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Diod. 17, 93. Plut. "Alex." 62. Curt. 9, 2.

THE NATIONS AND PRINCES OF THE LAND OF THE INDUS.

According to Herodotus the satrapy of the Indians paid the highest tribute in the whole Persian kingdom; each year it had to deliver 360 talents of gold to the king. The gold for this payment was obtained, as Herodotus tells us, from a great desert, which lay to the east beyond the Indus. Of that region no one could give any account. Where the desert began there were ants, smaller than dogs and larger than foxes, which dug up gold sand, when after the manner of ants they excavated their nests in the ground. This sand the Indians took, put in sacks, and carried it off as quickly as possible on the swiftest camels; for should the ants overtake them, neither man nor beast could escape; occasionally ants of the kind were captured and brought to the Persian king. This marvellous story is repeated by Megasthenes with even more definite statements; the Indians who dwelt in the mountains of that region are called Derdae; the mountain plain, in which the ants are found, is three thousand stades in circuit; the sand thrown up by these animals requires but little smelting; and Nearchus assures us that the skins of the ants are like those of panthers. That the Greeks are not relating a fable of their own invention is proved by the Mahabharata, according to which the tribes which dwell in the mountains of the north bring "ant gold" to Yudhishthira as a tribute. The Derdae of Megasthenes must be the Daradas, whom the book of the law counts among the degenerate races of warriors. Even at this day the Dardus dwell on the upper course of the Indus to the north of Cashmere, in the valley of the Nagar, which flows into the Indus from the north, to the east of the highest summits as far as Iskardu, on the Darda-Himalayas , and speak a dialect of Sanskrit. Adjacent to this almost inaccessible mountain-land are table-lands, where the sandy soil contains gold-dust. Numerous marmot-like animals with spotted skins, of which the largest are about two feet long, burrow in this soil. The traveller who first penetrated this region in our times informs us: "The red soil was pierced by these animals, which sat on their hind legs before their holes, and seemed to protect them." We may assume that the Daradas carried away the loose sand which these animals threw up in making their winter holes, in order to extract the gold from it; and the Aryas on the lower Indus and the Ganges, who did not know the marmot, compared them with the ants, which, among them, built and dug holes in the earth, and assuming that they were a large species of ant, called the gold of the north after them . What the Greeks tell us of the swiftness and dangerous nature of these animals is fabulous.

What effect the subjugation of the Aryas on the right bank of the Indus, and their dependence on the Persian kingdom, exercised upon them, we cannot ascertain. That they were not greatly alienated from the community of their own nation may be concluded from the fact that in the Aitareya-Brahmana and in the Mahabharata, a king of the Gandharas is mentioned, Nagnajit by name; that in the Epos the daughter of the king of the Gandharas is married to the king of the Bharatas, and Krishna relates that he has overcome all the sons of Nagnajit, the king of the Gandharas. A Rishi and Brahmans of the Gandharas are also mentioned, the latter with the addition that they are the lowest of all the Brahmans. Of the tribes to the north of the Cabul, the A?vakas, the Assacanes of the Greeks, are merely alluded to by name. Whether the Persian kings maintained their dominion on the western bank of the Indus down to the fall of the kingdom, is not certain. The products and animals of India which Ctesias saw at the Persian court are described as gifts of the king of the Indians. According to Arrian, the Indians "from this side of the Indus" fought with some fifteen elephants in the army of the last Persian king at Arbela; according to Megasthenes these were the Oxydrakes , soldiers raised on the other side of the stream.

The path of their development had carried the Brahmans on the Ganges so far from the original basis and motives of the old Arian life, that now they hardly could or would find any common link between themselves and these tribes. But even from their own point of view their attacks are exaggerated. The accounts of western writers from the last third of the fourth century B.C. show us that in the larger states and monarchies on the Indus and in the Panjab the doctrines of the Brahmans were known and practised. They were honoured and influential, though their rules were not entirely observed, least of all, it would seem, in the arrangement and closeness of the castes. From the same accounts we perceive what form of life and civilisation had been attained in the region of the Panjab since the time when the hymns of the Veda were sung there. A considerable number of smaller and larger principalities had arisen on the upper and lower Indus, and on the heights in the Panjab. Between these, on the spurs of the Himalayas, on the middle and lower course of the five streams, lay nations governed by overseers of cantons, chiefs of cities and districts, among which, with the exception of some pastoral tribes, the noble families were numerous and warlike. The territory of the princes no less than that of the free nations was thickly inhabited; even the latter possessed a considerable number of fortified towns. Not only the great principalities but even the free nations could put in the field armies of 50,000 men; and there were cities among them where 70,000 men could be made captive. In the monarchies between the Indus and the Vitasta Brahmans are found busied with penitential exercises, and they are of influence in the councils of the princes on the lower Indus. But even in one of the free nations a city of Brahmans is mentioned. The princes kept without exception a number of elephants for use in war; the ancient chariots were employed in their armies. The free nations were without elephants, but had hundreds and even thousands of chariots, in which, we cannot doubt, the noble families went to battle. There was no lack of martial vigour and spirit in the region of the Indus. With the exception of some minor princes and tribes and one or two larger states who asked for favour and help, the nations knew how to defend themselves with the utmost stubbornness. When defeated in the field, they maintained their cities, which were surrounded by walls and towers, chiefly, it appears, built of bricks, but also of masonry, and containing no doubt a citadel within them. Yet the walls of the cities cannot have been very strong, nor the citadels very high; if they forced the enemy to a regular siege, the walls did not long withstand the missiles and powerful besieging engines, and when the walls were surmounted it was possible to leap down without injury from the rampart to the ground.

The dominion of the Persians cannot have exercised any deep influence on the life of the Aryas on the right bank of the Indus, and still less on the nations beyond the river. A new enemy, a dangerous neighbour, came upon the Indians from the distant west, who brought upon their states the first serious disaster from without. The extensive Persian kingdom was broken before the mighty arm of Alexander of Macedon. His expedition came from a greater distance than the armies of the kings of Asshur, of Cyrus, and Darius; it penetrated further to the east than the Assyrians and Persians had ever done, and brought with it important consequences, which extended over the whole land of the Indus.

What essentially tended to make the attack of these enemies easier was the discord among the states and tribes of the land of the Indus. The mightiest kingdom on this side of the Indus was the kingdom of Cashmere, whose princes had extended their territory over the mountains in the south, and the land of Abhisara. They were in excellent relations with the princely race of the Pauravas, which reigned between the upper course of the Vitasta and the Asikni. In common both states had sought to subjugate the free nations between their territories and on the borders of the Pauravas. They marched out with a great army, but they were unable to accomplish anything. In the land of the Panjab the Pauravas possessed the most important warlike power; a neighbouring family of the same name ruled between the upper Asikni and the Iravati. Such a power was dangerous to the kingdom of Taksha?ila, which lay to the west between the upper Iravati and the Indus; the princes of this state had long been at enmity with their neighbours, the Pauravas. A similar feud on the lower Indus separated the princes of the Mushikas and those of the region of Sindimana, which lay opposite, on the right bank of the Indus. Of the free nations the Kshudrakas and Malavas could together put 100,000 warriors in the field, but they were in a state of feud and hostility.

Early in the year 326 B.C. Alexander prepared to cross the Indus in order finally to measure himself against the fellow-tribesmen of the nations who had so long detained his arms on the right bank of the river. Even when he was in Sogdiana, Mophis the son of the prince of the Indians, who ruled between the Indus and the Vitasta , sent envoys requesting that he would take his part and receive him as a vassal. Mophis was moved to this step by the ancient feud between the kingdom of Taksha?ila and the greater empire of the Pauravas between the Vitasta and the Asikni . In the meantime the father of Mophis had died, and Alexander now received as the sign of submission on the part of the new prince, 3000 bulls, 10,000 sheep, 25 elephants, and about 200 talents of silver. He directed his march against the city of Taksha?ila which lay half way between the Indus and Vitasta. Mophis came to meet him with his warriors and elephants, and led him into his metropolis. This city, the Greeks tell us, was large and flourishing, and its constitution well arranged. The land, which sank gradually to the plain, was cultivated and very fruitful. The king of Cashmere had sent his brother to Taksha?ila to announce his submission; some smaller princes, neighbours of the territory of Taksha?ila, came in person to pay homage to Alexander.

At Taksha?ila the Greeks found "wise men" of the Indians. Aristobulus tells that he had there seen two Brahmans, one older and shaven, the other younger and wearing his hair. Both had been accompanied by their pupils. In the market-place they could take what pleased them, so that they had abundant food of honey and sesame without any cost, and everyone whom they approached drenched them so plentifully with sesame oil that it ran down into their eyes. Not far from the city they had given an example of endurance; the older, lying on the earth, exposed himself to the heat of the sun and then to torrents of rain; the younger went even further, for he stood on one leg and with both hands supported a log of wood three cubits in length, and when one limb was tired, he stood on the other, and continued standing the whole day long. Alexander desired to have one of these sages, who were in the greatest repute there, about him, that he might learn their doctrine. The younger one accompanied him a short time, but soon returned to his home; the older one remained with Alexander, and changed his clothing and mode of life; to those who reproached him on this account he replied that the forty years for which he had vowed asceticism were past. Onesicritus relates that he had found fifteen of these sages to the south of the city, each in a different position, one sitting, another standing, a third naked and lying immovable on the ground till evening. The severest trial was the endurance of the heat, which at midday was so great that no one else could touch the ground with the naked foot. Among these sages, lying on stones, was the Calanus who afterwards followed Alexander, and subsequently ended his life in Persia. But Mandanis, who was the first among them in age and wisdom, had said: That doctrine was the best which removed pleasure and pain from the soul; pain and effort were different things; effort was the friend, pain the enemy of the soul; they exercised the body by toil and nakedness and scanty nourishment, in order to stablish the spirit, that so the division between them might be ended, and they might give the best counsel to everyone. That house was the best which required the least furniture. Megasthenes assures us that the sages of the Indians reproached Calanus because he renounced the blessedness which he might have enjoyed among them, in order to serve another master than God. These accounts of the Greeks fully confirm the statements of the Buddhists given above , that the law and order of the Brahmans were current in Taksha?ila.

Beyond the Vitasta was the kingdom of Porus, as the Greeks called the ruler of it. He derived his race, as Plutarch says, from Gegasius, by whom may be meant the Yayati of the Rigveda and the Mahabharata . The name Porus has been taken by the Greeks from the dynasty; the Mahabharata speaks of a kingdom of the Pauravas or Pauras, in the neighbourhood of Cashmere. The territory of Porus extended to the east as far as the Asikni. Spittakes the nephew of Porus ruled over a small region on the west bank of the Vitasta; his cousin reigned in the east between the Asikni and Iravati. In the north the territory of Porus was separated from that of the king of Cashmere by a few small tribes. According to the Greeks the kingdom of Porus was superior to that of Cashmere; three hundred cities are enumerated in it. Porus could bring into the field 200 elephants, 400 chariots of war, 4000 horse, and about 50,000 foot soldiers.

Alexander encamped opposite the army of Porus, who held the left bank of the Vitasta; though far superior in numbers--his army was twice as strong and had been yet further increased by 5000 Indians from Mophis and some smaller princes--Alexander for a long time hesitated to cross the river in the face of Porus. At last he was decided by the information that the king of Cashmere, notwithstanding his embassy, was marching to join Porus, with an army not much weaker than his own, and was only 50 miles distant. Alexander divided his troops, left half opposite the camp of Porus, and with the other half hastened to cross the river higher up in order to defeat Porus before the army of Cashmere arrived. The crossing was accomplished in the neighbourhood of the modern Jalam. Porus also divided his army; with all his elephants, chariots, and cavalry, and the greater part of his infantry, he marched against Alexander. Two hundred elephants in a long row with intervals of a hundred feet, as Arrian states, formed his first rank; the infantry formed the second rank, the cavalry and chariots were on the wings. After a fluctuating and desperate conflict the Macedonians were victorious. Porus, wounded in the right shoulder, was among the last to retire on his elephant. When his old enemy the prince of Taksha?ila called on him to desist from the battle, he answered by raising his javelin. The other retired hastily on his horse. Requested a second time by an Indian, a friend of old days, and afterwards at the command of Alexander, to lay down his weapons, he checked his elephants, quenched his thirst, and then allowed himself to be brought before Alexander, from whom his indomitable bearing and lofty form won respect. To Alexander's question how he wished to be treated, he replied: Like a king. His two sons and his nephew Spittakes had fallen; of his army, according to the Greeks, 12,000 in some accounts and 20,000 in others were slain .

The defeat of Porus terrified the king of Cashmere. He did not venture to oppose Alexander unaided; at any rate he sought to avert the threatening storm for the moment; he sent his brother with forty elephants and other presents to appease Alexander by these tokens of submission. Alexander required that he should pay homage in person; otherwise he would visit him in his own land. He kept his word. The cousin of Porus, whose territory lay between the upper course of the Asikni and the Iravati--he had rendered no assistance to his kinsman against Alexander--fled out of his land with a part of his army at Alexander's approach, and the Glaukas who inhabited thirty-seven considerable towns and many villages on the heights to the north of the kingdom of the conquered Porus, submitted. Beyond the Indus the A?vakas were again in open revolt, and after crossing the Asikni, marching through the land of the fugitive prince, and advancing beyond the Iravati, Alexander found the most stubborn resistance among the Khattias , who dwelt to the south of the Kaikeyas between the Iravati and Vipa?a, and like the Glaukas obeyed no king. The Kshudrakas and Malavas, dwelling in the lower land on the Asikni and the ?atadru, had sent assistance to them. Hence the Khattias awaited the attack of the foreigners at their chief city ?akala , the modern Amritsir. Near this spacious city, which abutted on a lake and was surrounded by a wall of bricks, they were encamped on a gentle eminence behind a triple row of packed waggons. After a bloody battle they were driven into the city, and Alexander then began the regular investment of the city by throwing up a double trench round it so far as the lake did not prevent him. An attempt on the part of the besieged to break through, of which Alexander received timely information by deserters, was abandoned after a loss of 500 men. The engines were set up, the battering-rams and wooden towers were prepared, when breaches appeared in the wall, which had been already undermined. The army of Alexander made the assault, the ladders were placed, the city taken. At this capture 17,000 Indians are said to have been slain; the remainder of the army and the entire population of the city, amounting together to 70,000 men, were made prisoners. Among the captive soldiers were 500 horsemen; and 300 chariots were taken. The city was levelled to the ground. This siege is said to have cost the Macedonians 100 slain and 12,000 wounded. As the fate of ?akala did not terrify the remaining cities of the Khattias into submission, Alexander caused the inhabitants of two other cities, who fled at his approach, to be vigorously pursued; some hundreds who failed to escape were overtaken and cut down. The remaining places then submitted without opposition.

Alexander had not merely restored Porus to his throne after the battle on the Vitasta, but had even increased his power; he assigned to him the territory of the Glaukas, and of his fugitive cousin, together with the recently-conquered land of the Khattias, so that Porus, according to the Greeks, now reigned over seven nations, and more than two thousand considerable towns beside many villages. The northern neighbours of the Khattias were the Kaikeyas, whose prince--the A?vapati of the time , but the Greeks call him Sopeithes--welcomed Alexander, and thus as well as by presents gave evidence of his submission. The Greeks extol the good laws of this nation, and their vigorous dogs, a cross breed between tigers and dogs, as some thought. The Ramayana mentions among the Kaikeyas, "the dogs bred in the palace, gifted with the strength of the tiger, and of huge body." Alexander received 150 of these animals as a present from A?vapati.

From the land of the Kaikeyas the Macedonians reached the eastern stream of the Panjab, which the Greeks call Hyphasis , above the confluence with the ?atadru. When Alexander had received here a further embassy from the king of Cashmere, which was accompanied by a fresh present of 50 elephants, and the homage of the prince of Ura?a, whose territory lay to the west of Cashmere on the Himalayas, he returned in the autumn of the year 326 B.C. to the Vitasta ; from hence he descended, sending part of his army on board ship down the river, and taking the remainder along the banks, in order to come to and along the Asikni, and from this to the Indus. Before he reached the Asikni his army, on the right bank of the lower Vitasta, came upon the nation of the ?ibis; east of these, on the confluence of the Vitasta and the Asikni, were the Kshudrakas , and still further to the east between the Asikni and the Iravati the Agalassians, while beyond the Iravati as far as the ?atadru were the Malavas, who like the Kshudrakas had already sent help to the Khattias against Alexander. The ?ibis, a pastoral people, who carried the skins of animals and used clubs as weapons, were overcome with little resistance, or submitted without a struggle. the Agalassians, who had put in the field some thousands of infantry and 3000 horse, were severely defeated by Alexander, and their cities conquered. The Kshudrakas and Malavas forgetting their ancient hostility had now combined against the foe, and together could bring into the field 80,000 foot soldiers, 10,000 cavalry, and 7000 chariots of war. But the leaders whom the Kshudrakas put at the head of their forces were not true to the Malavas; they retired into their cities. These, unexpectedly attacked by Alexander, were taken one after the other; one of them is mentioned expressly as a Brahman city. The largest city was found to be deserted; but on the banks of the Iravati 50,000 Malavas, it is said, had collected. They were put to flight, and sought protection in a neighbouring fortified place on the western bank of the Iravati. Alexander followed them. The attack on the city began. The Indians retired into the citadel from the walls of the city; this also Alexander at once attacked, and with his own hands seized on a scaling-ladder and ascended; Peukestes the shield-bearer of the king, Abreas and Leonnatus follow him; he gains the parapet and stands on the gangway when the ladder breaks. As in that position he was too prominent a mark, owing to the splendour of his armour, for the shots of the Indians, especially from the two nearest towers, he leaps from the gangway down into the citadel. The Indians press upon him; he beats down some of the assailants. Peukestes, Abreas and Leonnatus follow his example, and fight at his side, when an arrow pierces Alexander's mail and penetrates his breast. The king falls; Abreas falls also, struck in the face. With extreme effort Peukestes covers Alexander with the shield of Athene of Ilium, Leonnatus assisting on the other side, till at length the Macedonians force their way in, and put to death every living creature in the citadel, men, women, and children. Then envoys came from the Malavas and promised the submission of the whole people. They were followed by the overseers of the cities and cantons of the Kshudrakas, accompanied by 150 chiefs of note, who pledged absolute obedience. Alexander required 1000 nobles as hostages. They were sent with 500 yoked and manned chariots of war, which the Kshudrakas added. The chariots Alexander retained in his army, the hostages he sent back.

It was Alexander's intention to maintain his conquests in India. On the Vitasta he had built Bucephala and Nicaea, on the Asikni a third fortress of the name of Alexandria, on the confluence of the Panjab and the Indus a fourth of the same name. Pattala was transformed into a well-fortified harbour; he ordered a citadel to be erected there, a harbour and docks. As satrap of the district of the Panjab he appointed Philippus; as satrap of the region on the lower course of the Indus Peithon, the son of Agenor. Garrisons were placed in the most important cities. Alexander moreover counted on the fidelity and the interest of the princes, Mophis and Porus, whose territories he had enlarged. When he had navigated the two mighty arms of the Indus, and examined their outlets, he set out towards the end of August, 325 B.C., with the greater part of his army, 80,000 men strong, to march through Gedrosia to Persia. In September Nearchus left the Indus with the fleet, carrying the rest of the army, in order to explore the unknown sea and return to the Persian Gulf.

FOOTNOTES:

The inscription of Behistun speaks of Harauvatis and Gandara as subjugated; the inscription of Persepolis of Harauvatis, Idhus, and Gandara. Hence Harauvatis and Gandhara belong to the hereditary part of the kingdom; Idhus was an addition. As Herodotus speaks of Caspapyrus along with Pactyike, and Hecataeus gives Caspapyrus to the Gandarians, the place may be identified with Cabul.

Herod. 7, 65, 66, 86.

Herod. 8, 113.

Herod. 4, 40; 3, 102.

Strabo, p. 705, 706. Cf. Arrian, "Anab." 5, 4; Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 22; 11, 36.

Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2, 1020.

Above, p. 249. Manu, 10, 43-45.

Moorcroft, "Asiatic Researches," 12, 435 ff.

Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 4, 249.

"Anab." 3, 8. Strabo, p. 678.

A. Weber, "Vorles." s. 147^2.

Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 408. "Mahavan?a," ed. Turnour, p. 39 ff.

A. Weber, "Vorlesungen," 74^2, 85^2.

Lassen, "De Pentapotamia Indica," p. 22, 63: "Alterthumskunde," 1, 822.

Arrian, "Anab." 5, 22; Curt. 8, 12, 13.

Droysen, "Alexander," s. 302.

Aristobulus in Strabo, p. 691, tells us that the army wintered in the mountain land of the Hippasians and the Assacanus . The Guraeans must be considered a tribe of the A?vakas.

Arrian, "Anab." 4, 24.

Arrian, "Anab." 4, 25.

Curt. 8, 10; Justin, 12, 7; Arrian, "Anab." 4, 27.

Cunningham, "Survey," 2, 103 ff. The accompanying sketch gives a clear idea of the gorge over which Alexander laid the dam, in order to reach the walls of the citadel.

The Abissareans of Arrian , from whose mountains the Soanas flows into the Indus, can only be the inhabitants of the district called Abhisara, which comprises the ranges of the Himalayas in the region of the sources of the Vitasta; Ritter, "Erdkunde," 3, 1085 ff. According to Droysen , Lassen , and the statements of Onesicritus on the serpents of Abisares, we must assume that Abhisara belonged to Cashmere, and was at that time the seat of the king of Cashmere, and the Greeks took the name of the prince from the name of the land.

Arrian, "Anab." 4, 22, 30. Strabo, p. 691, 698.

Diod. 17, 86.

Cunningham, "Geogr." p. 111, considers the ruins near the modern Shahderi to mark the site of the ancient Taksha?ila.

Diod. 17, 86.

Arrian. "Anab." 5, 8. Strabo, p. 698.

Onesicritus in Strabo, p. 715

Arrian, "Anab." 7, 2.

Aristobulus in Strabo, p. 714.

In Arrian and Plutarch Dandamis.

Onesicritus in Strabo, p. 715.

Arrian, "Anab." 7, 2.

Arrian, "Anab." 5, 18.

Arrian, "Anab." 5, 21

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