Tiruvannamalai temple gets elephant Hiralal from Assam after eight years

The Arunachaleswarar Temple in Tiruvannamalai has taken in an eight-year-old elephant named Hiralal from Assam, ending a gap of nearly a decade since its last elephant died.

Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) officials said the animal reached the temple around 9.30 p.m. on Thursday. The temple had been without an elephant since Rukmani, a 30-year-old female, died in March 2018 from an injury. Rukmani had been brought to the temple from the Mudumalai Reserve Forest in 1995, when she was seven.

S. Bharanidaran, Joint Commissioner of HR&CE for Tiruvannamalai, said special arrangements had been made for the elephant's safety, with a veterinary team assigned to its care. The animal will be housed within the temple premises, where mahouts from Assam will work alongside local mahouts.

Hiralal is the first of two elephants allotted to the temple. Under an agreement with the Assam government to hand over five elephants to temples in Tamil Nadu, the Arunachaleswarar Temple is also to receive Shiva, a six-year-old. Temples in Nagapattinam and Kancheepuram will each get one elephant, Rupsing and Bijuli, while the Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai recently received a five-year-old female named Durga.

Work has begun on the temple premises to build facilities for the new arrival. A swimming pool with showers, spread over 1,600 sq.ft and at least five feet deep, is being constructed with ramps to help the elephant enter. Ten showers will be installed alongside the pool. About 100 sq.ft of open ground a few hundred metres away will be set aside for mud baths. The project, funded through a corporate social responsibility initiative, is expected to cost around ₹42 lakh.

Officials said devotees will be permitted to view the elephant, and that safety measures will be put in place around its resting area.