The Bhikṣuṇī Maṇimēkhalai

157 - Indra’s Festival
all these things, these twenty-eight days when the gods and men in
friendly company keep moving about on hillocks of sand, in gardens
full of flowers, in islets in river beds and in bathing ghats.’
This announcement by beat of the royal drum was made while
warriors with drawn swords, cars and cavalry and elephants moved in
procession escorting the State elephant which carried the drum. The
announcement [116] closed with the prayer that hunger, disease and
enmity may cease to exist, and that rain and the resulting prosperity
may perpetually be on the rise.