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Elephant in sea carries stone from Rama's bridge (Thai Ramayana mural)
About this photograph
- Creator
- Margery H. Freeman
- Date created
- Unknown
- Location
- Bangkok, Thailand
- License
- This photograph copyright ©2006. Terms of use
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A painted mural detail from the Emerald Buddha Temple shows an elephant, perhaps one of the demon king Ravana’s two elephant sons, walking in the sea carrying a large stone from Rama’s bridge supported by its tusks and trunk. A brown fish jumps through a wave in the foreground and a grey flying fish is visible at left.
Ravana has ordered his mermaid daughter to oversea all creatures of the sea in their destruction of the bridge that Rama’s monkeys are building to reach Lanka.
The Siamese painters of the temple murals likely knew that elephants can swim well. But, in this otherwise realistic depiction of the species, the elephant appears to have a fish-like dorsal fin running along its back.
This image was photographed in August 1984.
