during the mughal era, "it was a common mode of execution in those days to have the offender trampled underfoot by an elephant." captain alexander hamilton, writing in 1727, described how the mughal ruler shah jahan ordered an offending military commander to be carried "to the elephant garden, and there to be executed by an elephant, which is reckoned to be a shameful and terrible death". the mughal emperor humayun ordered the crushing by elephant of an imam he mistakenly believed to be critical of his reign. some monarchs also adopted this form of execution for their own entertainment. another mughal ruler, the emperor jahangir, is said to have ordered a huge number of criminals to be crushed for his amusement. the french traveler françois bernier, who witnessed such executions, recorded his dismay at the pleasure that the emperor derived from this cruel punishment. nor was crushing the only method used by the mughals' execution elephants; in the mughal sultanate of delhi, elephants were trained to slice prisoners to pieces "with pointed blades fitted to their tusks".