Hastin is a term for elephant

Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...

 used in Vedic texts. Other terms for elephant include ibha and varana.

The elephant in the Rigveda

In Rig Veda 1.84.17 and 4.4.1. and probably other instances the Rig Veda seems to refer to elephant

Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...

s (e.g. Bryant 2001: 323), an animal that is native to South Asia. It has been speculated that some of these verses might be references to domesticated elephants. In RV 1.64.7, 8.33.8 and 10.40.4, "wild" elephants are mentioned.

Mrga Hastin

In the Rigveda and in the Atharvaveda, the term is translated as elephant (according to Keith and Macdonell, Roth and other scholars). In the Rig Veda, Mrga Hastin (animal with a hand) occurs in RV 1.64.7 and RV 4.16.14. An equivalent word for elephants in Tamil is "kaimmaa" (கைம்மா) which also means "animal with a hand" (Kalithogai, 23; Purananuru, 368).

Ibha

RV 9.57.3 and RV 6.20.8 mention s, a term meaning "servant, domestics, household" according to Roth, Ludwig, Zimmer and other Indologists. Other scholars like Pischel and Karl Friedrich Geldner

Karl Friedrich Geldner

Karl Friedrich Geldner was a German linguist best known for his analysis and synthesis of Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit texts.-Biography:...

 translate the term as elephant. According to Sayana

Sayana

' was an important commentator on the Vedas. He flourished under King Bukka I and his successor Harihara II, in the Vijayanagar Empire of South India...

, Mahidhara

Mahidhara

Mahīdhara was a 16th century commentator of the Vedas, author of the Mantramahodadhi Mahīdhara (the name means "earth-bearing", a mythological mountain in the Mahabharata, and also an epithet of Vishnu) was a 16th century commentator of the Vedas, author of the Mantramahodadhi Mahīdhara (the name...

 and the Nirukta

Nirukta

Nirukta is one of the six disciplines of Hinduism, treating etymology, particularly of obscure words, especially those occurring in the Vedas. The discipline is traditionally attributed to , an ancient Sanskrit grammarian...

, ibha is translated as elephant. Megasthenes

Megasthenes

Megasthenes was a Greek ethnographer in the Hellenistic period, author of the work Indica.He was born in Asia Minor and became an ambassador of Seleucus I of Syria possibly to Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra, India. However the exact date of his embassy is uncertain...

 and Nearchos also connect ibha with elephant. The term ibha is only used in the Samhitas, and especially in the Rig Veda.

Varana

Another term that may mean elephant is "Varana" (RV 8.33.8; RV 10.40.4). According to Macdonell and Keith, "Varana" refers to elephants.

The elephant in other Hindu texts

The Akananuru

Akananuru

Akananuru , a classical Tamil poetic work, is the seventh book in the Sangam literature anthology Ettuthokai. It contains 400 Akam poems dealing with matters of love and separation...

 (27) and the Purananuru

Purananuru

Purananuru is a Tamil poetic work in the Pathinenmaelkanakku anthology of Tamil literature, belonging to the Sangam period corresponding to between 200 BCE – 100 CE. Purananuru is part of the Ettuthokai anthology which is the oldest available collection of poems of Sangam literature in Tamil....

 (389) state that elephants were raised and trained in Tirupati. According to another Sangam

Sangam literature

Sangam literature refers to a body of classical Tamil literature created between the years c. 600 BCE to 300 CE. This collection contains 2381 poems composed by 473 poets, some 102 of whom remain anonymous The period during which these poems were composed is commonly referred to as the Sangam...

 poem, the mahout

Mahout

A mahout is a person who drives an elephant. The word mahout comes from the Hindi words mahaut and mahavat. Usually, a mahout starts as a boy in the 'family business' when he is assigned an elephant early in its life and they would be attached to each other throughout the elephant's life.The most...

s trained the elephants using Sanskrit.