Indian War Elephants: Tanks on the Ancient and Medieval Battlefield

Indian war elephants have long captured the popular imagination, in movies and video games alike. But few have tackled what it was "really like" to employ war elephants on the field of battle.

In India, the use of armored war elephants continued through the medieval era, and even into the early modern era. Was this a foolish strategic decision, or was there still a use for war elephants in a time where the battlefield was dominated by horse archers?

Enjoy!

Non-Exhaustive List of Sources:

"The Elephant in Ancient War" by Richard Glover
"Elephants in Ancient Indian Armies" by B. P. Sinha
"KANDULA: Elucidations on the Sinhala War Elephant" by Merlin Peris
"Indian Elephant Corps Under the Ghaznavids" by S. Jabir Raza

#warelephants #indianhistory #elephants

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Music:

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[OddCompass]

Hey everyone, hope you enjoy this latest video! It should be relevant not only to those interested in Indian history, but anyone who is interested in SE Asian history (where war elephants were employed into the early modern era as well).

[BronzeAgeMan]

Fiction: Fire Dragons 🐉
History: War Elephants 🐘

[trueblueclue]

Before this video: "Elephants are so cute"
After the video: "That drunk and high elephant with poisoned sword tusks is going to bite your head off and toss you with its trunk."

[Mid_b]

I feel like Indian history is pretty underrated after this video

[EzioIlMentore]

Meanwhile, Indians in Age of Empires 2 have the worst elephant unit.

[rangan]

In the epic Mahabharata, there is description of famous king Bhagadatta, fighting on the side of the Kauravas, arriving in the battlefield on his legendary battle elephant Supratika. The behemoth caused sheer delirium and panic among the Pandava army and caused destruction of exorbitant proportion. Bhima, the strongest of the Pandavas, son of the Air God Pavana, was himself a demigod having power equivalent to 10000 elephants and yet was manhandled by the beast. Finally the elephant was somehow managed to be killed, but this video reminded me of that incident and how we're carrying on with the traditions of battle elephants ever since.

[ameygawade]

Elephants were also used to pull heavy artilery.

[boogeymann]

I love Indian and South East Asian history and I'm so happy that I managed to come across a channel like yours.

[redmonkey]

Earlier today I had the question, "Were war elephants real?" as I've never really learned about them. I've looked it up and found your video, and I just need to say great work! I'm looking at the comments section and you seem to reply to nearly every comment which is commendable, I hope to see you grow because you deserve way more attention!

[Rihangarg]

all dislikes r from those who were throttle by Indian elephants in their past life

[dv]

Rome: We have great warriors on our side
India: Hold my drunk riders

[atriacharya]

My paternal grandfather was a vet in the Indian Army. He treated and performed surgery on the war camels in the 1965 and 1971 wars against Pakistan. To this day, India is the only country that has used camels for warfare!

[takenbythewindNdrivenbythesea]

Fantastic information...
War Elephants, the Indians Main Battle Tank.
Yes I agreed, there’s an advantages and also disadvantages.
It’s quite scary when your elephants are totally out of control. But anyway, the creation of more modern artilleries, Gatling gun totally changed the warfare.

[Contractor]

Great content. I feel bad for the poor beasts. Fight through so much chaos. They are one of the most gentle creatures.

[gabrielgarcia]

Hey just want to say that I am so glad to find a really good educational YouTube channel that almost exclusively focuses on South Asian history. I think this region of the world is unbelievably fascinating, and it’s great to be able to learn more through this platform. Please keep up the great work! You have earned another subscriber! 🙏

[takedashingen]

Nothing is more terrifying than a trained, courageous War elephant

[alexanderphilip]

Less than 50k subscribers for a channel with this level of quality and indepth analysis of historic content .
Where are my Indians.

[hrishikeshbandari]

perhaps one of the best video on Indian elephants. While we've always seen the rather barbaric fights of African elephants amongst themselves on wildlife channels, a charging war elephant is a rare spectacle these days. Thankyou for this amazing presentation that brought this terrifying medieval tank back to life

[harshavardhana]

An chinese traveller has written that Cholas had 60, 000 war elephants.

[auella]

Given how intelligent elephants are this is amazing. The skill it takes to train an intelligent life form to do such complex actions is incredibly impressive.