One hundred years ago, petrol transformed the world. Suddenly, we had vehicles that could move without animal power. But before that, for over 3,000 years, kings needed horses. Anybody with a large cavalry could control land. Not surprisingly, the Persian word ‘siyasat’ means managing horses as well as managing the kingdom. Likewise, the English word ‘management’ has its root in the Italian word for managing horses and managing the estate.
Horses are not native to India. The animal native to India is the elephant, which enjoys the rich, hot and humid forests of India, and has long been used by merchants and kings to establish prosperity and power. Horses prefer the cool, flat grasslands in Central Asia and Eurasia.
Around 5,000 years ago, horses were bred for meat and milk, and 4,000 years ago, they were domesticated enough to pull light-wheeled chariots. About 2,000 years ago, they were large enough to be ridden, and around 1,000 years ago, the wooden saddle and the iron stirrup enabled anyone, not just trained experts, to ride horses with great ease.
All three forms of horses came with people who shaped the history of India. The first group who came with chariots created the Vedic civilisation, which cleared the forests of the Gangetic plain and established fields, battling the elephants that blocked their progress. We hear descriptions of fights between horse-drawn chariots and elephant brigades in Mahabharata. Typically, horses are controlled by kings from the West (Madra, Kekeya, Gandhar, Trigarta) while elephants come from the east (Kamarupa, Magadha).
The second phase involved invaders like the Greeks, the Central Asian Chinese, the Scythians and the Parthians, whose arrival in India led to the rise of the Mauryan Empire. It was the horse-riding Hunas who led to the collapse of the Gupta Empire. These men patronised Buddhism and Jainism. Jain monk Kalaka invited Saka warriors to rescue his sister, a nun, who was abducted by the king of Ujjain. A Buddhist monk enchanted Kushan horses with Buddha’s stories and so came to be called horse-whisperer, or Ashva-ghosha. These foreign rulers were not patrons of Brahmins who moved southwards in search of new patrons. So after 500 AD, we find new Hindu kingdoms rise in Deccan and beyond.
The final ‘equine’ phase involved the Islamic warlords, who came on horses with wooden saddles and iron stirrups and who could use the bow as mounted archers. The Indian armies, led by elephant-riding kings, were no match for them. The lean Turki horses from Central Asia crossed the Hindu Kush, were fatted in Lekhi forests of Punjab, then taken to markets such as Haridvar, and then along to Terai to Bengal from where they were shipped to Southeast Asia or taken further south to the markets of Tirupati in Rayalaseema. Many horse-traders ended up becoming Sultans, as in the case of Sher Shah Suri, when they found the royal buyers to be weak and easy to overthrow.
The Delhi Sultans would not let horses go to the Deccan Sultans so the Deccan Sultans imported horses by sea, from Persia and Arabia. The horses came to the west coast and were taken across Palghat along Kaveri to the east coast, and shipped to Southeast Asia. This was a huge trade. In the 18th century, nearly 100,000 horses were imported to, and through, India. This was the peak before the crash, a time when the Mughal Empire was collapsing, Maratha kingdoms were rising and Persian kings like Nadir Shah plundered Delhi, making the British realise how weak India was. The British had int guns-using infantry with a military training that could easily take down the horse-warriors, who still relied on swords, spears and messy matchlock guns.
Horses cannot be bred easily in India because of the climate. Most of the land is taken up by farms; therefore, horses can only be bred in stalls. The hot and humid climate of the monsoon is unfavourable to horses. It softens their hooves and leeches the grass of selenium, a vital nutrient. The rich tropical forests contain too many different kinds of flora that are not suitable for the fussy eater that is the horse. The horse needs a lot of water, which is not easily available in the summer months.
Breeding of local horses happened only 1,000 years ago, giving rise to what would become the Rajput and Maratha communities. But Indian horses were good for mountain ambush and carrying loads, not for cavalry charge. These horse breeding centres of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Nepal venerated horse-riding, sword-wielding folk gods such as Bhathji, Vachharadada, Ramdevji, Tejaji, Devnarayan, Golu-dev and Dharma-thakur.
The game of chess, invented in India, around 700 AD and taken to the world by Arabs, reminded all kings of the world how they needed not just soldiers to control their empire, but also elephants (or camels), horse-drawn chariots (or forts), and of course, the horse-riding knight.
