Elephant in Buddhism
<poem> One of the beliefs of Buddhism is reincarnation. So the Buddha also had to pass through a series of reincarnations on the long road to ever more greatness of soul, until finally, after a complete unification and purification he was granted enlightenment.
In one story the lord Buddha was incarnated as Chaddanta, the legendary snow-white elephant. He had six tusks and led a herd of 8000 animals, endowed with various miraculous powers and the ability to fly. Chaddanta had two wives. Consumed by the desire for importance, one of them asked the gods if she could be reborn as a princess.
Her wish was granted and she became the wife of the King of Benares. She told her new husband that he should go hunting for an elephant with six tusks she wanted to possess. Sonuttara the huntsmen found the elephant and wounded him and them caught him in a pit. The elephant begged for mercy, but when he found out that it was the Queen that had instigated the hunt, he submitted to his fate and even helped the hunter cut off his tusks then fell dead.
In a further legend Buddha, the ‘enlightened one’, entered the body of his mother in an Immaculate Conception. His mother Queen Maya had yearned for a child for the twenty years she had been married to King Suddhodana (ruler of a country at the foot of the Himalayas).
One night Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant came from heaven and touched her side with a white lotus blossom, which he held in his trunk. She became pregnant. While resting in a grove of trees she stretched out her hand to pluck a flowering twig and then a little prince sprang from her right hip.
The Queen died seven days after the birth. The king was told that his son would either be a great king to lead over many lands or a great religious leader and the savior of the entire world. The king tried to protect his son from seeing the problems of the world but he turned to the life of savior.
In Laos and Thailand the Erawan is worshiped. The three heads represent the three major gods in the Hindu pantheon – Brahma (the creator of the universe), Vishnu and Siva. <poem>
