{"id":3798,"date":"2003-12-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-12-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2003\/12\/18\/2003-12-18-vellaiyammal-enjoyed-her-month-s-vacation-at-elephant-camp\/"},"modified":"2003-12-18T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-12-18T12:00:00","slug":"2003-12-18-vellaiyammal-enjoyed-her-month-s-vacation-at-elephant-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2003\/12\/18\/2003-12-18-vellaiyammal-enjoyed-her-month-s-vacation-at-elephant-camp\/","title":{"rendered":"Vellaiyammal Enjoyed Her Month&#8217;s Vacation at Elephant Camp"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.hinduonnet.com\/2003\/12\/18\/stories\/2003121803050500.htm\">Source<\/a><\/P><P>THANJAVUR, INDIA, December 17, 2003: 55-year-old Vellaiyammal walked majestically into the Big Temple here, alighting from a truck which brought her back today from a month-long rejuvenation camp for elephants in the Mudumalai sanctuary. As the truck entered the temple, the pachyderm trumpeted to express its happiness over home-coming. Walking down the truck, which pulled up near the Nandi Mandapam, Vellaiyammal walked briskly towards the main temple. She was brought near the flag mast. Pujas were performed. A dhoti and a garland were put round her neck. Sandal paste was applied on her forehead. Aarthi (worship with lamps) was performed and a pumpkin broken. The senior prince and hereditary trustee of the temple, Babaji Rajah Bhonsle, gave Vellaiyammal a bunch of bananas. Bhaskar, her mahout or keeper, said the camp was a nice experience. Vellaiyammal put on weight during her stay there &#8212; 704 pounds, or 23 pounds a day. She&#8217;s up to 9,240 pounds from 8,536. &#8220;Medicines like Ashtachuthram were given. Neem oil was applied on the leg to prevent infection. We mahouts were also taken care of well at the camp,&#8221; Bhaskar said. The &#8220;Big Temple,&#8221; as the Bragatheeswara (Peruvudaiyar) Temple is commonly called, is dedicated to Lord Siva. It was built in 1010 ce by Raja Raja Chola.<BR><br \/>\n<\/P> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SourceTHANJAVUR, INDIA, December 17, 2003: 55-year-old Vellaiyammal walked majestically into the Big Temple here, alighting from a truck which brought,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}