The same way how Homer uses titillating speech in the Illiad or how Ferdowsi added out-of-this-world imagery in the Shahnameh (though Mahmud Ghazni stiffed him on this commission) is how similar additions are in those epics.
Also, Sanskrit manuscripts from before Xuangzang can be found - they are just untranslated, and at Indian Sanskrit universities like Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan and Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, or archives like Acharya Shri Kailashsuri Jnanamandir and Saraswati Mahal Library, but these often only allow members of Dharmic faiths or from that background to enter.
This is why most Sanskrit scholarship is centered in India, Sri Lanka (where Anagarika unified Buddhism with Hindutva), and Thailand, where Maha Chakri Sirindhorn - who is a devout Buddhist and still active Sanskrit (and Pali) academic - has personally sponsored Sanskritology, Indology, and Buddhist studies for decades. When Sanskrit texts get translated into a modern language, it tends to be in Hindi or Thai as a result.
In English, NYU had the Clay Library but Gombrich passed away, and at Harvard, Narayana Murty (Infosys founder and Rishi Sunak's father in law) is funding the Murty Library, but both are barely scraping the top of the barrel.
I would call it "poetic license" (within bounds) rather than entertainment. The Indian Epics are Itihasas which literally means "so it was" and thus it was history mythologized via poetry.
> When Sanskrit texts get translated into a modern language, it tends to be in Hindi or Thai as a result.
Any links/data you can share on this?
> In English, NYU had the Clay Library but Gombrich passed away, and at Harvard, Narayana Murty (Infosys founder and Rishi Sunak's father in law) is funding the Murty Library, but both are barely scraping the top of the barrel.
There are lots more publishers of Sanskrit texts translated into English; Eg. Motilal Banarasidass, Mushiram Manoharlal, Gita Press, Chaukhamba Sanskrit Series, Kaivalyadhama (Hatha Yoga), Lonavla Yoga Institute, Harvard, Princeton, Oxford etc.
Penguin and Oxford popular series also have some good translations for the "common man".
This is the best abstract ever.
The most well-known text (mentioned in the article) on "Elephant Science" is Matanga lila (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matanga_Lila) but there is also Gaja Sastra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gajashastra) and chapters from Manasollasa by Somesvara (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manasollasa) an encyclopedic work in the style of Arthashastra. There is doubtless more in other ancient texts in various Indian languages which i am as yet not aware of.
The best description of the use of a war elephant occurs in the Mahabharata in the battle between King Bhagadatta (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagadatta) seated on his favourite war elephant Supratika (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supratika) and the Pandava army; first with Bhima and then with Arjuna. When mounted on Supratika, Bhagadatta was said to be invincible and proves it on the 12th day of the kurukshetra war when he single-handedly defeats the Pandava army and almost killing Bhima, the Pandava warrior who is the most skilled in elephant warfare with knowledge of their vital points and how to attack them. Arjuna then comes in to save the day and slays both Supratika and Bhagadatta. The is is one of the best passages in the Mahabharata on pure valour in warfare and worth reading in entirety (from here) - https://sacred-texts.com/hin/m07/m07024.htm
What? the hell?
Maybe not watching television for over 20 years has left me more out of touch with "popular thought" than I realized...
You don't get more pop than that.
> The suggestion that the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) becomes intoxicated from eating the fruit of the marula tree (Sclerocarya birrea) is an attractive, established, and persistent tale
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article/16/4/2020007...
> Possibly the most iconic is the story of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) and marula fruit. According to this widespread lore, elephants across Africa preferentially feed on the fallen, fermenting fruit of the marula tree (Sclerocarya birrea), becoming intoxicated
