A morning with Lakshmi the Hampi temple elephant

Lakshmi the temple elephant

Early morning bath for all

Elephants are a very important part of many Hindu ceremonies and quite a few temples actually have their own elephant. An elephant costs millions of rupees and is often donated by a benefactor. At the moment however there is quite a controversy regarding the keeping of elephants in caged conditions, this year for example elephants have been banned from zoos and all the ones that previously lived there have to be moved to wildlife reserves. There is however a bit of a debate surrounding temple elephants as they are considered working, rather than caged, animals.

Crys

Nese

When I was in Hampi a month ago with my friend Nese and her daughter Crys from Paris, we spent quite a while in the company of Lakshmi the temple elephant. We first wanted to see her when we went to visit the temple but she was out on some important pachyderm mission so we missed her but a priest said we should go down to the river and watch her daily bath the next morning as it was more interesting. So we duly got up early and headed down to the river for 7.30am.

Bathtime

Bath over, time for work

Like everywhere else in India, the river was already a hive of activity by 7.30am, people were bathing, washing clothes or taking their buffaloes for a morning swim. I must point out though that there was an important ceremony that week and there were thousands of pilgrims camping out in the temples and along the river; hence the river was quite the place to be. After a while, sure enough, we were amazed to see an elephant come ambling down the riverbank steps and into the water. She went in among the other bathers and lay down, first on one side and then on the other while her mahout gave her a good scrub behind the ears, then they played around in the water for a while before ambling back up to the temple, we three in tow.

On the way back through the village we stopped for Lakshmi to have her make-up done, the mahout paints fresh “Om” signs on her ears and bars on her forehead every day. Then we went back into the temple (taking care to put our shoes in our bag as I had had mine pinched the day before when I left them at the gate!).

Lakshmi’s next task was to accompany a little procession of priests who were taking some statues from the temple down to the river for a ritual bath. Nese and Crys managed to get covered in the paint that the head priest was spraying over onlookers on the way whereas, as an experienced Holi fighter, I kept my distance, not particularly wishing to have green and pink hair again (3 months after her visit, my sister Susie is still waiting for the green to grow out of her hair !) Down at the river we left the priest washing their statues and went back to watch Lakshmi at work in the temple. Visitors give her a coin which she takes with her trunk and gives to the mahout before blessing the donator by tapping him or her on the head with her trunk.