[HN Gopher] Hellenistic War-Elephants and the Use of Alcohol Bef...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Hellenistic War-Elephants and the Use of Alcohol Before Battle
        
       Author : perihelions
       Score  : 5 points
       Date   : 2026-01-23 14:44 UTC (5 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cambridge.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cambridge.org)
        
       | alephnerd wrote:
       | This article overreads into the meaning of _mast_ and _matta_.
       | _Mast_ just means overstimulated /excited, and in the context of
       | an elephant would be the equivalent of using the word "spooked"
       | but with a humorous ting to it. Indian epics like the Mahabharat
       | and Ramayan were not written as historical treatise but also as
       | entertainment.
       | 
       | The same way how Homer uses titillating speech in the Illiad or
       | how Ferdowsi added out-of-this-world imagery in the Shahnameh
       | (though Mahmud Ghazni stiffed him on this commission) is how
       | similar additions are in those epics.
       | 
       | Also, Sanskrit manuscripts from before Xuangzang can be found -
       | they are just untranslated, and at Indian Sanskrit universities
       | like Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan and Sampurnanand Sanskrit
       | Vishwavidyalaya, or archives like Acharya Shri Kailashsuri
       | Jnanamandir and Saraswati Mahal Library, but these often only
       | allow members of Dharmic faiths or from that background to enter.
       | 
       | This is why most Sanskrit scholarship is centered in India, Sri
       | Lanka (where Anagarika unified Buddhism with Hindutva), and
       | Thailand, where Maha Chakri Sirindhorn - who is a devout Buddhist
       | and still active Sanskrit (and Pali) academic - has personally
       | sponsored Sanskritology, Indology, and Buddhist studies for
       | decades. When Sanskrit texts get translated into a modern
       | language, it tends to be in Hindi or Thai as a result.
       | 
       | In English, NYU had the Clay Library but Gombrich passed away,
       | and at Harvard, Narayana Murty (Infosys founder and Rishi Sunak's
       | father in law) is funding the Murty Library, but both are barely
       | scraping the top of the barrel.
        
       | johnea wrote:
       | > a longstanding association of elephants and alcohol in popular
       | thought
       | 
       | What? the hell?
       | 
       | Maybe not watching television for over 20 years has left me more
       | out of touch with "popular thought" than I realized...
        
         | doobiedowner wrote:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_pink_elephants
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2026-01-28 23:00 UTC)