Re: [tied] Rigvedic horses

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 9747
Date: 2001-09-24

I know this story but refuse to take it seriously. The article contains a number of errors, and unjustified interpretations and inferences concerning biological and palaeontological questions (but the opinions of two experts cited there are entirely reliable and worth reading _carefully_ -- thanks for eliciting them). The evidence promised in the title is not given anywhere; the terminology used in the article is loose and betrays lack of deeper familiarity with the relevant fields of biology (for example, Equidae is a family, not a species; Caspians and Shetland ponies are members of _Equus caballus_, not separate taxa).
 
The fact that modern horses may have 34-38 (canonically, 36) ribs simply means that the species shows some genetic variability in this respect, _not_ that it derives partly from an (unknown) ancestor with 17 pairs of ribs. Genetic variation (reflected in anatomical variation, among other things) is what we _normally_ find in any gene pool. Evolution would be impossible without it. It results from random mutations, not from mixed descent.
 
_Equus sivalensis_ could not be renamed "Hipparion sivalensis" by any horse expert in his right mind: to a palaeontologist, hipparions are not even remotely confusible with any _Equus_ species. Anyway, as far as is known, hipparions (which died out in the lower Pleistocene, more than a million years ago) also had 36 ribs _on the average_, though the number could perhaps vary slightly in the same way as it does in modern horses. Even if the number were different, the genera _Hipparion_ and _Equus_ -- the latter including all the living equids, i.e. true horses, asses, hemiones (onagers, kulans and khurs), kiangs, zebras and quaggas -- belong to different branches in the family tree of horses: they separated much earlier than, say, humans and gorillas. The Rigveda does not say anywhere that horses have three digits on each leg, does it?
 
One of the experts quoted on your page says that all equids more recent than 20 million years ago seem to have had 36 ribs (sporadic mutations apart). This is probably true of _E. sivalensis_ as well, though I doubt if there are enough postcranial skeletal remains to make sure (many fossil species are known from scant material, typically teeth, skulls and fragmentary limb bones but no dorsal vertebrae or ribs). But there is no reason to assume, on wishful thinking alone, that the rib count was different from that found in all other _Equus_ species. The idea that _E. sivalensis_ (or _E. namadicus_, or any of their cousins) had 34 ribs is therefore just a myth. Anyway, if a different equid species was domesticated in India so recently, what's happened to it? (And how did true horses get to India?)
 
The only other equid that <as'va-> could conceivably stand for, is _Equus hemionus_. Unfortunately, a typical hemione has 36 ribs, just like a typical horse. The prehistoric range of onagers extended from Ukraine to South Asia. However, <as'va-> derives from PIE *(h1)ek^wos, a word which stands for domestic horses (and presumably stood for their wild ancestors, such as steppe and forest tarpans) in all the branches of IE in which it survives (including Indo-Aryan, of course, but also Iranian, Baltic, Germanic, Celtic, Italic and Greek). It is not applied to onagers, kulans, asses, etc. -- not even to mules and hinnies, and not even among those IEs who must been been familiar with other equids. Douglas Q. Adams tentatively reconstructs an IE "ass ~ onager" word based on Skt. gardabHa- and Tocharian B kercapo- (if real, it might also refer to the now extinct European wild ass _E. hydruntinus_).
 
Regards,
 
Piotr
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: S.Kalyanaraman
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 2:05 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Dravidian in Persia?

It is an elaborate story discussed on another list. The context is the equus species with 34 ribs (not caballus). One URL:
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/horse5.htm