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PURI, ORISSA, June 22, 2003: The elephant will no longer be used as part of the age-old rituals in the annual rath yatra (car festival) of Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra, which begins on July 1. The temple authorities have decided to break with the tradition of an elephant leading the procession of the Puri king from his palace to the three chariots, parked near the Temple’s Lion Gate. Last year Laxmi, an elephant who came all the way from Varanasi to perform the ritual, died, and the Temple authorities came under severe criticism from the general public as well as the wildlife lovers for not attending on the ailing elephant properly. Also, as a result, the Temple management was accused of being in violation of the Wildlife Protection Act.



Arranging an elephant became a problem for the Temple management after the Nandankanan Zoo Authority in nearby Bhubaneswar refused to part with its pet elephants, Prema and Basanti, to lead the procession of the Puri Gajapati in 2000 car festival. For decades Prema was used in the rituals as she was docile, obedient and better trained by the mahut to accommodate the surging crowd during the car festival. Basanti, the other female elephant of the zoo, also accompanied her for at least five years. The practice of using elephants from the zoo was discontinued in 2000 when the two female elephants on their way to participate in the car festival damaged several houses near Patia village. Wildlife officials attributed the behavior of these two elephants to the loud honking by a passing vehicle. Since then, the zoo authority decided not to send them to participate in the festival. A senior zoo official said the crowd behavior, the traffic and the road condition had changed over the years and were no longer conducive for the elephants to join the rituals as it would be difficult to ensure everyone’s security. Moreover, the mahut who used to guide and interact with Prema for over a decade is no longer alive, and the zoo officials felt that it would be too dangerous to send Prema to the car festival with another mahut.

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