When you think of Kerala and its temples, the first thing that probably comes to your mind is the elephant with decorations.
The elephants in Kerala are mainly, Indian elephants. Most prominent temples in Kerala have their own elephants, either bought or donated by devotees. They form a part of the core worship in many temples in Kerala.
Kerala temples have festivals throughout the year and each of them is celebrated in a unique way. The common factor would be the elephant with decorations carrying the idols of the Lord, several elephants coming together from other temples nearby in a huge procession, most elephants would have umbrellas over them and so on. There is a synchronised music event which the elephants also seem to enjoy. There would be some persons seated on top of the elephants who would get up together and stand on it at the same time as per the music and there are chamaram and chhatram which is waved in absolute symphony with the music. It is like a dance on the elephant.
The elephants carry the deity during the annual festival processions and circumambulations in the temples. The temple elephants are first decorated with gold plated caprisons (nettipattam), bells and even, necklaces. The persons sitting on top of the elephants hold silk parasols (umbrellas, muttukuda) up high, white tufts (venchamaram) and peacock feather fans (alavattam) which are waved to the music. Pancari Melam is the music leading this procession. It is a percussion ensemble and is one of the forms of Chenda melam. It comprises of instruments such as Chenda, Ilathalam, Kombu and Kuzhal.
Each temple has processions but the number of elephants vary. In Guruvayur, one elephant is taken out o the daily procession while 2 are on standby. On some special days, there could be 3 and on festivals, the number of elephants in a procession may be higher. On the other hand, seventeen elephants are engaged in the daily rounds in Kudalmanikyam temple (Lord Bharata – brother of Lord Rama). The famous annual festival called Thrissur Pooram is held at Vadakkunnathan temple in Thrissur. There are thirty caprisoned elephants (15 from Parmekkavu Bhagavathy temple and 5 from Thiruvambadi Sri Krishna temple). The entire pooram would have roughly around 50 elephants with full decorations and bells and ornaments.
In some parts of Kerala, these elephant processions can be seen even in Mosques.
The Venkitadri family of Thrissur district in Kerala is famous for making ornaments for elephants. It is said that this family has been making gold plated caprisons, umbrellas, alavattam, venchamaram and necklaces for elephants for the last 3 generations. They supply these to the famous Thrissur pooram elephants.
It is a pleasure just to stand and watch, and enjoy the music during these processions.
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