Dakshayani has just been formally titled ‘gaja muthassi’ (grandma elephant).
But the 85-year-old elephant, arguably the world’s oldest in captivity, looks unaffected by the buzz around the event – a group of percussion artistes up the tempo, there is a clamour around the visit of two ministers, photographers click away and schoolchildren try to recreate her on paper in a sketching competition on the sidelines.
“She’s the calmest, most obedient elephant we have,” said Prayar Gopalakrishnan, president of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), which owns the elephant. The TDB, which takes care of 33 elephants in various temples, is pitching Wednesday’s event as a starting point for its efforts to include the elephant in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest surviving in captivity. Available records show that the previously oldest elephant – Lin Wang – died in Taipei Zoo on February 26, 2003, aged 86.
The TDB president said the erstwhile Travancore Royal Family had offered Dakshayani, at the age of six, to a temple in Attingal near Thiruvananthapuram. The calf is learnt to have been procured by the family from the elephant camp in Kodanad in Ernakulam district.
Dakshayani now lives in the Chengalloor Sree Mahadeva Temple in Poojappura in Thiruvananthapuram. Though no longer a regular at many of the temple festivals she used to be paraded in, Dakshayani is still a presence in festivals at her home temple.
The Universal Records Forum (URF), a Kolkata-headquartered organisation that identifies unique records and talents, is also involved in ascertaining the elephant’s age for its records. “A state forest department certificate confirms her age as 76 as on July 18, 2007,” Sunil Joseph, chief editor of URF, told Deccan Herald. The TDB has commenced communication with the Guinness Records officials in connection with Dakshayani’s prospective inclusion in the records.
Gopalakrishnan said the TDB spent Rs 4.75 crore last year to maintain its 33 elephants.
During the function, a demand was raised to release a postal stamp to honour the ‘gaja muthassi’. Her caretakers – Ayyappan, Muralidharan and Sundaresan – were honoured at the event. There was also some talk about restrictions on using elephants in religious festivals.