Blessings from Elephant in Temples of India
Don’t be surprised if you are confronted by elephants in temples of Tamil Nadu. These elephants are trained animals, trained to even bless you. During festivals elephants are decorated and taken out on processions.
Their routine work would include carrying and transferring heavy loads and sometimes idols too within temple complex. Devotees seeking blessings from elephant in temples of India, especially south India is a common occurrence.
Blessings from Temple Elephants
One of the daily activities of these mute mammoth animals would be to bless visitors and collect money. The elephants are decorated with Bhasma, the three horizontal lines on the forehead indicates it is a devotee of Lord Shiva. Mahouts always stands close to them.
Presence of mahout infuses confidence in kids and adults to approach the elephant. Children visiting temples find it exciting and fun to get blessed by the elephants.
They queue up in front of these elephants, the elephants extend the trunk like upturned palm towards them. As soon as the coin is placed on the trunk, it would swing the trunk to the mahout and pass the coin to him.
Then it would place the trunk on their heads and lo! they are blessed. Adults too wait patiently for their turn.
I just didn’t like the idea of these mahouts making an earning out of these mute animals, so I sent my daughters with bunches of bananas. To our astonishment and disappointment, the elephant happily ate the bananas but did not do the act of blessing.
Obviously it was not trained to do so. The selfish Humans have successfully trained these mute animals to be money minded. My daughters made a second trip, this time armed with coins!
Blessings from Temple Elephants
Blessings from Lakshmi in Hampi
One of the most popular elephants famed to bless devotees is Lakshmi in Virupaksha Temple in Hampi, Karnataka. Place a 10 rupee note in her extended trunk, she will pass it to her mahout and bless you!
This practice is on for years now. Some tourists and devotees follow her to her bathing spot in Tungabhadra river. She playfully splashes water on them.
Not many support using elephants for acts like this. Many perceive it as a way of deceiving the people for money. But then where will the money come for feeding the elephants. Obviously the cost to cater to their huge appetite cannot be met by the earnings of the poor mahouts and hence they resort to such means.
What is your opinion about this?
This elephant with the bhasma was a mesmerizing treat to the eyes as I mentioned on your twitter handle hence I could not stop but interpret the beauty in my doodle art format. Thanks again 🙂
I dont think there is any spirituality connected about taking blessings from the elephants, its good for fun and on the other side… an intellectual idea of earning money.
Aww..so cute. I remeber feeding an elephant at the Amer Fort in Jaipur 🙂
It's a give and take symbiotic relationship here.
But when the mahouts over work these elephants and make them go through
the regular routine even when they are in heat, is when things turn ugly
as was evident in some temples in the south.
Nice candid photographs.
The most exciting part of a temple visit for kids ! 🙂
I imagine those elephants would love their freedom.
This is so fantastic !! My current post is also based on Elephants !! I would love to take some blessings too !!
Beautiful post….Love the pictures too…
The kids really love this, don't they? They say something soft just plomps on their head. I watch from a distance!
Aw, elephants are so sweet!
Nice painting on the elephant!!
It looks like the elephant
is kissing your daughter :))))))))
LOL
Great shots of the elephants! I hope they're well cared for…
Really interesting pictures! Very nice elephants!
Elephants are beautiful animals!
hey! i just started a blog takin inspiration from yours! i love travelin but then its not as prolific as yours 😀
the price for taking care of the elephants has to be paid for!
love the 2nd pic… smiling elephant
Gigantic!
Please take a peek of my sister's PETS
How interesting, but why are they mute?
Really??!! thats very sad.. isnt it!!! huummm…
YOur pics are impressive!
fascinating
Indrani: What a neat animal, I think they need no decoration.
Wow, very cool. Beautiful photos.
Darryl and Ruth : )
Love to see those elephants! Gorgeous pictures of them!
Amazing and neat that the elephants can be so wel trained. Great photos.
Lovely post. I particularly liked your observation about the elephants being money-minded.
Hi Indrani! It seems that the life of elephants in captivity is always connected with coins: I remember going to the zoo as a kid and seeing people giving coins to the elephant so that he could ring the bell for some carots at lunch time… 😉
Blogtrotter 2 is still in Jamaica, waiting for your comments. Enjoy and have a great weekend!!
Samhith loves these elephants… the first thing he asks in a temple is money for the elephant…
and i agree about the mahout making money from the blessings, but all said and done i feel the temple elephants are better cared for than the others, esp those in circuses or those used for rides…
This is super-interesting!
And the carved elephants earlier are also marvelous.
Such treasures you have!