Auspicious white elephants parade in Myanmar capital

Nov 21, 2011, 5:12 GMT

Yangon - Two white elephants made their first public appearance in Myanmar's capital Naypyitaw at the weekend, media reports said Monday.

White elephants were treasured as auspicious by South-East Asia's ancient Buddhist kingdoms, where the size of a king's white elephant stable was deemed a reflection of his worthiness as a ruler.

The two pachyderms were paraded around the Uppatasanti Pagoda in Naypyitaw, 350 kilometres north of Yangon, on Sunday as part of a religious ceremony for a Buddha tooth relic on loan to the temple from the Chinese government, the New Light of Myanmar reported.

Vice President Sai Mauk Kham sprinkled the two animals with scented water as they entered the pagoda compound, before they were led clockwise around the temple as a sign of obeisance to the relic.

Myanmar's last king, Thibaw Min, died in exile in 1916, but the tradition of the state corralling all white elephants found in the wild was maintained by past military regimes.

The country, which was under military dictatorships between 1962 to 2010, now has seven white elephants in government stables.

Myanmar's most recent additions, a bull named Ngwe Saddan and a female named Haymawaddy, made their public debut on Sunday.