Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has paid tribute to Kavantissa, the tusker shot dead last week, in a Facebook post that casts the animal’s death as a farewell performed by the forest itself.
“I think the forest itself embraced the king of the great forest for the last time,” he wrote, according to the Daily Mirror.
Hiru News, which carried the Sinhala text in full, identifies the medium as the former president’s Facebook page — a detail the English report omits.
What the tribute says
Rajapaksa’s note is an argument about where elephants sit in Sri Lankan history rather than a political statement. In the Sinhala original he writes that there is no part of the country’s history in which elephants are not represented, and that the animal can be found in the pages of the Mahavamsa.
He names three settings in which elephants have always been present: the Sri Dalada Maha Perahera, the coronation, and the battlefield. The state elephant that represented sovereignty, he writes, was the equal of a king in history. In Buddhism the elephant was a Bodhisattva. The elephant’s footfall, he adds, became the Gajaga Vannama — the drum rhythm and dance form named for the animal’s gait.
“In our culture an elephant is a living symbol fused with history, religion, art and folk life,” the note says. It is something honoured, an auspicious sign, and something to be protected.
The post closes with the line Hiru used as its headline: “Good journey to the great elephant of our elephant generation that shaped the motherland” — addressed to an animal he describes as bearing a human heart that held dignity, strength, patience and kindness.
The Daily Mirror’s English account reports the same themes in summary, noting Rajapaksa’s reference to elephants in historical records, Buddhist tradition, royal ceremony and religious processions, and his description of the animal as worthy of honour and protection.
Two filings, two days apart
The Daily Mirror published its report on 17 October; Hiru filed on 19 October, two days later. Both describe the same Facebook post — Hiru’s headline quotes the post’s closing line, which appears verbatim in the Daily Mirror’s version.
The gap is a difference in filing, not in the event. Hiru’s late filing is the fuller of the two, reproducing the Sinhala text in full where the Daily Mirror paraphrases.
Context
Kavantissa was one of Sri Lanka’s best-known tuskers. The animal had been treated by wildlife officers at Galgamuwa in September before being shot, and its death has driven a week of official activity: the President has appointed a committee to investigate, suspects have been remanded, and the Prime Minister has promised a crackdown on wildlife crime. Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa has separately called for an elephant protection organisation.
A second major tusker, Agbo, was located in the Nachchaduwa reserve after a joint army and wildlife department search.
Neither filing reports any political content in the tribute, and neither connects it to the investigation. Rajapaksa does not refer to the shooting, the suspects or the government’s response.
A note on the image
The photograph accompanying this article is the tribute card Rajapaksa posted, as published by Hiru News. The elephant pictured on it is not identified as Kavantissa in either filing and should not be read as a photograph of him.
Sources: Daily Mirror, 17 October, Hiru News, 19 October (Sinhala).
