A senior Buddhist monk of a well-known temple in a Colombo suburb was killed when the temple tusker attacked him while feeding breakfast as usual, according to press reports.
After the attack, the monk, Dr. Bellanwila Wimalarathana of Bellanwila Temple, was rushed to nearby government-owned Colombo South Teaching Hospital and died on February 3. The tusker named Miyan Kumara had been gifted to the temple by Myanmar.
According to hospital sources the 77-year-old monk’s ribs had sustained serious injuries and his situation had become worse due to the internal haemorrhage. Later he had been transferred to a private hospital. The funeral will be held on February 8 at the playground of the Sri Jayewardenepura University where the monk had been serving as Vice Chancellor from 2000.
The mahout told the media that while the monk was feeding the elephant, it ‘caught the priest’ making him fall to the ground. “Then it was trying to gore him with the tusks but it missed the target” he has said.
Ven. Dr. Wimalarathana obtained a Doctorate in Philosophy in 1980 from the University of Lancaster in the UK and served as a visiting Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London.
The monk was known to voice his opinions on political and social issues frequently. He was a proponent of ethnic harmony and once said that singing of the national anthem in Tamil should be allowed while many Sinhala hardliners objected to such a move. He is said to be critical of the present government and a supporter the federal constitution which is capable of addressing the grievances of other racial and religious groups.
While holidaying in Sri Lanka four years ago I photographed an elephant being bathed in a shallow pond in the same temple premises. The question that came to my mind was whether that small quantity of water was enough to bathe a well-grown elephant. I am not sure whether it is the same jumbo involved in the attack. There are no large rivers close to the temple where elephants could be bathed.
Many large temples in Sri Lanka keep tamed tuskers which are paraded in important religious processions and festivals.
Many people started voicing their opinions on social media after the monk died. One said ‘this is the result of animal cruelty! Chaining a wild animal for pomp and pageantry is not the way of the Buddha. Let them live free’.
Another person questioned who was responsible for the decision to transfer the seriously ill monk to a private hospital from the intensive care unit of the well-equipped government health facility, hinting at a conspiracy theory as the monk is known to be critical of the government. Some people said he was not attacked by the elephant and the monk sustained injuries as he fell down accidentally. – newstrails.com
