Andar the Elephant and his Mahut in the Sri Rangam Temple in south India. |
 lephants can be found in many of the large temples in the south of India. They can be seen in religious processions on major holy days, but more often they are found in the temple compounds, giving blessings to the pilgrims as they visit the temple. The pilgrim simply offers the elephant a banana or a rupee coin, which the elephant deftly takes with the nimble end of its trunk, and places the donation in its mouth or in its keeper's hands, as the case may be. Then the elephant taps (or knocks) the pilgrim on the head as a blessing.
Elephants in this video include Rukmini from the Arunachaleshwar Temple in Tiruvannamalai, Andar from the Sri Rangam Temple in Trichy, and the temple elephant from the famous Krishna temple in Udupi. |
