Mahabharata Quiz - 99

 Check here for the previous question

Question – 99

Did the climate change caused by the comet-hit of 3136 BCE get reflected in any displacements in Bharat?

Answer:

A major displacement of home-bred horses from India to outside was noticed following this cosmic impact.

Several varieties of horses were indigenous to Bharat as made known from both the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Gandhara was known for indigenous horse breeds that prompted Amāvasu, the ancestor of Sumantu and Jahnu to shift to Gandhara. According to the Mahabharata, Gandhara, Kāmboja and Arāṭṭa were known for horses such as Kalmaṣa, Tittiri and Mandūka.

Vāhlika horses were preferred by the Ikṣvāku-s right from the time of Bhagīratha. Dhṛtarāṣṭra gifted the Vāhlika breeds to Krishna when he visited him for the peace mission. All these horse breeding sites, occupied right from the Ramayana times, came under the control of Jayadratha during the Mahabharata. Jayadratha wielded power up to Vāhlika by friendship and matrimonial alliances.

Looking at the events in the Mahabharata, we are led to speculate that Jayadratha was tolerated in the incidence of attempted molestation of Draupadi, mainly because he controlled the horse breeding regions. Until such a time that the Pandava-s could wrest control of his region from him, which happened only with the Great War, people were not willing to upset him completely.

After the death of Jayadratha and the change of climate turning hostile for horse-breeding following the comet-hit, the breeders must have moved further west and Northwest with their horses. This is reflected in the sudden appearance of genetic material seen in the Anatolian horses which researchers find not to be of autochthonous origin but migrated from outside.

A paleogenetic study of the horses in Anatolia and the Caucasus establishes that there was no autochthonous independent domestication of horses in these regions, but a large-scale introduction of domestic horses at the end of the 3^rd millennium BCE, whose origins were not known.   (https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.abb0030)

The origins can be traced to the Gāndhāra-Vāhlika-Sindhu axis that was controlling the horse trade until the Mahabharata war. With these regions suffering a defeat in the war, the horse breeding trade had shifted to Anatolia. The climatic changes in the aftermath of the comet-hit could also have necessitated the shift to newer regions.