In ancient India, the Royal Family used elephants as their sign of pride and power. The elephants help in many ways, like moderating fights; it is shown as a power to enemy nations to break their morale. It is used by the Maurya empire, Seleucid empire, but the elephant doesn't get the strength from their massive size. It was the result of their utmost training and training methods.
1. War conditioning
War elephants were trained to stay calm in intense battle situations, ignore the sound of drums, and battlefield noise around for better cooperation to maintain the difficult to extreme situations in battles. They are used to break the enemy's formations. They had been trained in these methods with exposure to drum sounds, fake soldiers' attacks, and pushing towards the enemy's formation for better results in the real war against the enemy nation. In the history of India's war against Alexander the Great's army, Indian elephants terrified the Alexander the Great army. Later, they got backed from the field,d showing their war conditioning power.
2. Bonding with the elephants
Every single elephant had a dedicated lifelong partner for its lifetime, whomite trained and raised to be a perfect mahout. The trainer feeds, raises, bath doing everything a parendoes for a child. It creates the greatest bond in the world. They spend their lives training and doing other activities that help them to understand each other's feelings without saying a word. They both have mutual trust. Elephants can distinguish their trainer's voice from other people's. It will run towards their trainer after hearing the voice of their trainer, and elephants' heartwarming thing is that they never forget their trainer's voice after years, which creates deep emotion.
3. Formation discipline
Elephants were trained in discipline to not do any mistake in the battlefield. They create a perfect formation to charge towards enemy camps and their formations. They have been trained to walk with other elephants to not make chaos in their own camp, maintain the distance for better cooperation in the army, and not make unwarranted reactions to battlefield noise. Formation discipline is the structure of maintaining order, safety, and cultural knowledge under the guidance of the matriarch. When animals detect predators, they transform into a defensive position, which is a big help in war formation.
4. Mahout control under stress
It was one of the main points to control the mahouts. Mahout must remain calm in a situation of war. When an animal is under stress during festivals, transportation work to other places or nations, medical supplies, or soldier be wounded in battles to carry them back as soon as possible, mahouts employ several layers of control. Mahouts had been trained to a specific vocal command to listen to their trainer from a very young age. One of the most useful tools to tame mahout ian s ankus, a metal type tool which hits a nervous point of the body. The job of managing mahout stress has been very risky since the ancient era. It is even stressful for their handlers.
5. Berserk Scenario training
In ancient times, the soldiers knew the importance of control over mahout. Ancient armies developed specific ways to trigger the counter of berserk behavior in enemy elephants. Enemies use flags, pigs, or camels to induce terror because animals are scared of high-density. To prevent panic on the battlefield, such as drums, trumpets, throwing stones, o ven doing act where they act like they were in war for betterpreparen for the future. The natural way is to tie it to trees with heavy chains, reducing the food intake to weaken the animal until the berserk state passes.
6. Historical examples
The first war of Indian history is 326 BCE involving the Indian kingdom. It is known as the Battle of Hydaspes. While internal Indian conflict used elephants way earlier, this battle has become famous worldwide, reaching the Western world. In the Battle of Hydaspes king Porus deployed between 85 and 100 war elephants to defend the kingdom from the war of Alexander the Great. King Bimbisara of the Haryanka dynasty was the first person to rely heavily on war elephants, such as in the annexation of Anga.
7. Anti-panic condition
The anti-panic condition in elephant warfare refers to a range of tactical and physical measures used to counter the war elephants naturally. To manage the panic, the last resort is a "suicide spike". It is known as a last resort to control the mahout. In some instances, such as Roman general Metellus Scipio, elephants were lined up and had stones thrown at them. Some trainers kept their young elephants with pigs to immunize them against high panic triggers. Elephants often remain calm as long his life long mahout was alive, and if the mahout is killed, the elephant will lose its control and get panicked.
8. Training system in ancient India
In ancient India, the training system of elephant training was one of the most difficult and rigorous jobs to trainana elephant to stand in any situation on the battlefield so as not to break the morale of other elephants and not to make mistakes in the battlefield. It is also important to make a deep connection between the elephant and the trainer for proper training. There are some methods, such as the kraal confinement system. It is used to tame the wild elephants. In the local tribes, they used the method called Matangaleela/Gajashastra. Their techniques to follow the tribal communities are associated with such practical training. The community includes Paniyas, Kurubas, Jenu Kurubas, etc.
9. Psychology of war elephants
The psychological warfare has historically been about the power of how they destroy the enemy's morale. In the war, horses have a natural instinctive fear of the smell of elephants. Without specific training, they got scared andrefusede to charge to move forward in the battle. It effectively neutralizes most of the enemy's units and their morale. Elephants are highly intelligent and prone to panic. They could often go berserk by hearing fire or noise; only their mahout can calm them down.
In the war of war elephants in India, it didn't end with a single battle or event. It goes through generations of battle and time. It is known as the "ultimate weapon" of the Indian dynasty of ancient India.
