Elephants were a common in Sinhalese heraldry for over two thousand years and remained so through British colonial rule. The coat of arms and the flag of Ceylon Government from 1875 to 1948 included an elephant and even today many institutions use the Sri Lankan Elephant in their coat of arms and insignia.
An important cultural symbiosis has continued to exist between the elephant and humans for over two thousand years – no perahara (religious procession) was complete without its retinue of elephants, and many large Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka had their own elephants.
