Once a hunter had the rare opportunity of seeing a fight between a lion and an elephant. The lion, the acclaimed King of Beasts, was trying hard to get at the elephant’s head. But the elephant kept on leaping around at a terrific speed always facing the lion fairly and squarely. The lion could not catch the elephant unawares because it never turned its neck. At last the elephant gored the lion with its tusks and trampled it to death.

What decided victory in this battle was the peculiarity in the elephant’s neck. Every time the lion tried to approach it from a side, the elephant answered with a full-bodied response. The steadiness of its neck stood it in good stead.

As an interesting side-light, it may be mentioned that in a certain canonical figure of the Buddha as an elephant, his neck is compared to the quality of MINDFULNESS. (A.N.IV 107). Turning the whole body when looking back, is said to be a mark of the Buddhas. It is called ‘The Elephant-look’.