The domestication of animals goes back to around 20000 years ago. Animals have long served as companions and sources of comfort and amusement. The practice of maintaining menageries, collections of animals and birds, was popular in medieval India among royalty and nobility. These menageries, also called Shikarkhanas, were symbols of power, prestige, and refinement. The 18th century saw the rise of the Marathas as the most powerful kingdom in India. With political and economic ascent, came a cultural and artistic renaissance. The Peshwas, known for their opulent and grandiose ways, were at the forefront of this cultural revival. Maintaining menageries was one of the leisurely pursuits the Marathas took up as a part of this. Bajirao was the first of the Peshwas to have a menagerie. In his time, it was located near Mujumdar Wada in Kasba Peth.
Soon after he built the Devdeveshwar and Vishnu temples at Parvati, Nanasaheb Peshwa commissioned a lake at the base of the hill. This lake, with a garden called Sarasbag on an island in its center, was surrounded by gardens like Hirabag, Lotanbag, and Vasantbag. Next to it was the Ramana and the newly created Shikarkhana. The growing population of Pune and the dearth of space must have prompted the shift of the Shikarkhana from Kasba Peth to the outskirts of the city.
Nanasaheb's collection of animals included numerous kinds of deer like sambar. chital, bhekar, tigers, pigs, horses, elephants, camels, cattle, Indian bison, and various birds like ducks, pigeons, peacocks, chakors, over 20 titars, and a talking Kakakuwa which had been gifted to him by Jayappa Shinde. Of these, the pigeons were housed in Kabutarkhana near Onkareshwar in Shaniwar Peth. Nanasaheb also had a pair of Peregrine Falcons, vernacularly called Bahiri Sasanas.
The Peshwa Daftar is a treasure house of information in this regard. It has abundant records illustrating how these animals were bought or captured. These records also indicate that the animals were very well cared for, given expensive feed, and records of their progress were submitted regularly. During Nanasaheb's reign, there were as many as 56 people charged with taking care of this menagerie.
New species were also developed in the Deccan during this period. A breed of horses called Bhimthadi was developed by cross-breeding Arabic, Turkish and Indian horses. Nanasaheb had a large number of elephants in his Hattikhana, including two elephants, Manikgaj and Manohargaj, which had been gifted to him by Chhatrapati Shahu. There are numerous anecdotes from this era involving elephants, right from Appa Balwant Mehendale saving Sawai Madhavrao from falling to his death from a howdah, an elephant called Mohangaj from Nanasaheb's Hattikhana humbling Manaji Angre, and the Prince of Wales falling from the back of the Pant Sachiv's elephant on his way to Parvati. Elephants, apart from their routine use in transportation and the military, were also kept for their employment in games. These games were often of a dangerous and rather cruel nature. Of these, a game called Sathmari involved a combat between elephants and men on foot, whereas Dagdari was a combat between elephants and men on horseback. Fights between 2 elephants or between elephants and tigers were also a favorite. Fights between elephants and tigers had once been arranged in Wagholi by Pilaji Jadhavrao in the honor of Nanasaheb Peshwa and another time as a part of the festivities of Madhavrao Peshwa's wedding. One fight between Nanasaheb Peshwa and Jayappa Shinde's elephants had a rather brutal and abrupt end. In the commotion during the fight, Nanasaheb's mahout fell down from the howdah and was trampled to his death. During Madhavrao's reign, a fight had been organized between the Peshwa's and Babuji Naik Baramatikar's elephants near Gultekdi. Babuji's elephant, Balasundar got out of hand and started running towards the spectators, who started running helter-skelter. Madhavrao was the only person who did not run away, instead choosing to remain undeterred and composed till the animal was captured.
During the reign of Nanasaheb's grandson, Sawai Madhavrao many new animals were added to the Shikarkhana. The additions included various wild cats like lions, lynxes, and cheetahs, various kinds of deer, antelopes, rhinoceros, a double-humped Bactrian camel, and as many as 700 rabbits. Both the rhinoceros and the camel were presented by Mahadji Shinde to the young Peshwa. Of them, the former had been trained to stand on its rear legs. It had also once mauled a person to death. The menagerie also included over 20 tigers, one of whom was named Sambhu.
By now, the collection of animals had grown so large that Nana Phadnis had to create a special department for managing it. None of these animals were caged. Most of them were out in the wild, while some, like the Rhino, were bound to posts buried into the ground. The antelopes were housed in Lotanbag, where they would stroll around leisurely in droves. Some of these antelopes had been domesticated and trained to perform with music. Charles Malet, the British resident in Pune had witnessed one such performance. It took place in one of the Peshwas gardens outside Pune, probably Lotanbag. The viewers, including the Peshwa and Malet, were seated on plush rugs inside a tent. As soon as the music started playing, four antelopes, surrounded by a semi-circle of cavalry starting coming towards the tent. After a while, these animals entered the tent, whereupon two of them sat on swings while the other two sat on the carpets below. A group of dancing girls played music while attendants swung the antelopes. Bringing the antelopes to this level of familiarity had taken 7 months of training! James Wales, a European artist from this period also witnessed and wrote about the performance of these antelopes. He had also been to Mahadji Shinde's camp on the outskirts of Pune. There, he saw a performance of hawks who had been trained to catch birds on command. So fascinated was Charles Malet by all these animals, that he had an artist called Gangaram Tambat make clay models of these animals. Gangaram also went on to make several paintings of these clay models along with the animals they were based on. One of these paintings depicts Charles Malet standing in the middle of all the animals from the menagerie.
Sawai Madhavrao also had a large collection of birds consisting of ducks, coots, koras, cuckoos, larks, and ostriches. The highlight was several pairs of speaking Parrots and Mynahs, of whom the Mynas spoke in Bengali. These birds were well cared for and fed a combination of musk and spices including cloves, cardamom. nutmeg, and saffron.
The next ruler, Bajirao II, had housed one of the tigers from his collection in Shaniwar Wada. He had numerous birds kept in the many wadas he had built in Pune. His collection included a pair of Mynahs who were fed musk, a red Rava, ducks, and pigeons.
After the defeat of the Marathas in the Third Anglo-Maratha War in 1818, Pune was annexed by the British. Most of the Peshwa's properties fell into neglect and ruin. The Shikarkhana too suffered a similar fate. What exactly happened to all these animals is not known. The rare and expensive ones were probably stolen, while the rest were left to fend for themselves in the wild. Despite all of this, the place was continued to be called Shikarkhana. In 1953, the PMC rechristened it as Peshwe Park and set up a zoo here. Around ten years ago, the animals were moved to the newly built zoo at Katraj. Peshwe Park is now just a simple garden.
Many of the Peshwa's sardars also had such menageries, whose remnants can still be seen in places like Pune's Raste Wada and Belbag and Saswad's Purandare Wada. Both Raste Wada and Purandare Wada still have hundreds of pigeons and parrots within their precincts. The outer walls of Raste Wada have niches that were designed for these birds to escape the harsh summer heat. Back then, Raste Wada also housed several peacocks. Peacocks were also kept at Belbag, Nana Phadnis's garden in Pune. Even today, their empty cages can be seen around the temple.
Chhatrapati Shahu, the grandson of Chhatrapati Shivaji was also particularly fond of animals. He had a sizeable menagerie at Satara which included dogs, ducks, tigers, and rhinoceros. Of these, the dogs were his clear favorite. The Holkars shared a similar enthusiasm for dogs. Dozens of dogs had been procured for Shahu over the years by the Peshwas. Of these, his favorite was a dog named Khandya, who was lucky enough to get a samadhi of his own next to Shahu's samadhi at Mahuli. Like the dogs, most of his other animals had been procured for him by the Peshwas. Shahu had tried to get Bajirao to procure exotic animals like Vangai, Huma, and Kasturimrug from Kashmir. However, these never ended up reaching Satara since it was not the right time of the year to catch them. A Kayastha man was charged with taking care of Shahu's Shikarkhana which earned him the surname Shikarkhane. What happened to Shahu's menagerie after his death is not known. However, a spot in Satara's Shukrawar Peth where Shahu's rhinoceros was tied is still called Genda Mal. Chhatrapati Shahu's namesake from the Kolhapur branch, Rajarshi Shahu also had a fascination for animals. His collection included elephants and cheetahs which were used during hunts. Games like Sathmari were quite popular in Kolhapur during his reign. One can still find herds of deer roaming the grounds of the New Palace in Kolhapur, which probably stretch back to his time.
The Bhosales of Nagpur were also fond of animals. Their menagerie was situated in an area called Sakkardara in Nagpur. It had been created during the reign of Raghuji II. Raghuji was particularly fond of animals and he had a large collection including tigers, dogs, bears, camels, lions, deer, and elephants. Of these, the elephants that had been brought to Nagpur from Sri Lanka and were fed Pulav! Curiously enough, these animals were made to fast on every Ekadashi along with the Bhosales and were to eat whatever their masters ate. Even the tigers were made to drink milk!
Sayajirao Gaekwad III of Baroda had pet parrots who were trained to do a variety of tasks. His granddaughter, Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, wrote in her memoirs about the fond memories she had of these parrots from her childhood. These parrots had been trained to ride tiny bicycles and cars made of silver. They would also walk on tightropes and enact scenes. In one of these enactments, a parrot met an accident due to a parrot-driven car and was then treated and carried away on a stretcher by parrot doctors. These performances would end with the loud blast from a tiny silver cannon. The parrots were so well-trained that they were the only ones not perplexed by the noise, unlike all the other guests. Along with the parrots, Sayajirao had a collection of numerous other rare animals and birds. His collection was housed on a piece of land outside Baroda which is known as the Sayaji Baug Zoo today. One of Sayajirao's grandsons, Pratapsinharao Gaekwad had a gold cage commissioned for his pet frog which came with two sapphire studded feeders. After the frog's death, the cage was used to house birds made of emeralds and rubies.
The onset of democracy and a rise in the demand for the ethical treatment of animals was a death knell for most of these menageries, However, these Shikarkhanas, the animals they housed, and their stories serve as fascinating gems to revisit from a time gone by.
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