The Book of Akbar 344.1

344.1

hands of supplication and implored from a bounteous God enduring dominion and the perfecting of humanity by the fostering care of this great lord of horizons! Let it not be concealed from inquirers that the first elephant which H.M. the Shāhinshāh rode was called Dilsankār. It was sent along with other elephants by Bairām Khān Khān Khānān to H.M. Jahānbānī Jinnat Āshiyānī as part of the plunder of Mācīwāra. H.M. Jinnat Āshiyānī presented that elephant in Lahore to H.M. the Shāhinshāh, and as his elephant-riding had not advanced so far as that he could ride alone on grand elephants, he used to ride this one, which was perfectly quiet. And there was an elephant called Faujbidār (scattering the army?) which at the very first time he rode alone without the help of a driver. This too was an elephant which H.M. Jahānbānī Jinnat Āshiyānī had presented to him. One day when H.M. Jahānbānī Jinnat Āshiyānī was coming from Mācīwāra to Sihrind, H.M. the Shāhinshāh rode on that elephant as far as Sihrind. The first mast elephant that H.M. the Shāhinshāh rode was called Dāmidār, which H.M. had presented to Bairām Khān. When H.M. the Shāhinshāh was going from Delhi to Salīmgarh, which was on the bank of the Jumna, that elephant was tied under a tree by the roadside. As it possessed the virtue of steadiness the driver was, even in the height of its mast condition, taking cooked rice in his hand and putting it into the elephant’s mouth. H.M.