harappan site Surkotada (dated to c. 2400-1700 BC) have been identified by A.K. Sharma as being of the Equus caballus species. The horse specialist Sandor Bökönyi (1997) later confirmed these conclusions and stated that the excavated tooth specimens could "in all probability be considered remnants of true horses [i.e. Equus caballus Linn]". Bökönyi stated that "The occurrence of true horse (Equus Caballus L.) was evidenced by the enamel pattern of the upper and lower cheek and teeth and by the size and form of incisors and phalanges (toe bones)." (quoted by Prof. B.B. Lal from Bökönyi's letter to the Director of the Archaeological Survey of India, 13-12-1993, in New Light on the Indus Civilization, Aryan Books, Delhi 1998, p.111). However, others like Meadow (1997) still disagree, because remains of the Equus caballus Linn" horse are difficult to distinguish even by specialists from other horse species like Equus asinus (donkeys) or Equus hemionus'' (onagers) (see Edwin Bryant. 2001:169-175).

It has also been suggested that the horse, while rare (because of climatic factors) and nonnative, could always have been a highly sought after import item for Indians up to modern times. Trautmann (1982) thus remarked that the supply and import of horses has always been a preoccupation of the Indians and that "it is a structure of its history, then, that India has always been dependent upon western and central Asia for horses." (Bryant 2001). The paucity of horse remains could also be explained by India's climatic factors which lead to a faster decay of horse bones. Additionally horse remains may also be sparse because horses were probably neither used in burials nor eaten by the Harappans. Horses are also not depicted on the Harappan seals. However, other animals that were known to the Harappans are not depicted either (e.g. the female cow and the camel), which could probably be explained by a social taboo.

There is also only one clear reference to actual horse riding in the Rig Veda (5.61-62), and McDonnell and Keith point out that the Rig Veda does not describe people riding horses in battle (see Bryant 2001: 117). The Rig Veda also states that the Dasyus also had horses (RV 7.18.19; 3.34.9).

It should however also be noted that other sites like the BMAC complex (which some consider nevertheless as Indo-Aryan) are at least as poor in horse remains as the Harappan sites (e.g. Bryant 2001). Colin Renfrew (1999) also remarked that "the significance of the horse ... has been much exaggerated" and Bryant holds that "using such negative evidence, by the same logic used to eliminate India as a candidate, ultimately any potential homeland can be disqualified due to lacking some fundamental Proto-Indo-European item or another (Bryant 2001: 120).

In RV 1.162.18, the horse is described as having 34 (2x17) ribs. It has been speculated that the Rig vedic horse could therefore be the extinct Indian Equus Sivalensis (or horse of the Siwaliks), which had only 17 pairs of ribs, while central asian and other horse species have more ribs. e.g. Frawley: Myth of Aryan Invasion, 2005. [link]

References

Sandor Bököni (1997). "Horse Remains from the Prehistoric Site of Surkotada, Kutch, Late 3rd Millennium BC". South Asian Archaeology 13: 297-307.
Bryant, Edwin (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195137779.
Lal, B.B. New Light on the Indus Civilization, Aryan Books, Delhi 1998

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