Shiva Temple Festival

All clean and ready to go

The Shiva Temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva, in Cochin is one of the most famous Hindu temples in Kerala. Right now, they are closing in on a seven day festival where there are daily poojas (prayer and dedication), elephant processions, fireworks, music and dancing. On Saturday, we decided to go check it out since we had heard a lot about it but never seen one.

Scrub a dub-dub

He was using part of a coconut shell to scrub the elephant.

Now that's a big one.

When we first arrived, they were slowly getting the elephants ready for the procession. Having no idea what was about to take place, Jason, John and I just meandered around taking pictures. The guys were washing them one by one and then taking the elephants to another area to get their headdress (or whatever you want to call it) on before being lead into the temple. After they were all lined up, the procession finally started late, in typical Indian fashion.

The three largest elephants made a lap around the temple and then lined back up where they started and were joined by the remaining four. Eventually, a group of guys starting beating on drums and other instruments joined in. I kept recording it thinking the elephants were getting ready to walk again. I was more interested to see how that was going to work because it was too narrow for all seven to walk around and it was really crowded. Many Hindus were there to celebrate and pray. Most foreigners were there to take pictures, of course. There was a stand selling oil to be lit on the side of the temple but they did not think I was Hindu, therefore they would not allow me to buy one. I was just trying to support a good cause and light a candle for my family and friends...geezz. Oh well. - remember a few post back about when Eric and I visited this temple - they entire outside is lit up at night by burning oil.


All seven of the elephants had at least 3 guys on their backs and an umbrella type thing on a tall stick. Each color represented something different, but I have yet to figure out those details. They stood there for over an hour while the guys on their backs swung around feathery things and guys in front of them beat on drums and played other instruments rather loud. I'm surprised the elephants put up with it actually. There were men underneath feeding them the entire time though. We waited for about an hour to see if they would do anything else before we had to leave to meet up with some friends.

During the procession

People would pay and then put these grains in the smaller buckets and pray.

This site is not letting me upload the video I really wanted to or any other pictures of the rest of the evening so this will have to do for now. Now we can say we have seen an elephant procession at one of the most famous Hindu temples in Kerala. I'll check it off my list...