Elephant Symbolism– Elephants are herbivorous animals found in various habitats, such as savannas, forests, and deserts. These large animals tend to be near water.
What does the elephant symbol mean? It becomes a common question that many people often ask. You need to know that elephant symbolism has a significant role in many things, ranging from religion, eastern culture; even elephants are believed to be the incarnation of gods and worshiped in several countries.
Many people also believe that the elephant can symbolize strength, memory, remembrance, and a gentle soul in the body of a mammoth. Let’s study elephant symbolism in detail so you can decipher its true meaning in your life. Here is a row of valuable substances that you can take from elephant symbolism. Let’s see!
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Elephant Spirit Animal Meaning
The elephant is a peaceful warrior animal, herbivorous, family-oriented, but strong and protective of its family. The elephant is a beautiful symbol that you can adopt in your daily life because of its easygoing demeanor and recognizable appearance.
This is a row of valuable meanings of elephant as spirit animal.
1. Live for today, then do your best
The elephant never thinks for tomorrow in his life. All they know is that they continue to struggle to find food and enjoy life with their flock. So there’s not too much of a burden, meaning that there’s just enjoying life to the fullest.
2. Sincere Love is a must
Elephants are one of the animals that tend to be expressive. When the baby elephant is sad, the whole family will come to him and caress the baby elephant with their trunks. Elephants are one of the best animals to teach about love and affection. They love as much as they can and are capable of.
3. Help each other
Be a person who is light-handed like an elephant, helping anyone no matter who he is. Not only helping the herd, but elephants are also kind enough to help humans and other animals.
4. Strong, sturdy, and invincible
Elephants are relatively large mammals. The thing we need to learn from elephants is that we have to be solid and robust. Strong to face every obstacle in life, which sometimes feels endless.
5. Loyalty is necessary, and there is no end to it
Be a loyal person like an elephant. No matter what the obstacles are, they remain faithful to the herd.
6. Life always has advantages and disadvantages, so be grateful
Humans always hate flaws in themselves and try to cover them up when no one is perfect in this world. Elephants are animals that have poor eyesight. But on the other hand, this animal has an excellent sense of smell. Behind the disadvantages, there must be advantages.
7. Patience also has a limit
Elephants are loving and helpful animals, but we still have news that elephants attack humans. It is none other than because elephants also have patience. When the elephant’s patience has run out on humans who kill to take their tusks or take over their habitation, elephants can also get angry. Animals have hearts, and they want to feel free too.
Elephant Tattoo Meaning
The elephant tattoos have different variations. You can have designs like baby elephant tattoos, tribal elephant tattoos, cute tattoos, and small elephant tattoos, to name a few.
An elephant tattoo can symbolize and mean different things. In general, an elephant tattoo represents prosperity, luck, power, strength, dignity, and longevity. In addition, elephants also represent patience, honor, intelligence, and spirituality. With all of these meanings, elephant tattoos have become more well known due to their depiction of family ties and ancestral lines.
The elephant tattoos have different variations. You can have designs like baby elephant tattoos, tribal elephant tattoos, cute tattoos, and small elephant tattoos, to name a few.
There are several types of Elephant Tattoos, and each kind of Elephant Tattoo has its meaning.
Some people have Elephant Tattoos performed for religious purposes, while others like to put an Elephant Tattoo design on their skin.
Each person gets a tattoo for a different purpose, and it makes you wonder why a particular person can wear an Elephant Tattoo.
READ ALSO: Examples of Elephant Tattoo and Its Meaning
Where to place your elephant tattoo?
A minimalist elephant tattoo will find its place on the inside of a wrist, the back of the neck, or the ankle. For a larger model, please give it a large area to sublimate it, such as the shoulder, arm, forearm, or upper back and thigh. Some men, particularly fans of indelible ink, can, for their part, fall for an elephant tattoo on the top of the hand, with the trunk drawn along the middle finger, for a surprising result.
Elephant Symbolism Buddhism
Elephants have been utilized in different cultural and religious depictions since the Stone Age. They are depicted on petroglyphs and inside caves and represented through various art and craft methods and sculptures, architecture, ivory crafts, and ivory paintings.
What does the elephant mean in Buddhism?
In Hinduism and Buddhism, the elephant has been an extraordinary solid power that has spiritual significance. In Hindu mythology, one acts as the custom vehicle of Lord Indra. He is considered the God of heaven, and additionally, Ganesha was offered his head by the elephant when his angry father once beheaded him. Hence the elephant has honor and respect and is therefore celebrated and worshipped by the Hindus of India.
Many symbols represent the Buddha in Buddhism, and in Buddhist iconography, a white elephant is an albino elephant. The white color is a sign of purity and holiness in Buddhism. The elephant is commonly known for its power and wisdom, and white elephants also have all these characteristics. Queen Maya, the mother of Buddha, also claimed that in a dream, a white elephant flew in the air and inserted his trunk in her right side, resulting in Buddha’s birth. The symbols of Buddhism mean “Om Mani Padme Hum.” The lotus flower, dharma wheel, stupa, and white elephant are common symbols representing Buddha’s presence.
White Elephant Symbolism Meaning
The White Elephant (or Albino Elephant) is a rare species of elephant, though not a distinct species. Maybe many people visualize the white elephant’s skin color like snow white, but the white elephant’s skin color is soft brown and reddish. White elephants are also famous for having long eyelashes and hooves.
White elephants have been an icon for Thailand for centuries. Even Thailand has also been nicknamed the Land of the White Elephant. Chang, which means elephant in Thai, has also been declared a national animal.
What do white elephants symbolize?
Elephants have become part of Thai culture. As reported by The Culture Trip, the main reason Thailand makes the elephant a symbol of the country is that the animal is considered strong and long life. This animal also symbolizes royalty, justice, power, peace, and prosperity.
The white elephant is a rare species in Thailand and symbolizes royalty in the Buddhist tradition. On the night of the Buddha’s birth, his mother dreamed of meeting a white elephant who gave her a lotus flower.
According to Thai history, elephants also played a role in the country’s development. In the late 1500s, elephants were used as vehicles for war against Burma, Malaysia, and the Khmer Empire to protect the Kingdom of Thailand.
At that time, elephants had to travel far and wide for the sake of war. They start training at the age of 10, which means they are very young and work until they are 60 years old—starting from encouraging timber harvested to food distribution.
This condition lasted until 1989 after the government banned the use of elephants in logging forests because the number of elephants has fallen drastically from around 100 thousand to only five thousand since the early 20th century.
Since then, elephants have only been used for tourism and cultural festivals. They are trained to perform entertainment attractions for tourists in amusement parks, zoos, and others.
Most of the others are protected in national parks and conservation centers scattered across Thailand. Examples include the Thungyai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary in Uthai Thani Province, and the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai protected forest. Currently, the number of elephants in Thailand is only about 3,000 species.
Elephant Symbolism Trunk Up Meaning
Elephants have inspired many people, so it is not surprising that they have hundreds of replicas of elephants in their offices or offices.
When viewed from the physical, the elephant is not only a big animal but has many advantages. Although the eyes are small, elephants have wide ears, so they are sensitive to hearing.
In addition, elephants are unpretentious animals. With their long trunks, elephants can reach faraway food.
What Is the Meaning of Elephant with Trunk Up?
The elephant trunk up meaning is distributing energy, luck, prosperity, and goodness. Elephants usually move their trunks up to greet friends and express joy.
In essence, some people believe that the elephant trunk up symbolizes love and is full of luck.
African Elephant Symbolism Meaning
The African elephant is a species of the genus L oxodonta. The size of the African elephant is much larger than the Asian elephant, which can grow up to 2.5-4.0 m on average, while the Asian elephant is only able to grow 2.0-3.5 m. However, it can grow bigger for the male African elephant than the female, which is 2.7-4 m.
What Do Elephants Symbolize In African Culture?
According to some experts, the African elephant symbolizes sovereignty, war, royalty, wisdom, moral and spiritual strength.
Many African cultures revere the African Elephant as a symbol of strength and power. It is also praised for its size, longevity, stamina, mental faculties, cooperative spirit, and loyalty. South Africa uses elephant tusks to represent wisdom, strength, moderation, and eternity.
Elephant Symbolism Meaning In Christianity
The elephant is a famous Christian symbol because of its thick skin and its mannerisms. The Bible’s elephant symbolizes the power of prayer. The Ark is threatened by elephants that eat all the Ark’s food and become so obese they threaten to overturn the Ark.
Noah prays to God, and God answers him in a dream asking him to tickle a hyena. It triggers a chain reaction that ends with the mouse hiding beneath the cabbage’s head.
The mouse scares elephants when they try to eat cabbage. It causes them to run to the Ark opposite end, where the balance is restored.
Another story is about Three Blind Men touching different parts of an elephant. One man describes the elephant as a snake (he touched the tail of the elephant), while another claims that it is flat and like a fan (apparently, he was touching the elephant’s body), while another states that it is thick like a rope (the trunk).
Experts use the spiritual meaning of elephants to express God’s vastness. He is too vast for any religion or faith to describe accurately. The elephant symbolizes the vastness and all-encompassing love of God.
In short, for Christian beliefs, elephants are believed to be a symbol of patience, purity, loyalty, compassion, simplicity, and vastness of God. This animal is also depicted in different ancient works and is supposed to represent Adam and Eve.
