Konark Elephants
August 12 is World Elephant Day

S Balakrishnan *

1966 Stamp

The word ‘elephant’ brings to my mind two colossal elephant statues; one is at Mahabalipuram near Chennai (7-8th century AD) and another is in Konark Sun Temple (13th century). While in Mahabalipuram it is a mammoth monolithic (hewn out of a single rock) solo elephant, in Konark it is a majestic monolithic pair.

This pair originally stood guard on the northern staircase of the porch (the hall where devotees gather for darshan), the tower that remains now. A much taller tower, next to this porch, that stood upon the sanctum sanctorum (garbhagraha) has collapsed.

On the southern side of the porch a pair of beautifully decorated stallions (horses) flanked the steps, while on the main eastern entrance two lions, each atop a crouching elephant, stood guard. By tradition the eastern entrance of a temple is the main entrance and is called the singha (lion) dwara (entrance), with a lion pair guarding the entrance.

Both the elephants

However, the British, while renovating the Konark Sun Temple, haphazardly relocated these three pairs. Installed on new pedestals, the elephant pair and the horse pair have been reversed; now they face the porch instead of the compound wall.

The lion pair has been moved much further away from its original position and placed before the roof-less bhoga mandapa, the first mandap that the visitor faces upon entering the complex. These three pairs are believed to have been originally painted in chocolate-red colour, though they were covered with plaster later.

Both the elephants are now mounted on new pedestals on the northern side of the porch, facing the temple. While the eastern elephant is 2.133m tall, the western elephant is 2.235m high. The eastern elephant is probably more famous, having appeared in a six-paise postal stamp issued in 1966.

Perhaps this statue is more visually appealing because it is in a rampaging mood, holding a dwarf man in its curled trunk with an intention to hurl him away. Caught in the trunk, the figure holds a curved sword and a shield in each of his hands.

The other reason could be that the other elephant is not only docile but also more damaged. Despite being huge statues, the elephants are lively. They are decorated with ornaments like anklets, chains, bells, seating cloth, etc.

Even an ankus (elephant goad) is seen on the eastern elephant’s back. The western elephant also has a dwarf figure, but he is crouched under the elephant’s belly, perhaps happy that he has escaped being caught by the animal. Both the elephants have lost the ear because it appears to be chiseled separately and inserted into holes in the body. The holes are clearly visible.

Selfie in 1983 with Konark Elephant

I was also naturally attracted by the angry but beautiful eastern elephant when I visited the Konark Sun Temple. So, before leaving Orissa on transfer to Sikkim in 1983, I decided to click a Selfie with the pachyderm. But then there was no mobile phone to click a Selfie.

So I placed my Yashica Electro 35 camera on the pedestal of the western elephant and set it in self-timer auto mode, ran back to the decided position besides the eastern elephant and posed charmingly for my first historic Selfie!

Well, to conclude I must include at least one fact & figure to justify the World Elephant Day article. So here it is – In Tamil Nadu the elephant population has increased by 102 from the previous year to 3,063 in 2024.

However, in 2012, there were 4,015 elephants! This is indeed a shocking decrease of about 1,000 elephants within a span of 12 years. But they could be moving in & out of neighbouring States’ forest as well.