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Originally Posted by mahratt
I do not see the monsters in this image (post 41) ... (Maybe someone from the more astute participants of the topic will help me find them). However, I see chains on an elephant's trunk, which were clearly used as weapons. If you can tie a chain to the trunk, what prevents you from doing the same with a big sword?
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Actually I think the term monsters perhaps is a sedgeway from the common practice in many references describing figures such as makara and yali on weaponry in India and other associated regions as 'grotesque'. These in iconography with the key mythological circumstances depicted are meant to be seen as 'fearsome' presumably in accord with religious dogma instances.
Here I do not beleive 'monsters' was meant in any pejorative way but as a manner of description much aligned with the 'grotesque' term often used.
What was clearly being described was the mythological figures being noted.
On the case of the chains on the elephants trunk, again we face the same dilemma as questioning why in the world chains and weights any more than swords or any weapon would be put on an elephants trunk. This is even more an effective question in the case of battle, where elephants could easily run amok and threaten anyone in their path. These are herd animals who are remarkably intelligent and if one should break lose, it would not be hard to imagine others following quickly.......regardless of human attempts to control.
I believe the notion of chains and weights used on elephant trunks presumably as flails is perhaps as much fantasy as that of a sword being wielded in that manner. The elephant was used primarily as a powerful transport for fighting men as well as a destructive shock action animal by its sheer bulk.....not as a trained fighting animal as many war horses were.
In my thinking the tusk swords are examples of Indian innovation in weaponry and used incidentally more as novelty elements in parade or ceremonial situations. As with many cases with certain weapons of unusual character, these were oftrn seen in diplomatic or embassy situations where the object was to impress the visitor....who then presumed the weapons (tusk swords in this case) to have actually been widely used in combat.
Many depictions of battles and events are artistically rendered by by artists who were not present and often years later. Typically they rely on the often embellished accounts of persons there or second to third hand information in addition to the license required to add effect to the images by the artist.