Found: a holy white elephant

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Snip from The Independent:
(SORRY NO PICS!!)
To the untrained eye, it's just a bit on the pale side. To scientists and Buddhists, it's a miracle. Jan McGirk goes in search of the world's rarest, most valuable pachyderm
21 August 2004


White elephants are seen once in a blue moon. So it seems apt that such a fabled creature was sighted in southern Sri Lanka last month during precisely such a rare lunar event (when a second full moon appears in a single month). And after government scientists confirmed that the fair-skinned elephant with a herd in the forests near Yala national park could be classified as a true albino, the fanfare that resulted made any fuss over the moon pale by comparison.

The scientists claimed this was the world's first, scientifically certified sighting of a white elephant in the wild, and the news was flashed around the globe. Sue, as the forest rangers call her, is among a social grouping of 17 pachyderms. Her rather ordinary-sounding new name means "White" in Sinhalese. Vijitha Berera, a veterinarian from Sri Lanka's department of wildlife conservation, says the elephant is "a new national treasure", and adds: "We hope she might be pregnant." But Sue appears to be only 11 years old, and unlikely to reach sexual maturity until she is 15.

Sri Lankan wildlife researchers are busy gathering clumps of her dung to determine which genetic mutation caused her albinism. But merely collecting the droppings and keeping one's distance is not the usual treatment accorded to white elephants in this part of Asia. Wherever Theravada Buddhism is practised, from upper Burma to the southern reaches of Thailand and Vietnam, the discovery of a white elephant - usually born into a domesticated herd - is hailed as a portentous omen, connected to fertility.

Buddhists believe that a holy white elephant with six tusks appeared in a dream to present a lotus, a symbol of purity and knowledge, to Queen Mahamaya, as she conceived Prince Siddhartha, who later was recognised as the Lord Buddha.Close up, a white elephant resembles a dishwater blonde with freckled nose. Yet these creatures are venerated as symbols of strength, purity and divinity. When one is discovered, the traditional response is to summon a priest to quantify each sacred elephantine attribute, from the size of its tail-brush to the pearly tone of its toenails, and to determine whether the animal can be deemed a "significant elephant" with a good bloodline, or merely "peculiar". Those that pass the test will become cosseted inmates of a Buddhist temple.
More:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=553677