This story appears in the August 2013 issue of National Geographic magazine. The royalty of India—Hindu and Muslim—understood long ago that power was best wielded from the back of an elephant.

Here we come to the central protagonist of Trautmann’s narrative—the war elephant. Serving as a key component of ancient ...

DHAWALPUR — In central India's dry forests, community trackers hunt for signs of elephants to feed into an alert system that is helping prevent some of the hundreds of fatal tramplings each year.

The object I have chosen is an Elephant bell from India ... the expatriate community who made up the "Raj" in India before the Second World War. He was Police Commissioner in Shimla.

In central India’s dry forests, community trackers hunt for signs of elephants to feed into an alert system that is helping prevent some of the hundreds of fatal tramplings each year.