Robots to the rescue of Indian temple elephants!

Technology challenges a cruel pre-technology custom that originated with the Buddhist prescription for kindness to retired working animals

CHENNAI,  India––Thirty-five years after U.S. inventor Douglas  Malewicki in 1989 built the 40-foot-tall flame-spewing Robosaurus,  thrilling and terrifying exhibition crowds as an apparent real-life Godzilla ever since,  Nanditha Krishna,  author of The Sacred Animals of India,  on September 1,  2024 took “A case for mechanical temple elephants” to the half million readers of the New Indian Express.

Her first sentence should have persuaded anyone of good sense:

“According to the Heritage Animal Task Force,  540 people were killed from elephant attacks during temple processions in Kerala and 742 individuals injured between 2007 and 2024.”

The thickest skulls are on the people

Failing that,  Nanditha Krishna’s next several sentences,  detailing six early 2024 instances of elephants running amok,  should have driven the point home without recourse to use of an ankus,  or bull hook,  the traditional training instrument used by mahouts,  or elephant handlers,  to impart insight through thick skulls and hides.

But good sense and articles of faith seldom mix.  If they did,  the custom of keeping temple elephants,  common in India,  Sri Lanka,  and Thailand,  might have ended soon after the advent of the use of tractors to pull logs out of forests,  and the custom of parading otherwise closely confined temple elephants as part of religious rituals would never have evolved.

The ankus itself might have disappeared along with hand-cranked ignitions.

Robotronics evolving faster than elephant capture

Robosaurus inspired a generation of animatronic dinosaur-builders,  from Hollywood to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to the Kokoro and On-Art corporations of Japan,  who have over the past several generations populated zoos,  museums,  and amusement parks with increasingly lifelike renditions of an ever-widening array of both prehistoric and imaginary beasts.

Meanwhile,  observed Nanditha Krishna,  “The systems of capturing and training elephants have evolved variously in different regions” of India and Southeast Asia,  “from the use of female elephants as decoys to the use of nooses concealed on the ground.  The only thing they have in common,”  Nanditha Krishna alleged,  and few outside the elephant exhibition industry disagree,  “is cruelty.”

Elephants are supposed to be protected

“Domesticated elephants in India are supposed to be subject to the provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960,”  Nanditha Krishna mentioned.

“The Prevention of Cruelty to Draught & Pack Animals Rules of 1965 prohibits the use of elephants for drawing a vehicle or carrying a load for more than nine hours a day.

“The law prohibits the use of any sharp equipment for driving an elephant,”  Nanditha Krishna continued,  and this could technically include the ankus.

But the law pertaining to elephant-keeping is widely ignored,  both in India and elsewhere,  especially when the use and abuse of elephants is associated with religion and culture––and profitable.

“No scripture requires the use of elephants”

“As a practicing Hindu who has read the shastras,”  Nanditha Krishna wrote,   “I know that no scripture requires the use of elephants in rituals.  The elephant is Lord Ganesha,  to be loved and worshipped.

“To prevent injuries and deaths,”  Nanditha Krishna continued,  “three temples in Kerala and one in Mysuru have adopted a novel alternative:  the mechanical elephant,”  evolved as a recent incarnation of Robosaurus.

“The Irinjadappilly Sree Krishna temple in Thrissur has Raman,”  Nanditha Krishna recited.

Donated by PETA

Donated by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA-India],  Raman debuted on February 26,  2023.

Others followed.

“The Thrikkayil Mahadeva temple in Kochi has Mahadevan,”  Nanditha Krishna continued. “The  Pournamikavu temple in Thiruvananthapuram has Baladhasan.  The Jagadguru Sri Veerasimhasana Mahasamsthana Math in Mysuru has Shiva.

“Tamil Nadu got its first robotic temple elephant in 2024 at the Shivan temple in Devarshola,”  Nanditha Krishna recounted.

“The mechanical elephants are 3 meters tall (10 feet,  six inches),  weigh 800 kilograms (about three quarters of a ton),  and are made of rubber,  cloth,  metal,  mesh, foam and steel.  They run on electric motors.

“They look just like the living animal”

“They look just like the living animal,”  Nanditha Krishna testified.  “A mechanical elephant looks,  feels,  and is used like a real elephant.  It can shake its head,  move its ears and eyes,  swish its tail, lift its trunk and even spray water.  It can be climbed upon.

“It is mounted on a wheelbase,  allowing it to be moved around for rituals and circumambulation.  To run the motors,  a small generator is moved along with it.

“Presently,”  Nanditha Krishna reported,  “three vendors manufacture mechanical elephants:  two in Kerala and one in Maharashtra.”

All well and good.  No doubt robotic elephants can become as capable of perplexing blind men in reality as a real elephant reputedly was in in the 2,500-year-old Buddhist parable of the blind men meeting an elephant for the first time,  trying to describe the elephant.

The parable is told to illustrate differing experiences of the acts and powers of God,  of whom the Buddha is believed to have been a human incarnation.

The Buddha was a white elephant

The Buddha also “is believed to have been a white elephant before his birth as the human prince Siddhartha,”  Nanditha Krishna mentioned in The Sacred Animals of India,  “and to have been a golden peacock and to have had 18 lives as a monkey before becoming the elephant.”

But a common denominator among cruel and pointless rituals, both religious and secular, is that they typically began with some long-forgotten practical purpose,  and continue from cultural force of habit long after that purpose has been forgotten.

Keeping temple elephants appears to have spread into Hinduism from Buddhism,  which is ironic because Buddhism came originally out of Hinduism.

Historically,  keeping temple elephants likely originated in the teaching of the Buddha that working animals who have served humans well throughout their lives should enjoy compassionate retirement at the ends of their lives.

Temple animal sanctuaries

Thus began the tradition formerly existing throughout Asia of Buddhist temples doubling as sanctuaries for all sorts of retired working animals,  including horses,  donkeys,  bullocks,  and even street dogs,  feral cats,  and macaques.

Though the practical roles of temple animal sanctuaries have long since been superseded in much of Asia by western-style human society and animal control shelters,  the custom of the temple animal sanctuary persists as well.

Even if a temple does not intentionally keep and feed animals,  practically every temple of any significant size in Asia hosts macaques,  street dogs,  feral cats,  and abundant rats,  whether or not it wants them.

Feasting on leftover food offerings,  the animals appear to be tolerated by temple monks and priests more-or-less to the extent that they bring offerings of money as well as edibles.

From golden calves to plastic Jesus

As retired working elephants have proved over the centuries to be by far the biggest magnets for offerings of all sorts,  so Buddhist,  Hindu,  and some temples of other sorts have come to keep elephants.

Can robotic elephants inspire offerings as do the living animals?

This remains to be seen.  Certainly keeping Robosaurus and his technological descendants has proven profitable at many secular entertainment venues.

There is ample precedent,  too,  for literal worship of manufactured entities.  Examples range from the golden calf made by the Biblical priest Aaron to the 1957 Ed Rush and George Cromarty folk song “Plastic Jesus.”

Paul Simon in “The Sounds of Silence” (1965) sang of people who “bowed and prayed / to the neon God they’d made.”

Feeding & donating

But will anyone feel motivated to “feed” a robotic elephant as generously and often as donors contribute to feeding real elephants?

Feeding and donating to help feed temple elephants appears to be as popular as ever among the public in India,  Sri Lanka,  and Thailand,  but keeping temple elephants is in growing disrepute among the educated classes,  both because of how the elephants are typically kept in prison-like conditions and because of how they are sourced.

Some temple elephants in recent times have been acquired in a semblance of retirement from working lives,  purchased from circuses,  elephant ride concessionaires,  traveling mahouts caught illegally begging along roadsides,  and private menageries.

Many temple elephants,  however,  are believed to have originally been taken by government wildlife agencies from “rogue” herds who have menaced crops and/or human habitation,  before passing semi-clandestinely into private possession with the suspect help of corrupt high mucky-mucks.

Elephantine battle

India is believed to have from 23,000 to 41,000 elephants left in the wild, more than half of the total population of Asian elephants.

India also has the longest record of protecting both wild elephants and elephant habitat of any nation, beginning about 2,240 years ago.

But extending protection to the estimated 2,700 elephants in captivity in India,  mostly temple elephants,  in conflict with a 3,500-year history of elephant use and exhibition,  has proved to be an elephantine battle.

V.R. Iyer fought for liberation of temple elephants

The first known confiscations of abused and/or neglected temple elephants came in 2009,  after years of legal and legislative efforts led by Vaidyanathapura Rama Krishna Iyer.

Iyer,  chairing the Kerala Law Reform Commission at age 95,  sought passage of a “Compassion for Living Creatures Bill” which would have limited to four hours at a stretch the use of elephants in parades,  at festivals, and in temple ceremonies.

Use of elephants also would have been limited to eight hours in any given 24-hour period.

Further,  the Iyer bill stated, “If during the festivals, any fireworks are conducted,  elephants,  if any are present at the festival place,  shall be taken to their resting place and be properly chained so that the elephants may be under control of the mahouts so that breach of peace can be avoided.”

Bill failed, but sparked progress

The “Compassion for Living Creatures Bill” failed, but in November 2009 the Central Zoo Authority of India ordered that elephants could no longer be exhibited by zoos and circuses.

However,  lacking adequate facilities to keep the 140 elephants who were supposed to have been taken off exhibit,  the Central Zoo Authority in September 2010 retreated from enforcing the 2009 order.

A month later, in October 2010, then-Indian environment and animal welfare minister Jairam Ramesh designated elephants a National Heritage Animal, a status previously given only to tigers,  who were so recognized in 1973.

“There can be no more private ownership of elephants”

“Since the elephant has been declared a National Heritage Animal,” said People for Animals founder Maneka Gandhi,  who had preceded Ramesh as minister for animal welfare,  “there can no more be private ownership of elephants.  A national property cannot be owned by private individuals. All temples and private individuals owning elephants should immediately surrender them to the government.

“Has the machinery for that been constituted?” Maneka Gandhi asked.  “The setup for that has to be evolved,  and then there should be rescue centers for elephants. There should also be punishment for private individuals if they happen to keep this National Heritage Animal.  Unless there are enforcement rules,” Maneka Gandhi warned, “the declaration may not serve its purpose.”

Wildlife SOS started elephant sanctuaries

The Animal Welfare Board of India on November 15, 2013 reinforced the order by announcing that it would no longer license elephants for circus use, and would prosecute circuses that use sick,  injured, and unlicensed animals.

Still,  though,  there was nowhere to put confiscated elephants in significant numbers.

Iyer died at age 100 on December 4, 2014.

The Indian animal charity Wildlife SOS,  which earlier ended “dancing bear” exhibitions in Inda and established several sanctuaries for former dancing bears,  in 2018 opened the first treatment and rescue center for former temple elephants.

Tamil Nadu directive

Finally,  on March 1,  2023,  the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court in Tamil Nadu state directed the Secretary of the Government, Environment and Forest Department to ensure that there would be no further acquisition of elephants by private individuals or religious institutions.

There are,  however,  28 states and eight other “union territories” in India,  most of which have elephant temples.

Ending the custom of keeping temple elephants would appear to require the combined efforts of Lord Ganesha,  Robosaurus,  and friends,  sustained in the courts,  political venues,  and the offices of liability insurers for many years to come.

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