Mani lived in Thrissur, a city in Kerala State in India where he worked as an elephant keeper or mahout. Mani was well-known for how much elephants enjoyed being around him; they had a strong emotional bond. Most of the time he spent with the herd because of his work and this wasn’t difficult because he knew exactly what to do and what the herd needed from him - mostly tending to their health and wellbeing by bathing them and providing food and water.
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| Photo Credit: Wikimedia.org |
In his free time, he liked to hike through the jungle or into town just for something different. He never used tools when working with the elephants—a hook or stick to direct or control their movement. Instead, Mani relied solely on his own sense of intuition to understand how the herd communicated with each other using various signals.
One day, a merchant came to Thrissur as a tourist. He heard about Mani, the famous mahout, and his beautiful, trained herd of elephants. The merchant requested Mani to show him the elephant that morning before he headed home that evening. After seeing his favorite elephant with the majestic white tusk, the merchant made it known that he can give 100 gold pieces (GP) for all the tusks. At first, Mani said no but later on agreed when the Merchant offered 130 gold pieces. Mani became greedy thinking that he can become rich by getting 130 gold coins.
He said to the Merchant, he will provide all the tusks within one month.
His elephants always go to the Temple lake and drink and bath from there. The next day, early in the morning, he came with a drum full of poison and came near the lake. He waited for the right opportunity to mix the poison in the lake. After some time, Lakshmi came with the elephant herd to help them drink water from the lake. She was the ten-year-old daughter of Mani. All elephants played with water for some time. Seeing the elephants play Lakshmi was very happy. Mani waited for his daughter to leave as her daughter had school and cannot play all day with the elephants.
Suddenly Lakshmi’s feet slipped and she fell in the lake. Mani could do nothing to help her as he was standing far away from her. Fortunately, hearing the cry of Lakshmi one of the elephants named Shankar entered the lake and offered his trunk to Lakshmi. Next, Lakshmi catching the elephant trunk came out of the lake safely. Seeing all this Mani was very ashamed and vowed never to harm them. He spilled all the poisonous liquid of the drum to the ground. He called the police and arrested the Merchant. Now, all the elephants were like children to him.
What is the Moral of the Merchant and the Elephant Story?
The moral of this story teaches that we should not be cruel to animals. They are also intelligent and emotional beings.
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