Times Literary Supplement Trunk lines Rachel Dwyer Raman Sukumar THE STORY OF ASIA’S ELEPHANTS I n India the boundaries between animals, humans and gods are extremely porous. Souls are held to transmigrate across these boundaries; gods may take on animal or human form – or both simultaneously – as Vishnu does in his ten incarnations, or Ganesha who has an elephant head and a human body. Nor are elephants entirely confined to any one of these categories, for they are partly divine and seem very human. Famous elephants, including the distinguished Kesavan, who stood 3.2 metres in height and served the Guruvayoor temple in Kerala for over fifty years until his death in 1976, were thought to be an incarnation of the deity. A life-size statue of Kesavan stands guard outside the temple, garlanded and honoured by a procession of elephants every year on the anniversary of his death. Temple vendors still do a brisk business selling photographs of him, and near-lifesize cut-outs of this celebrity animal welcome travellers to airports in Kerala. A popular film adaptation of his life made in 1977 portrays him to be very human in his morality and devotion, although when he dies, his soul is shown leaving his body and joining the divine, dropping a lotus as an offering at the feet of his beloved god, Guruvayoorappan. Images of elephants go back to the earliest history of Asia, with domesticated elephants seen on the seals of the Indus Valley Civilization. They were a popular subject of miniature painting, and today their image proliferates across the media. In ancient Buddhist and Hindu mythology the elephant was a symbol of power and status, associated with royalty and the military – wars were fought in South East Asia over the ownership of white elephants. The importance of the elephant in ancient India led to a branch of early Indian scientific literature, the Gajashastra (treatises on elephants), based on the observations of elephant handlers (mahouts), which are still in use today as manuals of elephant care, as well as guides to auspicious and aesthetic features. Wars were fought in South East Asia over the ownership of white elephants Wild elephants in Asia are now confined to the remaining small pockets of forest, whereas in medieval India dense forests were rich with elephants, so much so that on an elephant-capturing expedition, Firuz Shah Tughlaq of Delhi became lost in them for several months, and had to be rescued by a search party. Today, there is limited first-hand knowledge of elephants. The popular image is of a wise but clumsy, lumbering beast, rather than a dangerous animal that can run at 25 miles per hour and kill a human with a flick of its trunk. When elephants abounded in Asia, they were also acknowledged as beautiful, strong and graceful. This view of the elephant as aesthetically delightful is found in Sanskrit kavya, courtly literature, which abounds with descriptions of elephants. They enhance the landscape as they exude ichor from their temples, as well as other bodily apertures. The smell of ichor is compared to cardamom, and a common conceit is that it is so sweet that it not only perfumes the water in which the elephants bathe, but also attracts bees who cluster round elephants’ foreheads, finding the fragrance more attractive than that of flowers. Elephants are compared to clouds, dark, large, grey, thundering and full of water (the Irrawaddy River shares the name of Airawat, the seven-trunked elephant of Indra, king of the gods), thus making the earth seem like the sky when they form in herds. Elephants use their tusks to dig up mountains to show their prowess, which is likened to that of kings who uproot their enemies. Any student of Sanskrit comes up against the “untranslatable” metaphors and similes of classical poetry, some of which famously involve the elephant. One of the most celebrated tropes is that of a graceful woman: gajagamani, “she who has the gait of an elephant” – a slow, elegant swaying walk. M. F. Husain, India’s most famous modern artist, whose work in the past has featured elephants, made a feature film, Gaja Gamini (2000), in tribute to his Bollywood idol, Madhuri Dixit, shooting her mostly from the back, as she walked gracefully, in multiple roles evoking the spirit of Indian womanhood. While stock expressions such as “moon-faced women” and “women with hands like sprouts” can be negotiated, elephant images are more difficult. Women are described as having “thighs like an elephant’s trunk” (meaning long and tapering) and have “breasts like elephant’s head bosses”. Similes comparing men with elephants, such as kings who have the gait of an elephant, a stately, regal walk, are less problematic, as these evoke images of power rather than beauty. In the Kama Sutra, among the four types of women is found the hastini or elephant woman Even more surprising than the elegance of the elephant are the erotics of the elephant in classical Sanskrit literature. Westerners used to think elephants were very bashful and retreated deep into the forest for secret mating, but those who came across them in daily life thought differently. In the Kama Sutra, among the four types of women is found the hastini or elephant woman, who is “gluttonous, shameless and irascible”. The author of The Asian Elephant (1989) and The Living Elephants (2003), Raman Sukumar has, with The Story of Asia’s Elephants, put his vast erudition at the service of a wider readership. He has collected almost every fact known about the Asian elephant, from its evolution as a species to its current conservation status, presenting a chronological history of human–elephant relations in Asia. Sukumar points out that the survival of the Asian elephant, elephas maximus, currently an endangered species, is entirely dependent on humans, so an understanding of its cultural importance is crucial in raising support for conservation. Raman Sukumar’s richly illustrated book trumpets the glories of the elephant and its cultural role, showing clearly why India declared it a national heritage animal in 2010. Rachel Dwyer is Professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema at SOAS, University of London.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 21:52:08 +0000
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