BOOK REVIEW Title: A HISTORY OF SRILANKAN ELEPHANTS With an Account of Maduwanwela Dissawe by C G Uragoda Published by Sridevi Publications 2018 Reviewed by Hemantha Situge

BOOK REVIEW 

TITLE: A HISTORY OF SRI LANKAN ELEPHANTS With An Account of Maduwanwela Dissawe

AUTHOR : C. G. URAGODA

PUBLISHER: SRIDEVI PUBLICATIONS 2018

REVIEWED BY HEMANTHA SITUGE


A splendid book entitled: A History of Srilankan Elephants With an account of Maduwanwela Dissawe  written by Dr C. G. Uragoda was published by Sridevi publishers and  was released recently.

Dr C G Uragoda a prolific writer who  has contributed immensely to the  field of wildlife and nature .His latest book is his fourteenth published work .Dr Uragoda is a  pre-eminent savant who is in search of the scientific background in all his spheres of  research writing.The opus is replete with excellent  twelve chapters.

At page 2 of his book Dr Uragoda's  sub-heading ' Elephant and wood -apples' has whetted the curiosity of this reviewer.Thus: ".... The implications of this tradition is that by some intestinal, perhaps mediated through their body heat elephants extract the pulp, leaving behind the empty shell intact.If each of these shells have a small opening , the ready explanation is that this has been created by insects in the shell while on the ground after having been expelled by the elephant.

 Dr Uragoda cites  S V O Somanader who 'has  offered a scientific explanation for this phenomenon'. Dr Uragoda has also states that : " His theory draws scientific support from G M  Henry , who as entomologist to the Colombo Museum , carried out several experiments.His explanation was that larvae of the common guava blue butterfly ( Virochola isocrates) " live inside the fruits of the wood-apple trees.. eating the contents and emerging at night ( they ) sweep the droppings out through  a small hole usually near the stalk...."Hence the Sinhalese proverb Etha gilla divul gediya wagey literally 'like the Divul -wood apple -fruit swallowed by the elephant'. Wood -apple ( Limonia acidissima )  is also known as the elephant apple.John M. Seneviratne's 'Dictionary of Proverbs of the Sinhalese' printed by the Times of Ceylon 1936 contains twenty one  Sinhalese proverbs on the elephant.

 Sri Lanka's Four – Legged Jumbo (Elephant maximus) is the only largest number of species from fauna of elephants in the world that has found niche to be placed on the prestigious records of the Guinness Book of World Records – 2016. At page 42 of the 2016 Guinness Book under the title of Elephant sub title: most elephant subspecies it is recorded thus: “Researchers widely agrees that the Asian Elephant (Elephant maximus) has the most sub species four in all: the Borneo Pygmy (Elephant maximus ,the Indian (Elephas maximus indicus) the Sri Lankan (Elephas maximus maximus) and the Sumatran (Elephant maximus sumatrensis).

The  Sri Lanka elephant is the largest sub species. It attains a shoulder height of upto      and the weight 5500 Kg (12,125 lbs). It is also darker in colour than other Asian elephants with more patches of decreased skin pigmentation. Unusually most Sri Lankan subspecies have no tusks.” 

It is the  fervent view of  this reviewer that the “Guinness Book of World Records 2016” account has properly given due recognition to the Sri Lanka’s elephant. The genus of elephants maximus  was introduced from the Sri Lankan species which later became Elephas maximus maximus – Sri Lanka’s subspecies. The “type” locality of the elephas maximus is Ceylon now Sri Lanka. The zoologist, Ray in 1693 created the genus Elephas from a young Ceylon elephant which he saw in the zoological gardens at Florence. In 1754 Linne’ described Elephas indicus in the Memoir of the Museum of the King Adolph Fredrick of Stockholm and based their description both that of Ray and upon the foetus of an African elephant which still exists in that museum. In the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae (1758) he has renamed the animal as Elephas maximus.

It is also should be borne in mind Ceylon’s (now Sri Lanka) elephant Elephas maximus maximus was known by two genuses the present is also known by two other extinct species. They are viz. Elephas maximus vilaliya and Elephas maximus sinhaleyus the other genus known to have extinct from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) Hypselephas hysudrieus sinhaleyus.

Sri Lanka's elephant has portrayed in our ancient flags banners standards. One such  flag is the kuru etha flag of Matara. E.W.Perera's Sinhalese Banners and Standards  Colombo ,Gov Printer 1916 Plate VIII Fig 15 to 17 all Kandyan flags  ,Plate IX Fig 18 to 20 all Kandyan flags  ,Plate XXV Fig 67 flag of the Ruhunu Kataragama dewale Kegalle. Nimal de Silva's Flags and Flags Traditions 2012 at pages  iv, 2 , 20,21, 25, 34, 58, 113, 115, 119, 121, 123, 180-1,185, 218, are all on elephant flags.

Sri Lankan elephant is steeped in epigraphy.The mahouts are mentioned in Inscriptions of Ceylon Vol 2,  5 page 60 , Archaeological Survey of Ceylon 1925 ,3 , elephant combats Epigraphia Zeylanica Vol  1, 2,pages 15,16,17, and on ivory Epigraphical Notes 8, 10.5 

Prof Merlene Peris wrote A Note on the Etymology of "elephant"[ JRAS Vol 38 1993/1994  page 163] and Mahawamsa Studies Kandula The Elephant at War published by Godage.  

Reading and re-reading  the pachyderm miscellany written by Dr Uragoda entitled: " A  History Sri Lankan Elephants- with an Account of Maduwanwela Dissawe"-  the nonagenarian's erudite discourse is  an indeed a vade maecum for the elephant lovers.