KING OF RAVANAPURI 🐘 🇱🇰

        The most holy animal in the whole world. The only animal in the world with an army guard. 

        Nadungamuwa Raja, 66 years old, is a celebrated elephant towering around 10.5 feet (3.2 meters) in height, the tallest tamed tusker in Sri Lanka. And he has his own armed guards. 

        Raja is an unofficial national treasure because he is one of the few tuskers chosen to carry a casket of Buddha relics in an annual pageant at the most sacred Buddhist shrine on the island, the Temple of the Tooth.

        Raja walks 90 kilometers (55 miles) to the hill resort of Kandy for the event, called the Esala pageant. He walks 25 to 30 kilometers a day, traveling mostly at night when it is cooler.

        Raja was born in 1954, not in Sri Lanka but in the stables of a maharajah in Mysore, India. He was one of two baby elephants gifted to a physician monk from the Nilammahara Temple in Piliyandala, Sri Lanka, who had traveled to the maharajah's estates to heal the ailing aristocrat. The two young elephants were shipped to Sri Lanka. When the monk could no longer afford to keep the two animals, they were sold, and Raja ended up at the timber factory, perhaps to repay an ancient karmic debt.

        Senior Dr Dharmavijaya doted on his elephant. When he passed away, his son, Dr Harsha Dharmavijaya, inherited the animal. Like his father, Harsha is a native physician of people, but is also skilled in elephant vedakam, indigenous medicine for elephants. Raja is in good hands.

        Raja is one of the family, says Harsha. His diet is carefully monitored to ensure it is balanced and strengthening. It varies from day to day-if he has coconut leaves on Monday, it would be  jack fruit on Tuesday, bo leaves on Wednesday and banana trunks the day after. Just a 350kg helping a day is a reasonable share for a big guy. There are fruits too-bananas, mangoes and his favorite, pineapples, and the occasional treat of jaggery. And there are baths every other day... a three-kilometer walk to the river takes an hour, accompanied by Wilson, assistant mahout Indika Jayasinghe, and a few others. Raja soaks for as long as five hours, lolling around almost underwater except for the tip of his trunk. On his way to and from the bath, he willingly stops for treats from the townsfolk who pop tasty tidbits right into his mouth.

        The year 2005 marked his crowning glory, when Raja was assigned the honor of being the central tusker carrying the karanduwa bearing the sacred tooth relic of the Buddha at the Kandy Esala perahera, the Island's most important and spectacular perahera featuring over 100 elephants, dancers and drummers. He has carried out this task regularly ever since, and did it once again this year 2021.