Execution by elephant was a common method of capital punishment in South and Southeast Asia, particularly in India. The animals were trained and versatile, able to kill victims immediately or to torture them slowly over a prolonged period. Most commonly employed by royalty, the elephants were used to signify both the ruler’s absolute power and his ability to control wild animals. The sight of elephants executing captives both horrified and attracted the interest of European travellers.
About Execution by elephant in brief
Execution by elephant was a common method of capital punishment in South and Southeast Asia, particularly in India. The animals were trained and versatile, able to kill victims immediately or to torture them slowly over a prolonged period. Most commonly employed by royalty, the elephants were used to signify both the ruler’s absolute power and his ability to control wild animals. The sight of elephants executing captives both horrified and attracted the interest of European travellers and was recorded in numerous contemporary journals and accounts of life in Asia. The practice was eventually suppressed by the European colonial powers that colonised the region in the 18th and 19th centuries. While primarily confined to Asia, the practice was occasionally used by Western powers, such as Ancient Rome and Carthage, particularly to deal with mutinous soldiers. The intelligence, domesticability, and versatility of the elephant gave it considerable advantages over other wild animals such as lions and bears used as executioners by the Romans. While African elephants are significantly larger than Asian elephants, African powers were not known to make as much use of the animals in warfare or ceremonial affairs compared to their Asian counterparts. The use of elephants in such fashion went beyond the common royal power to dispense life and death. Elephants have long been used as symbols of royal authority. Their use as instruments of state power sent the message that the ruler was able to preside over very powerful creatures who were under total command.
In Siam, elephants were trained to throw the condemned into the air before trampling them to death. The Mongol sultan of Delhi turned the deaths of public prisoners into entertainment by having them crushed by elephants. If property was stolen, for instance, the king should have any thieves caught in connection with its disappearance executed by an elephant. If a thief was caught with the stolen property, the elephant should have been executed by the king for a number of offences, including theft, for which it was prescribed by the Manu Smriti or Laws of Manu, written between 200 BCE and 200 CE. The Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great is said to have used this technique to chastise’rebels’ and then in the end the prisoners, presumably much chastened, were given their lives. The kings of Siam trained their elephants to roll the convicted person slowly so that he is not badly hurt, and can be taught to prolong the agony of the victim by inflicting a slow death by torture or to kill the condemned quickly by stepping on the head. In the kingdom of Cochinchina, where elephants served as a executioner in 1821, the criminal was tied to a stake, where he was crushed to death by the elephant. The journal of John Crawfurd records an event where the elephant ran down to a criminal and crushes him to death in India for many centuries. For example, in 1305, the sultan turned the death of 1305 sultan into the public entertainment by crushing the feet of Muslim taxaders, evaders and enemy soldiers alike.
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This page is based on the article Execution by elephant published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
