Worship Elephants? Why Not?

You cannot pass all the Oriental carpet places in this one area of East Midtown and not notice the animal figures that are often used for decoration.

How elephants find their way into shops that are really hawking Middle Eastern goods has always intrigued me,--are there are a lot of people who are Hindus involved in this, or is there just something about elephants which people tend to like-- just as, I guess, most people tend to instinctively disliked spiders, snakes, sharks,--and, in some cases, really have it in for the common cat, too ( in the Middle Ages in Europe, witches and cats went together in the popular imagination, the cat usually being seen as the witch's "familiar"--her real/symbolic link the the Devil. The Devil, of course, was seen lurking everywhere, and as Puritanism developed, people perversely began to identify anything really enjoyable as "sinful"-- thus we have Devil's Food Cake and the junk food known as Devil Dogs. Also some measure of respect, as when we say someone is a "daredevil"-- such as the very famous motorcycle stuntman Evel Knievel (it was no mistake that "Evel" is like "Evil" either when you think about it.  He might have been named that without his parents intending the sinister/glamorous implication, but it certainly went with the image.

The Downside of Elephants

Well, there is too much of having a good thing (thus "elephantine" is not a compliment really unless someone is a "size queen" as they say in gay parlance ...

And elephants can be seen as dumb or, simply too much. I used to hear the phrase "white elephant" used all the time when I was a kid to describe something that was possibly desirable (like a house) but the taxes on it were so high and it was so oversized for the average family that it fell into the negative range...

Hindus and Elephants, etc.

I will close by citing one website which has a LOT to say about elephants...this is just the salient opening couple of paragraphs:

Elephants are big animals, with small eyes and huge ears. They have a good memory and hardly ever forget the places they have been, never repeating a path that once proved itself to be dangerous. They live in groups and look after each other carefully. If they happen to see the bones of another elephant that belonged to the group, they make a loud noise and let the others know that one of them is gone, so that they can come and silently say goodbye.
But, most importantly, the elephants are obedient creatures, and although they are careful and calm most of the time, if the leader of the group calls for a specific task, the others instinctively obey, passing over anything that is in front of them, destroying any obstacle that comes in their way, and becoming insensible to pain or fatigue – it is practically impossible to stop an elephant when it is answering the master's call...
Elephant Worship
Hindus have worshiped the elephants for many centuries, but the true philosophy behind the animal worship has been misinterpreted and distorted by many western researchers. When Hindus worship the elephant, it is not the animal itself that they are worshipping, but rather, what it represents – obedience to the dharma (the master's call), ability not to repeat past mistakes, and respect and care towards their peers.
A perfect disciple acts like an elephant. He devotes complete obedience to the master, his eyes are small, as he does not use the eyes of the physical body, but the eyes of the spirit. He has large ears, as he listens more than he speaks. He informs all the others about the dangers he encounters in his path towards enlightenment, and finally, when he needs to accomplish a certain task, physical pain, tiredness, hunger and thirst are no obstacles for him. Great men in history were elephants, they did not fear, and yet, they were docile.
Unlike Buddhists, Hindus represented a philosophical/theological concept through images. The image of the elephant, then, was used to represent all attributes and characteristics that a perfect disciple should have. So, many Hindu gods are personifications of a set of attributes. The deification of images was a way to inform the crowd about social rules and moral obligations.