Majestic tuskers of Sri Dalada Maligawa

2022-04-01 - Kandy, Sri Lanka.

The chief tusker who represents this Sacred Temple is Indi Raja who is 45-years-old. The tuskers are Sinha Raja, Thai Raja, Jana Raja, Migara, Kaveri Raja, Myan Raja, Buruma Raja and Pulasthi Raja. The other elephants are Kandula, Nalaka and Kadhira. Our chief tusker Indi Raja was donated to the Dalada Maligawa in 1989 aged seven years. He was assigned for Perahera duty when he reached 18 years of age”. Indi Raja was donated by the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

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Kandy Perahera 2014

2014-08-01 - Kandy, Sri Lanka.

The most popular and colourful festival in Sri Lanka, Kandy Perahera is celebrated once a year usually in August. Dates for Kandy Perahera 2014 will be from 01st to the 11th of August 2014.

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Religion Journal: How to Dress an Elephant

2012-07-31 - Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Kishinchand Chadiram Thadhani has been dressing elephants for 47 years. He is the official outfitter to the elephants taking part in one of Buddhism’s most significant festivals; the Kandy Esala Perahera in Sri Lanka. The 10-day parade centered on Kandy’s Sri Dalada Maligawa, the Temple of the Tooth Relic, ends Thursday.

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Baby elephant drowns

2011-06-05 - Kandy, Sri Lanka. Gandhya Senanayake & Karunarathna Athukorala

A baby elephant had drowned at the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage Saturday evening, officials said. It drowned after the foot of the baby reportedly got trapped in stones in the area which led to the drowning in the Ma-Oya, they said. Senior Assistant Director Renuka Bandaranayke told Daily Mirror Online that the body of baby elephant had been sent to the Veterinary faculty of the Peradeniya University for the postmortem and that they were waiting for the autopsy report. A police and administrati...

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Sri Lankan vets better

2010-12-09 - Kandy, Thailand. Asela KURULUWANSA and Indika POLKOTUWA

Sri Lankan Veterinary Scientists are far ahead of their counterparts in other Asian countries such as India, Thailand and Myanmar, said Peradeniya University Veterinary Science Senior Lecturer Ashoka Dangolla addressing the media at Kandy Sinhala Traders´ Front auditorium Monday. he said that only two percent of elephants in Sri Lanka die when being transferred from one forest to another, whereas in other Asian countries the corresponding figure is about 10 percent.

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Annual Esala Great Parade kicks off in Sri Lanka

2010-08-25 - Kandy, Sri Lanka.

An elephant stands in front of Sri Lanka´s Temple of the Tooth (Dalada Maligawa) waiting for the start of Maha Pereha (Great Parade) at Kandy, about 110 km northeast of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Aug. 24, 2010. The Esala Maha Perahera (Great Parade) was held on Tuesday night at the ancient capital of Kandy. As one of the biggest Buddhist celebrations in Sri Lanka, the annual Esala Perahera during which elephants, drummers, dancers and acrobats parade along the streets of Kandy, is held for ten da...

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Monk dies after elephant attack

2009-11-01 - Kandy, Sri Lanka.

An elephant who was tethered at the Natha Devala premises of the Sri Dalada Maligawa, Kandy attached the resident monk of Sri Pushparamaya, Ihala Kadigamuwa Ven. Maunawe Medhankara Thera on Saturday (31/10) evening and caused him serious injuries. The monk on admission to Kandy hospital succumbed to his injuries. This rogue elephant known as 'Nilame' was chained and confined to the Devala premises as it was behaving in a boisterous manner for some time. It had also reportedly attacked a mahout d...

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Agonising death in 2007 of a Maligawa elephant

2009-08-09 - Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Sindu and Raju are not the only elephants handed over to the Dalada Maligawa at the request of the Diyawadana Nilames (DN). In 2007, the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) came under pressure to release a wild elephant brought to the Maligawa to be tamed. Dr.Vijitha Perera, a veterinary surgeon attached to the DWC, described the sad fate of this elephant in his book “Ten Years with the Wild Elephants” (Wana Ali Samaga Dasa Wasarak).

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Massive crowds at first Kumbal Perahera

2009-07-29 - Kandy, Sri Lanka. Asela Kuruluwansa

The third Kumbal Perahera of the Kandy Esala pageant will parade the streets of Kandy tonight. A massive crowd witnessed the first Kumbal Perahera on Monday. Although the perahera commenced at 7.20 p.m. all streets along the perahera route were overcrowded with people occupying all vantage points by 4 p.m. with a considerable number left out on other streets unable to gain access to streets on the perahera route. Among the crowds were a large number of children.

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Nearly 120 jumbo deaths every year

2008-09-01 - Kandy, Sri Lanka. S.M. Jiffrey Abdeen

In Sri Lanka nearly 120 elephants are killed by humans and in return about 65 people die after being attacked by elephants every year. The number of cases of elephants being killed or run over by trains could be reduced if the train staff take precautions by giving the elephants enough warning in advance when they spot the elephants close to the rail tracks, Managing Trustee of the Bio Diversity and Elephant Conservation Trust and leading expert on Asian elephants and former planter Jayantha Jay...

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Call to protect elephants

2008-08-24 - Kandy, Sri Lanka. S. M. Jiffrey ABDEEN- Kandy South Group Corr

Elephants live in herds are led by the oldest female elephant in the herd. The male elephant is driven away from the herd to prevent breeding. These are the strange ways of elephants said the Managing Trustee of Bio Diversity and Elephant Conservation Trust and leading expert on Asian elephants and former planter Jayantha Jayawardena. Jayawardena said that the elephants in Sri Lanka are highly threatened in spite of what anyone may say to the contrary. Explaining the reasons for the Human - Elep...

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Are Peraheras only of Elephants?

2008-08-20 - Kandy, Sri Lanka. R.A.Ratwatte, Basnayake Nilame – Lankatilleke Sri Vishnu Devalaya- Handessa

There seems to be a belief among the general populace that a perahera is judged by the number of elephants therein. One of the first questions that is asked when one says one has viewed a perahera is: "How many elephants?" A large number is greeted with an appropriate response and a small number is invariably greeted with derision and an insinuation that one has wasted one’s time at that perahera! Contrary to popular belief and the belief of certain uneducated custodians of temples and organis...

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Elephants, acrobats enliven Sri Lankan Buddhist festival

2008-08-17 - Kandy, Sri Lanka. P. Karunakharan

Nearly 100 caparisoned elephants, dancers and torchbearers walked down the streets of this central city decorated with colourful lights and flags as the annual Buddhist festival of Kandy Perahera (pageant) was celebrated with great enthusiasm. The colourful parade began Saturday night from the sacred Buddhist shrine of Dalada Maligawa, showcasing the temple custodians known as Nilames, who were dressed up like ancient kings. The festivities also included traditional Kandyan dancers, fire-jugglin...

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Tuskers from Myanmar ready for Perahera

2007-08-05 - Kandy, Sri Lanka.

These are the first pictures of the two tuskers gifted by the Government of Myanmar to the Government of Sri Lanka, with the Myanmar Ambassador and veterinarian Dr. Kmin Maung Tsu of the Myanmar Forestry Ministry. President Mahinda Rajapaksa inspected the two tuskers and fed them when they were brought to the Janadhipathi Mandiraya in Kandy about two weeks ago. The official handing over of the two tuskers would be on the last day of the Perahera or on the following day. The elephant keeper from ...

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Kandy Esala Perahera in Sri Lanka. One of the world"s grandest and most spectacular elephant street parades and processions.

2007-07-08 - Kandy, Sri Lanka. MySriLankaTravel

The significance of this perahera dates to 310 AD when the tooth relic of Buddha was brought from India. For two weeks at the end of July and in to the first few day's of august, elephants parade the street at night, officials and chieftains wear traditional costume and dancers leap to the timeless rhythm of the drums. The elephants are decorated with ornate regalia and battery operated light, adding to the spectacle.

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Reflections from Sri Lanka

2006-11-17 - Kandy, Sri Lanka. Jamie Lorimers

There are about 3 000 wild elephants and more than 20 million people in Sri Lanka, an island the size of Ireland. Before the Brits arrived at the end of the eighteenth century there were less than a million people and many, many more elephants. We shot the majority of them, destroyed their habitat for tea and (perhaps indirectly) catalysed a human population explosion.

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24 years on Internet!

ELEPHANT NEWS was created on 2001 in Munich, and relaunched in Phnom Penh in 2020, with almost 8 000 links to news articles about elephants on the Internet. A number of articles now also have a cross reference to the elephant database, either for individuals elephants and/or to an article about the location holding