CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

GAZELLA BENNETTI, THE CHINKARA

22.1 The Living Animal

22.1.1 Zoology The chinkara or Indian gazelle is a gracile and small antelope with a shoulder height of 0.65 m (fi g. 343). Chinkaras are related to blackbucks (see Chapter 1) but are much smaller, more gracile, and have relatively smaller and more upright horns. The horns of the bucks are marked with prominent rings and are long, though not as long as in the black- buck, and range between 25–30 cm in length. The horns are slightly S-shaped seen in profi le and almost straight seen from the front. Does have much smaller, smooth and sharply-pointed straight horns; hornless females are not uncommon. Chinkaras have tufts of hair growing from the knees. When alarmed, chinkaras swiftly fl ee but stop some 200 or 300 metres away to turn around to check the cause of the alarm as most antelopes do. They never look back while running. Chinkaras live in small herds of ten to twenty animals. The chinkara lives in the semi-arid wastelands, scattered bush, thin jungle and sand-hills of the desert zones of north-western and central India extending through the open lands of the Deccan to a little south of the Krishna River. They are not found at altitudes above 1.2 km, and they avoid cultivation. Gazelles once roamed the open plains of the subcontinent in large numbers and were very common, but at present they are mainly restricted to natural reserves and desert zones. Remains of the chinkara have been recovered from the post-Harappan archaeological sites of Khanpur and Somnath along the Gulf of Cambay, Gujarat (c. 1,700–1,000 B.C.E.).1 At present, this area is rather desolate with only a thin cover of xerophytic vegetation, and just a few trees with large

1 P. Thomas, “Zoological evidence from Prehistoric India with special reference to domestication. A review,” BDCRI 34, 1–4 (1974), 195–210; Chitalwala and Thomas, op. cit. (1977–1978), 14. chinkara 275 distances in between. The presence of subfossil chinkara indicates that the landscape changed during the past three millennia from scattered bush to the present-day open almost tree-less landscape.

22.1.2 Related Species There is one other gazelle on the Indian subcontinent: the Tibetan gazelle or goa (Procapra picticaudata). The goa has distinctive horns, which rise vertically and curve sharply backwards. It has a white rump patch. The natural habitat of the goa is restricted to the Tibetan Plateau and is restricted in India to Ladakh and Sikkim. Currently, it is a nearly threatened species, mainly due to hunting for its horns.2

22.1.3 Role of Gazelles in Society The chinkara is exclusively a game animal. It was already hunted during the second millennium B.C.E. as is evidenced by their remains found at the sites Khanpur and Somnath, Gujarat. As all gazelles, it can at most be tamed and driven in a kind of coral, but not be bunched up together or driven into a direction that the shepherd wishes to go.3 Gazelles are social and live in groups. They are territorial and lack a dominance based hierarchical social structure and thus cannot be domesticated.4 Humans cannot even alter the course of the migration routes of gazelles, which makes active herding practically impossible. In addition, gazelles are easily frightened, and have the tendency to damage themselves even to death, in order to escape. Gazelles belong to the vague group of mriga (game) to which also deer and antelopes belong. This means that in cases in which a mriga plays a role, either in connection with a divinity or a myth or story, the gazelle can stand in, just as any deer or antelope species. This means that a gazelle may take the place of the stag as a vehicle for Vayu, the god of the wind and guardian of the north-western direction (dikpala). In Buddhism, gazelles may fi gure as mriga, symbols of the First Sermon

2 D. Mallon and Y. Bhatnagar, “Procapra picticaudata,” in 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, op. cit. 3 Clutton-Brock, op. cit. (1981), 171. 4 Ibidem, 55.