“One is not called noble who harms living beings. By not harming living beings one is called noble.”
The Buddha From the Dhammapada, Verse 270
Elephant cries out in pain as he wails in agony he thrashes about the pool, while a sadist shouts and whips him.
These hypocrites claim to be Buddhists but Buddha would have never allowed nor approved of anything like this
Shocking footage has emerged which appears to show an elephant crying out in pain and being whipped at a Buddhist temple. The 15-year-old male elephant, who is called Myan Prince, is filmed lying helplessly on its side in a murky pool as his keeper beats him with sharp sticks. It appears they are trying to wash his legs, which they have chained to two trees surrounding the water. Outraged activists have posted several videos of Myan Prince in distress at the Bellanwila Temple, just south of the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.
Myan Prince was blamed by the Sri Lankan press for killing an elderly monk at the temple in February 2018 and it is suspected the temple is abusing him in retaliation; initial reports said he pushed 77-year-old Wimalarathana Thero to the ground during his breakfast feed in the morning. But the temple denied the attack happened, saying the senior monk fell and suffered a heart attack, the Sri Lankan Sunday Observer reported at the time. Maneesha Arachchige, an activist from Rally for Animal Rights and Environment [RARE], said she fears for the elephant’s life after visiting the temple yesterday. She says ‘We are very concerned for the welfare of Myan Prince.
‘He seems to be being beaten on a regular basis and the temple seems unconcerned. ‘If action is not taken quickly we fear for the safety of those around the elephant as well as Myan Prince’s safety and wellbeing.’ A petition calling on the temple to release the elephant to a sanctuary has now been backed by more than 120,000 people. Elephants are considered sacred animals in Sri Lanka and if so sacred why are they so cruel to them? Many of the elephants become pets at Buddhist temples, which use them in annual pageants.
The root cause for elephants suffering in Sri Lanka are Buddhist parades called peraheras. These parades use dozens of elephants at a time, dressing them up in colourful costumes and forcing them to march for miles night after night. ‘Cruelty and Torture is part of the captive elephant industry in Sri Lanka. If there were no Peraheras then there will be no demand for captive elephants in Sri Lanka. ‘If we want to see an end to the tears cries and pain suffered by captive elephants then we have to implement bans on using captive elephants in Peraheras. (Peraheras = a delusional ceremony where animal abusers worship a tooth supposedly from Buddha. Worshiping a tooth of a man who was against all forms of animal abuse.)
A monk from the temple says that the elephants are tied to a tree for two weeks as part of a Buddhist ritual. Catching wild elephants is illegal in Sri Lanka, but it’s suspected many elephants that end up in Buddhist temples are stolen by poachers who kill their mothers.
Please email the Temple Bellanwila Rajamaha Viharaya in Sri Lanka and tell them that the rest of the world intelligently know that all elephants belong in the wild with their family wimalaratanab@bellanwila.org and that they are a disgrace to all that is ethical. They will respond with an excuse but that is all it is.
Bellanwila Rajamaha Viharaya Bellanwila, Boralesgamuwa 10290, Sri Lanka
Telephone +94 112 738 361 Fax +94 112 715 892
E-mail wimalaratanab@bellanwila.org
When you go on vacation and want to ride an elephant please know this is what is going while you are enjoying the sights on the painful spine of a tortured elephant:
ALL ELEPHANTS IN CAPTIVITY IN ANY CAPACITY WENT THROUGH PHAJAAN (which means to break an elephants spirit)
Tikiiri
In another atrocity these savages have animal abusing parades; in the most recent one, the Sri Lanka animal abusers, who are obviously void of any and all empathy, take an emaciated, sick and weak 70-year-old elephant named Tikiiri who has live as a slave for her entire life and forced her to walk in shackles in this stupid parade for hours every night for 10 nights. To hide her emaciation they put a ridiculous costume on her and a degrading mask over her face and forced her to walk while crowds are shouting, shooting off fireworks and the sadist riding on her back is poking her with the pointed bullhook in the back of the neck. She died a few weeks after this ridiculous ceremony.
the source of the following by Cat Trudell www.thecultureist.com
- Elephants in the tourism industry are abused
A wild elephant doesn’t naturally allow a human to climb atop its back and trek through the jungle, for hours, every day of the week. It has to be tamed into submission. In Southeast Asia, the process of taming an elephant includes torture and breaking its spirit. The ancient tradition is called Phajaan, meaning “the crush.” Poachers take the wild baby elephant away from its mother, sometimes killing the protective elephants around the calf. The handlers tie, cage, starve and beat the animal with tools like a metal bullhook until it learns to fear and obey humans.
“Tourists may think activities like riding an elephant do no harm,” Dr. Jan Schmidt-Burbach, the senior wildlife and veterinary adviser at London-based charity World Animal Protection, told The Dodo in 2015. “But the brutal truth is that breaking these animals’ spirits to the point that they allow humans to interact with them involves cruelty at every turn.” Schmidt-Burbach pointed out that Phajaan is a widespread method.
There are many graphic videos to prove it, like this one by Animal Activist Alliance Thailand.
- Giving rides can damage elephants’ spines
An elephant’s spine is not built to support the weight of a human being. Elephants that carry tourists on their backs for hours every day experience discomfort and can suffer from permanent spinal damage. There is also the added element of the Howdah: the seat that the human sits in atop the elephant. The seat causes irritation against the elephant’s skin and can lead to infection.
- Elephants are social, intelligent creatures
Elephants are very similar to humans. They have family and friends and feel deep emotions. According to Elephant Voices, “elephants are well-known for their intelligence, close family ties, and social complexity, and they remember for years other individuals and places.” Not only do elephants remember and feel the pain of torture deeply enough to suffer from post-traumatic stress, but when elephants are brought on trekking camps, they have been ripped away from their herd and forced to live in loneliness.
“Just as we consider solitary confinement as punishment for humans, we should also be thinking that way about elephants,” said Stanford professor Caitlin O’Connell in an interview with National Geographic in 2016. “It is not healthy to house elephants by themselves.”
- Asian elephants are endangered
The Asian elephant is on the Red List of Threatened Species. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the population declined more than 50 percent over the last 60 to 75 years. Asian elephants that work in the tourism industry sometimes die from hunger, dehydration, and exhaustion. Like captive elephant Sambo, who died in Cambodia earlier this year from a heart attack while giving tourists a ride in 104 degrees Fahrenheit heat.