WHITE ELEPHANTS are reverenced by the Burmese and Siamese. All the white elephants now existing in Siam and Burma are of a light mouse colour, somewhat of the same tint as the pale freckles to be found on the trunk of almost every ordinary elephant. This light-grey is uni form all over, the spots on the trunk being white. The depth of the colour varies greatly. To be regarded as a white elephant, it must have five toe nails on its hind feet instead of four. These are white elephants debased by sin. The final test is to pour water on the elephant • if a white elephant, it turns red ; while a black elephant becomes blacker. The colour of the present Sin pyoo-daw of Burma is a mixture of light-brown, and dingy, smoke-smirched cream colour. The iris ought to be yellow, with a reddish outer annulus. Buddhists, since the Christian era at least, have venerated white elephants. In the Tree and Serpent 1Vorship (plate xxxiii.) there is a bas-relief containing a short epitome of the life of Buddha. It beg,ins with Maya's dream. She is represented as lying asleep on her couch on the terrace of the palace, and dreaming that a white elephant, which is represented in the bas-relief, appeared to her, and, as she dreamt, entered her womb. This was interpreted by Brahmans learned in the Veda as announcing the incarnation of him who was to be iu future the deliverer of the world from pain and sorrow. This was in the 1st cen
tury of the Christian era. About 30 years after wards, in the sculptures of the tope at Amaravati (plates lxv., lxxiv., xci. of the same work), the same story is repeated, but with more detail, and carried still further. The white 'elephant is brought down from heaven in great state, borne in a canopied car carried by Devata, and accom panied by music and dancrug. This occupies a whole panel by itself. In the next, Maya is re presented as asleep, the white elephant above her, as in the former bas-relief. In the other sculp tures she is represented standing, bolding a branch of a sal tree, and the infant Buddha. is delivered from her side and received by the god Indra and attendant Devata. In the great temple of Boro Buddor, in the island of Java the same scene is represented (i. plate xxviii. fig. 25 of the great Dutch work on the subject). Maya is asleep on her couch, surrounded by numerous attendants, and the white elephant appears from heaven, not borne in state as at Amaravati, but resting on heavenly lotus flowers. He is, however repre sented as worshipped, at least with the royal umbrella borne over him, in the next plate (xxix.). These bas-reliefs were executed about the fith or 7th century A.D.-Dr. James Fergusson.