Nepal: In 1792, Nepal
dispatched a tribute embassy to the Qing court. Among the many tributes
provided by Nepal
were two elephants: Xunyuanxiang and Furouxiang.The expanding Gorkha
empire of Nepal attempted an
invasion of China’s Tibet in 1791.
The Tibetan forces requested the Qing government’s intervention and in 1792
attacked Nepal
under the leadership of military-general Fukanggan. The war ended in the eighth
month with Nepal’s
defeat. After the defeat, Nepal
dispatched a tribute embassy to the Qing court and paid tribute to the Emperor
once every five years. Among the many tributes provided by Nepal were two
elephants: Xunyuanxiang and Furouxiang.
A crowd gather to see the decorated elephant sent in 1936.
What’s
interesting about the elephant tribute by Gorkha is that in the same period,
Emperor Qianlong had rejected any offering of elephants from the present-day
Southeast Asian nations, citing high expenses. The elephants offered by Gorkha,
however, were accepted under special terms. Research by
historian and academic Yuri Komatsubara’s Meiji Asian Studies paper
states that these two elephants were not “regular tribute items” but were
presented in celebration of the enthronement of the new Emperor Jiaqing, who
succeeded Emperor Qianlong. Hence, they were accepted only as a symbol of
victory for Qing China
over Gorkha in the second Qing-Gorkha War.
The fact that they were special tributes can also be understood by their names
Xunyuanxiang (‘the elephant that
soothed afar’) and Furouxiang (‘the elephant that obediently
surrendered’). Recognising its
symbolic importance, He Ying, who worked in Tibet
during the Qing dynasty, wrote the poem ‘Du Xiang Xing’ (the title indicating
the long journey of the elephant) in
1793 which also marked the beginning of his work as a minister in Tibet. From the
details of his poem, He Ying may have come to Beijing with emissaries and tributes. Yuri’s
research also provides that the elephants sent as tribute in the 18th century
were not acquired from Nepal,
but were from India and sent
to Lhasa through Bhutan.
Qianlong even
commissioned French missionary He Qingtai and Italian
missionary Pan Tingzhang in the Qing court to paint the Gorkha tributary horse
and elephant scroll as shown below.
In later years, tributary elephants sent by Nepal would remain in Tibet. During the reign of
Qianlong, the two elephants were to be given to the 13th Dalai Lama and Panchen
Lama. In later years, elephants would continue to be sent as gifts. For example
in 1936, Nepal sent the last two elephants:
one male and one female. The elephants set off from Nepal to Lhasa
walking a long journey through the wilderness and across the Himalayas.
From the border to Lhasa,
there were countless elephant houses built along the way that housed the
elephants for rest during the nighttime.
The people who accompanied the elephants to Lhasa were responsible for preparing elephant
sheds and food at each resting place. It also reported that the male elephant
couldn’t make it to Lhasa
as it died on the route and only the female elephant arrived as an emissary.
When the elephant arrived in Lhasa, it is
stated, the Nepali people responsible for transporting the elephant rode it three times around the Potala Palace as
a sign of piety.
The elephant had come from afar and as a rare animal, it walked
into the religious life of the Tibetan people in the plateau making it a treat
for its audience. At that time, the Tibet
government attached great importance to
the protection of this elephant and sent special personnel to
take care of it, feed it, and built a house where the elephant lived on the
small island in the Dragon King Pool, located behind the Potala Palace.
The heat and dryness in Lhasa
made the elephant’s skin rough and hard and so, the servants would rub oil on
the elephant to keep it protected.
It
is because of its auspicious symbolism in Tibetan Buddhism, that the elephant
would be ‘invited’ to participate in religious events. The elephants
would attend to various activities throughout the year. As one
of the seven well-known mascots of the Tibetan tradition, the elephants would
wear Buddhist scriptures and ornaments and would be taken to Lhasa to participate in
the prayer for the Dharma Assembly, which invites a large crowd to
gather around it.
This would turn out to be the last living
reminiscence of the continuity of Qing-Gorkha relations. The elephant
eventually died in the 1960s, the period which saw the transition of modern
Sino-Nepal relations. In 2018, nearly half a century later, Lhasa welcomed elephants again. This time the
elephant was bought from Kunming to be kept at
the Quishi Animal Protection
Park and was named ‘Ni
Pu’ which has Buddhist references. The legacy of elephants in Lhasa continues to live on and also remains
an important cog in overall Nepal-China relations.
Raunab Singh Khatri and Aneka Rebecca Rajbhandari
kathmandupost
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