Hampi’s 15th century Virupasksha Temple looks like many other famous Hindu pilgrimage sites except in the inner courtyard, where an Asian elephant named Laxshmi benignly gives her blessings. She gently picks up a one rupee coin with her almost prehensile end of her trunk, drops the coin off into the waiting hand of her handler or mahout, and then gently slides her trunk from the top of the person’s head to about the shoulder and then she looks away and the blessing is complete. Ten seconds. I have to admit, I thought the brief encounter was pretty cool.
Laxshmi seemed to purposely slightly vary her blessing based on how apprehensive or young the supplicant was. After five minutes of watching other Indian and foreign tourists and pilgrims experience this, I noticed she kept one of her back feet against the temple wall like people do when their feet are tired. She perked up a bit when she had to smash coconut shells against the temple floor to eat the coconut but, otherwise, she seemed rather listless. Hmmh, wouldn’t you get bored too standing in the same place for hours touching strangers?
The highlight of her day must be her morning wash in the nearby river by her mahout. She slowly descends down the steps to the river with the bell around her neck ringing to her step. I took several pictures of this daily ritual which she will experience for the next 40 or so years. Please check out her snout as it pokes out like an alien figure in the water and the sickle-like end of the mahout’s second stick on the pavement. Upon occasion, elephants have killed their mahouts – it has happened twice in the last month alone.
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- Laxshmi heads to the river
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- Laxshmi bathing
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- Check that snout out!
At least, the mahout took his time thoroughly scrubbing Laxshmi – she must have been in the water for more than an hour. When the bath finishes, she is back to work at the temple until dusk when it closes. As I left her to her bath, the coolness of the blessing feeling fades against the stronger feeling of compassion for such an intelligent, enormous fellow being confined to such a narrow range of activity and physical area. If she is more like us than we know, then what type of blessing is she really giving?
