170 Part III: South Asia
chosen and personally overseen by Akbar himself (see the image on the facing
page). The 19-year-old emperor is at the epicenter of one scene in which a
charging bull elephant chases another across a pontoon bridge. Holding him-
self by a bare foot hooked under the harness of “Sky-Rocket” (Hawa’i), the
meanest, most wicked elephant in India, Akbar has driven him against an
equally aggressive elephant, now fleeing in defeat. The pontoon bridge breaks
under the fury of their charge, throwing men into the water on either side,
while others rush to pull the emperor from the danger he has put himself in.
Akbar maintained a workshop of over a hundred artists who painted epi-
sodes from past and recent history, recorded scenes of Hindu life, and exhaus-Emperor Akbar commis-
sioned an illustrated chron-
icle of his reign, called the
Akbarnama, which was
produced between 1590
and 1595. This painting
was part of a two-page
composition, showing an
event when Akbar
mounted his most difficult
elephant, Hawa’i, then
faced off with an equally
difficult elephant of his
enemy on a bridge of boats,
which collapses under the
weight. The artists were
Basawan and Chetar.