Pageant without pachyderms!
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
Can you imagine a colourful perahera sans the majestic, beautifully caparisoned elephant? Can you visualize the karanduwa (casket) bearing the sacred relics of Lord Buddha being taken on the back of say, a horse?
This may be the sad but real situation our children and grandchildren may soon have to face. The alarm has been sounded about this elephantine issue by the Diyawadane Nilame of the Dalada Maligawa, Neranjan Wijeyeratne at the conclusion of the Esala pageant just last week.
When informing President Chandrika Kumaratunga of the successful conduct of the perahera the traditional way, the Diyawadane Nilame has indicated that very soon there may not be any elephants to continue this sacred and age-old custom.
Echoing the Diyawadane Nilame's fears, the Nayake Hamuduruwo of the Kelaniya Raja Maha Viharaya, Ven. Kollupitiye Mahinda Sangharakkitha Thera says, "The temples scattered across the country including ours which conduct peraheras have this problem. For Kandy it is not too bad because they own 12 elephants but we have only one. Those days we used to have about 50 elephants in our perahera held in January, with most of them being drawn from our own areas such as Dompe, Mapitigama and Attanagalle. Now it is very difficult to find elephants."
The Kelani Viharaya owns a baby tusker, gifted by the government, which would take about 10 years to train to carry the casket. "This January we had to make do with the tusker of the Kataragama devale," concedes the Thero, adding that if the dearth of elephants continues the only option maybe to import tuskers from India.
Explaining that from ancient times, the elephant has been inextricably linked with the temple peraheras because it is the king of the animals and, therefore, the most suitable to use when paying homage to Lord Buddha, he suggests another option. That of capturing elephants which are in conflict with villagers, without allowing them to fall victim to the gun. “The state could run a large scale eth gala and loan them to temples whenever the need arises to use them in peraheras."
How has the shortage of elephants come about?
The answers are provided by a paaramparika (generational) elephant owner. "Those days, during the time of my grandfather, the government allowed elephant owners to get permits, hire mukku karuwas (those who could capture elephants) and replenish their dwindling livestock," says Mervyn Dudley Senarath, Secretary of the Elephant Owners' Association and Basnayake Nilame of the Kaduwela Sankapithi Viharaya who considers it a sacred duty to provide elephants for the temple peraheras.
Mr. Senarath, now a third generation elephant owner, laments that the issue of permits for elephant capture was done away with in the 1970s. "Now elephants which were with us during my grandfather's time are quite old. They are at least over 60 years old. Even the elephants we got in the 1970s are more than 30.” Of the nine elephants, his family owned, he is left with only two.
It is the same story of old age that most elephant owners face with regard to their beloved pachyderms, he calculates, saying that there are 162 elephants with private owners including temples and devales. "Among them there are only seven tuskers," he adds. In the past two years, 17 elephants of private owners have died due to old age, he says revealing that in the Kandy perahera there were only four tuskers.
What of the Pinnawela elephants? "Harak hadanawa wage ali hadanna be" (You cannot rear elephants like you do cattle), stresses the Basnayake Nilame adding that elephants used in peraheras need training. "A box is tied to the back of the small fellows and they are walked around to make them accustomed to carrying the casket. They also have to be trained to wear the clothes."
Raja which killed its mahout at the Dehiwela Zoo is a good example how elephants can, not only be disciplined but also trained. "Who carried the karanduwa in the recently concluded Kataragama Devale perahera?" he asks, proudly adding that it was Raja who was bought by his relative at the Zoo auction and looked after well and cared for.
The shortage of tame elephants is aggravated when there are simultaneous peraheras in different parts of the country. "There were three peraheras last week, in Kandy, Kataragama and Devundara. Of the domesticated elephants, about 80 percent are over 50 years old. So these animals have to be spread around to hold a successful perahera, that's why they are taken in lorries and trucks over long distances," says Ali Vedamahaththaya, W.S. Miyanapalawa. An acknowledged expert, whose father and grandfather were also in the business of treating elephants, he says he counted only 29 elephants this time in the Dalada Perahera. "I counted them," he says sadly, commenting on the drop in elephant numbers.
"Elephants are vital for a pageant. People do not come to see the dancers, they mainly come to see these mighty animals in all their finery," he says while Mr. Senarath pleads, like those in many temples and devales including the Dalada Maligawa, that the authorities take immediate action to find a solution to this problem.
"Otherwise in 10 years our children will only see the stately perahera elephant in their vivid costumes in pictures or people dressed up in gunnies as elephants," warns Mr. Senarath.
Jumbos go to Cabinet
A top-level committee will be set up to study this crisis which has arisen with regard to the scarcity of tame elephants and make recommendations, President Chandrika Kumaratunga has assured, taking the warnings sounded by the temples into account.
On the part of the government, Environment Minister Rukman Senanayake has recommended to Cabinet that male elephants born in Pinnawela should be given free to temples and for a fee to private elephant owners. "Of 10 elephants earmarked for this purpose, already five have been given out to temples and devales."
Once temples and private owners heard of such distribution, there was a huge demand for elephants. "We realised this was a fruitless exercise and I am planning to bring an amendment to the first Cabinet paper, looking at a long-term solution," says Mr. Senanayake detailing that he intends to identify people and a place where about 10 to 20 bull elephants from Pinnawela can be trained and kept in a pool for use in peraheras, whenever the necessity arises.
Pinnawela has just two tuskers, one of which has not formed well to carry out the sacred duties expected of a tusker. "The other we need to keep to breed baby tuskers," he adds.
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