DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

9.1] ELEPHANTS IN WAR AND PEACE 297
original home (far from Andhra proper) of the Satavahanas ; hence
the oldest settled portion of their state.
The word gulma in the Arth. means thicket (as it continued to do
later), compaction (e.g. valmika-gulma), wharf (gulma-tara-deya —
wharf-and-ferry toll) but is not a military term except perhaps in the
general sense of compact mass. The Mbh. 1.2.15.17 and Amarakosa
2.8.10-11 show that gulma had, by the period under discussion, become
a combined army company of nine pattis, amounting to 9 chariots, 9
elephants, 27 horses and 45 foot in all. This is a new development in
military usage, which deserves to be discussed. The Arth. patti was not
a tactical unit but infantry in general, the heavy-armed soldiers of the
phalanx. Elephants, chariots, and even the horsemen had a complement of
padagopa foot-guards ; not members of patti regiments, but fighters
nevertheless, not menials as some translators would have it; these
had to be highly mobile, hence with lighter accoutrements. According
to Arth. 10.4, the elephants were of use in smashing through walls,
stockades, towers, gates, barriers, or massed infantry formations, to
round up broken troops, and for tactical surprise—just like modern army
tanks. But they had subsidiary utility that the tank does not allow,
covered by the modern lorry, bulldozer, and tractor : transport
(especially of treasure), haulage of heavy equipment, making paths,
clearing roads through jungle and waste, which included swimming
across water and the rapid construction of log bridges. These military
engineering uses were confirmed afresh in 1941-1945 during the Burma
campaign (cf. Elephant Bill by J. H. Williams, Penguin Books 1120),
when both Japanese and British commands used elephants, often more
effectively than machinery. Modern European historians who write of
the war-elephants as a useless encumbrance in warfare, liable to panic
suddenly, always more dangerous to their own ranks, forget their
work during a campaign, and the need tor effective use of the foot-guard
screen. Good generals like Hannibal and Seleukos would not have
insisted upon a totally unreliable arm. On the other hand, a working
elephant needs 600 pounds of balanced green fodder daily, or the
equivalent which means from 30 to 50 pounds of grain every day,
supplemented with vegetables and other articles of diet (FOM. 1.354-5 ;
Manucci 2.363-4).