THE NATIONS AND PRINCES OF THE LAND OF THE INDUS.
The examination of the accounts of exploits said to have been performed
by Cyrus (Kuru), the founder of the Persian kingdom, in the region of
the Indus, showed us above (p. 16) that it was the Gandarians, the
neighbours of the Arachoti, whom Cyrus subjugated. Hence the spies of
Darius could travel from Caspapyrus, _i.e._ from the city of Cabul
(Kabura) down the Cabul and the Indus; from the mouth of the latter they
sailed round Arabia and returned home by the Arabian Gulf. Not quite
thirty years after the death of the Enlightened, towards the year 515
B.C., Darius subjugated the tribes dwelling to the north of Cabul on the
right bank of the Indus, the "northern Indians," as Herodotus calls
them, as far as the upper course of the Indus. His inscriptions at
Persepolis add the "Idhus" to the Gandarians and Arachoti, who are
mentioned in previous inscriptions as subjugated.[506] The Gandarians
were united with the Arachoti and Sattagydæ into a satrapy of the
Persian kingdom; the Açvakas, who dwell on the left bank of the Cabul,
formed with the tribes who dwell further north up the course of the
Indus a separate satrapy, the satrapy of the Indians. By the successor
of Darius the soldiers in both satrapies were summoned to take part in
the campaign against Hellas. Herodotus, who wrote at the time when
Kalaçoka sat on the throne of Magadha, tells us that the Gandarians, who
were commanded by Artyphius, the son of Artabanes, were armed like the
Bactrians; the Indians, led by Pharnazathres, were clothed in garments
of cotton or bark, and armed with bows of reed, and arrows of reed
tipped with iron points. The horsemen among the Indians were clothed and
armed like the foot-soldiers, their chariots of war were equipped partly
by horses and partly by wild asses.[507] They marched over the bridges
of the Hellespont, and sixty years after the death of the Enlightened
they trod the soil of Hellas. They saw the temple of Athens in flames;
the infantry, horse, and chariots of the Indians wintered in Thessaly,
and were then defeated on the Asopus.[508]
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.[509] This marvellous story is repeated by Megasthenes with even
more definite statements; the Indians who dwelt in the mountains of that
region are called Derdæ; the mountain plain, in which the ants are
found, is three thousand stades (about 400 miles) 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.[510]
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.[511] The Derdæ of Megasthenes must be the Daradas, whom the
book of the law counts among the degenerate races of warriors.[512] 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 (so called after the tribe), and speak a
dialect of Sanskrit.[513] 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,[514] 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."[515] 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 (_pipilika_). 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;[516] 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,[517] 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.[518] Of the tribes to the north of the Cabul, the Açvakas,
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 (Kshudrakas), soldiers raised on the other side of
the stream.[519]
From the time that the hymns of the Veda were sung in the land of the
Panjab we are without any information about the life in these regions.
From the Brahmans of the land of the Ganges and the writings of the
Buddhists we hardly learn more about the nations of the Panjab and their
fortunes than about the Aryas of the right bank of the Indus. The
Çatapatha-Brahmana and the Ramayana mention the nation of the Kaikeyas,
whose abodes are to be sought on the upper course of the Iravati and the
Vipaça. Both authorities denote the king of the Kaikeyas by the title
Açvapati, _i.e._ lord of horses.[520] The horses of the land of the
Indus were considered the best in India (p. 318). The metropolis of the
Kaikeyas is called in the Ramayana Girivraja, and the daughter of
Açvapati is given to wife to king Daçaratha of Ayodhya. The distance
from Girivraja to Ayodhya is fixed in the poem at seven days' journey in
a chariot on a paved road.[521] The sutras of the Buddhists mention a
region lying still further to the west. Not very far from the left bank
of the Indus was the city of Takshaçila. In this, according to the
sutras, the law of the Brahmans was current; Chandalas are said to have
performed the duties of executioners and buriers of the dead. According
to the Mahavança, Brahmans march in the fourth century B.C. from
Palibothra to Takshaçila, and from thence to Palibothra.[522] The
chronicle in this work, which it is true was not completed till the
twelfth century A.D., tells us that king Gopaditya, who must be placed
in the fourth century B.C., presented Brahmans from Aryadeça with lands,
that he observed the castes, and introduced the worship of Çiva.[523]
The Brahmans of the Ganges looked down with scorn on the ancient home,
and the region of the seven streams, where the arrangement of the castes
and the Brahmanic law had not been brought into full recognition and
currency, where there were tribes and even whole nations, who lived not
only without Brahmans, but even without kings. We know the views of the
Brahmans concerning the necessity of the power of punishment, the royal
power, "since it is only from fear that all creatures fulfil their
duties." In regard to the fact that the Brahmanic arrangement, which
with them is the original arrangement given by God, was not entirely
observed in the Panjab, the inhabitants of the land are for the most
part called Vratyas, _i.e._ heretics; Bahikas, _i.e._ excluded; and the
tribes without kings Arattas, _i.e._ kingless. Of the Vratyas the
Tandya-Brahmana tells us: "They come on in uncovered chariots of war,
armed with bows and lances; they wear turbans and garments with a red
hem, fluttering points, and double sheepskins. Their leaders are
distinguished by a brown robe and silver ornaments for the neck. They
neither till the field nor carry on trade. In regard to law, they live
in perpetual confusion; they do indeed speak the same language with the
Brahmanic initiated; but what is easily spoken they call hard to be
spoken."[524] According to the evidence of Panini, the Bahikas dwelt in
villages, were without kings and Brahmans, and lived by war; the
Kshudrakas and Malavas were the mightiest among those who had no
king.[525] In the Mahabharata we are told that they are excluded from
the Himavat, the Yamuna and the Sarasvati; impure in manners and
character, they must be avoided. Their sacred fig-tree is called
cow-slaughter, and their market-place is full of drinking-vessels. The
wicked drink the intoxicating liquor of rice and sugar; they eat the
flesh of oxen with garlic, and other flesh with forbidden herbs. The
women wander through the streets and fields adorned with garlands,
intoxicated and without garments. With cries like the noise of horses
and asses they run to the bathing-places. They shout and curse,
intoxicated with wine. What is taught by those acquainted with the
sacred books passes elsewhere for law, but here, he who is born a
Brahman passes into the rank of the Kshatriya or Vaiçya and Çudra, and
the priest may become a barber, the barber a Kshatriya. Nowhere can the
priest live according to his pleasure; only among the Gandharas,
Kshudrakas and Bahikas is this reversal of everything a custom.[526]
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.[527] 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 Takshaçila, 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.
Alexander assembled his army for the march against the Indians at
Bactra, whither, according to the Epos of the Persians, Semiramis had
once summoned her troops against the Indian king Stabrobates. In the
spring of the year 327 B.C. he crossed the Hindu Kush with 120,000 foot
soldiers and 15,000 horse,[528] and when he arrived at Cabul he began
the reduction of the Aryas, who dwelt on the right bank of the
Indus.[529] At the confluence of the Cabul and the Indus lay the city of
Pushkala, of which the territory was called among the Greeks Penkelaotis
(Pushkalavati), and the prince Astes.[530] This city could not be
reduced without a siege of 30 days. To the north of the Cabul the
Açvakas, to the south the Gandarians had to be overpowered. Of the war
against the Gandarians we know very little; the Açvakas made such a
stubborn resistance that they were not completely subjugated till the
winter. The Greeks call the Açvakas Assacanes, Aspasians, and
Hippasians. They were under a king, who resided in the city of Maçaka
(Massaga) on the Maçakavati,[531] no doubt an affluent of the Suvastu;
lived in fruitful valleys, and kept horses and numerous herds of cattle
on the high mountain pastures.[532] Beside the metropolis there were
other walled cities and rocky citadels in the land of the Açvakas. At
the approach of Alexander they fled to the mountains and to their
fortified cities. When the Macedonians had taken the outer walls of the
first city which they attacked, and the assault on the second seemed
likely to succeed, the besieged sallied forth from the gates, and the
majority escaped to the nearest mountains. Retiring with his army to the
mountains from the open field before the Macedonians, the king of the
Açvakas (western writers call him like his people Assacanus) fell in
single combat; his people made the most violent efforts to recover his
corpse from the enemies, but in vain.[533] Then, by means of a surprise
at night, Alexander succeeded after a severe battle in dispersing the
army of the Açvakas; forty thousand Indians are said to have been made
prisoners, and above 230,000 cattle were taken as booty.[534] Before
Maçaka, where the mother of the fallen king (the Greeks call her
Cleophis) had assumed the conduct of affairs,[535] Alexander found an
army of 30,000 foot soldiers, 2000 horse, 30 elephants, and 7000 men
raised in the further part of India. By pretending to retire Alexander
induced the Açvakas to advance further from the walls of the city, but
though he made the movement he had prepared with all speed, he did not
succeed in slaying more then 200 men. The walls of the city, it is true,
gave way before his battering-rams on the very first day, yet he could
not take the place, though the assault was carried on with the utmost
vigour for four successive days. Then a shot from an engine killed the
commander of the besieged; and they began to negociate. Alexander merely
required that the mercenaries from the interior of India should leave
the city and take service with him. The condition was accepted; the
mercenaries marched out of the city and encamped on a hill opposite the
Macedonian camp. Then, according to the Greek account, they intended to
return to their homes in the night, to avoid bearing arms against their
own nation. This intention was made known to Alexander, who caused the
hill to be surrounded by his whole army, cut down the Indians to the
last man, and then took the city by storm; the mother and daughter of
Assacanus were captured. Whatever may have been the case with the
supposed intention of the Indian mercenaries, and the intelligence which
Alexander is said to have received of this intention--the city had
fulfilled the condition imposed upon it, and had given up the
mercenaries, why then was it attacked in this unexpected and unmerited
manner against the terms of the capitulation? Alexander hoped that the
fall of the metropolis would terrify the remaining cities into
submission. But Ora had in turn to be regularly invested, and when this
had been done Alexander in person took the city by storm. Lines were
constructed against Bazira during the siege of Ora in order to cut off
the supplies of the inhabitants. But on receiving the intelligence that
Ora had fallen the inhabitants of Bazira left their city, and with many
of their people sought refuge in the citadel of Aornus (no doubt
_avarana_, protection), which is said to have been situated close to the
Indus not far from its confluence with the Cabul, on an isolated hill,
above 5000 feet in height, and above twenty miles in circuit at the
foot. What is meant is apparently the steep height on the Indus, on
which the citadel of Ranigat now lies.[536] Though Indians were found to
point out to the Macedonians a hidden path to the summit of the hill,
and select Macedonian troops thus reached a rock opposite the citadel,
concealed themselves there during the night by a barricade of trees, and
occupied the defenders by their unexpected attack, Alexander on the
other side of the mountain could not force his way up. When the Indians
had driven him back, they attempted to overpower the troops on the rock.
To save these, Alexander had to take the same path which they had taken;
after a severe struggle, which lasted from early dawn to night, he
succeeded in joining his troops on this side. Then he caused his army to
labour incessantly for four days in constructing a dam of wood-work and
stones across the gorge which separated the ridge of rock from the
citadel. As the work rapidly extended to a second eminence, which the
Macedonians could now occupy, close to the citadel, the Indians
abandoned the latter. But even so the war against the Açvakas was not
ended. The brother of the fallen king (Diodorus calls him Aphricus, and
Curtius Eryx) had taken the government into his hands, and got together
a new force of 20,000 men and 15 elephants in the north of the land.
Alexander marched against it to Dyrta. He found the city abandoned; even
the population of the surrounding country had fled. Prisoners declared
that the king, and the whole nation with him, had sought refuge beyond
the Indus with Abhisares, _i.e._ in the region of Cashmere.[537]
Alexander was pursuing him, when the king's head and armour were brought
in by some of his people. When a few of his elephants had been captured,
Alexander returned in sixteen marches to Pushkala on the bank of the
Indus, and his army wintered in the land of the Açvakas.[538]
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 (the Greeks call
his territory the kingdom of Taxiles after the metropolis Takshaçila),
sent envoys requesting that he would take his part and receive him as a
vassal.[539] Mophis was moved to this step by the ancient feud between
the kingdom of Takshaçila and the greater empire of the Pauravas
between the Vitasta and the Asikni (the Greeks call this the empire of
Porus). 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 Takshaçila which lay half way
between the Indus and Vitasta.[540] Mophis came to meet him with his
warriors and elephants, and led him into his metropolis.[541] This city,
the Greeks tell us, was large (the largest between the Indus and the
Vitasta) and flourishing, and its constitution well arranged. The land,
which sank gradually to the plain, was cultivated and very
fruitful.[542] The king of Cashmere had sent his brother to Takshaçila
to announce his submission; some smaller princes, neighbours of the
territory of Takshaçila, came in person to pay homage to Alexander.
At Takshaçila 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,[543] about him, that he might learn their doctrine.[544]
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 (p. 179) were
past.[545] 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,[546] 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.[547] 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.[548] These accounts of the Greeks fully confirm the statements of
the Buddhists given above (p. 387), that the law and order of the
Brahmans were current in Takshaçila.
Beyond the Vitasta (Hydaspes) 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 (p. 82). 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.[549] 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.[550] 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 Takshaçila
called on him to desist from the battle,[551] 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 (end of April or beginning of May, 326 B.C.).[552]
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,[553] and the Glaukas (Glausai, Glaukanikai among
the Greeks,) 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 Açvakas 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 (the Kathaioi of the
Greeks),[554] who dwelt to the south of the Kaikeyas between the Iravati
and Vipaça, and like the Glaukas obeyed no king. The Kshudrakas and
Malavas, dwelling in the lower land on the Asikni and the Çatadru, had
sent assistance to them. Hence the Khattias awaited the attack of the
foreigners at their chief city Çakala (Sangala), 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.[555] As
the fate of Çakala 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.[556] The northern neighbours of
the Khattias were the Kaikeyas, whose prince--the Açvapati of the time
(p. 387), 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 Açvapati.[557]
From the land of the Kaikeyas the Macedonians reached the eastern stream
of the Panjab, which the Greeks call Hyphasis (it is the Vipaça of the
Indians), above the confluence with the Çatadru. 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 Uraça, whose territory lay to the west of Cashmere on the
Himalayas,[558] he returned in the autumn of the year 326 B.C. to the
Vitasta (Hydaspes); 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 Çibis; east of these, on the
confluence of the Vitasta and the Asikni, were the Kshudrakas (the
Greeks call them Oxydrakes), and still further to the east between the
Asikni and the Iravati the Agalassians, while beyond the Iravati as far
as the Çatadru were the Malavas, who like the Kshudrakas had already
sent help to the Khattias against Alexander. The Çibis, a pastoral
people, who carried the skins of animals and used clubs as weapons, were
overcome with little resistance, or submitted without a struggle.[559]
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.[560] 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.[561] 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.[562] 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.
These contests against the free Indians had occupied the autumn and
winter. Not till the second month in the year 325 B.C.[563] did
Alexander set out from his camp at the mouth of the Iravati to the
Asikni, and sail up the latter to the Indus. The tribes on the Panjab
and the Indus, the Abastanes, the Vasatyas, who lived according to
Brahmanic laws (the Greeks call them the Ossadians[564]), and the
Kshatris were easily reduced or submitted without a struggle. Arrived in
the valley of the lower Indus the Macedonians again came upon
principalities. There the nearest inhabitants on both sides of the river
were the Çudras, whom the Greeks call the Sodroi or Sogdoi, governed by
a king; then on the western shore followed the kingdom of Sambus, who at
first submitted, and then at the instigation of the Brahmans seized his
weapons, but soon fled over the Indus with 30 elephants. His metropolis,
Sindimana, opened its gates; the other cities had to be taken by storm.
In one of these Brahmans were captured, and those of them who had
advised the king to revolt were executed. The whole land was laid waste;
above 80,000 men are said to have been slain, and the rest sold as
slaves.[565] Opposite the principality of Sambus, on the eastern bank,
dwelt the Mushikas, whose king the Greeks call Musikanos, after his
people; he abandoned every thought of resistance, as the Macedonians
appeared on his borders earlier than he expected. When he had submitted,
he also, on the instigation of the Brahmans, attempted to liberate
himself by arms. He was defeated and crucified along with his Brahmans.
To the south of the Mushikas lay the Prasthas,[566] on the eastern bank.
The city, into which the prince had retired, was taken on the third day;
the walls of the citadel soon collapsed, the prince fell in battle, the
city was sacked. At the point where the Indus divides into two great
arms on its course towards the sea, lay the great city of Potala, _i.e._
ship-station, the Pattala of the Greeks.[567] At Alexander's approach
the prince of this region fled, the city was abandoned by the
inhabitants, the surrounding country by the husbandmen.
It was Alexander's intention to maintain his conquests in India. On the
Vitasta he had built Bucephala and Nicæa, 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.[568], 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:
[506] 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 (Indun in the Balylonian form) was an addition. As
Herodotus speaks of Caspapyrus along with Pactyike, and Hecatæus gives
Caspapyrus to the Gandarians, the place may be identified with Cabul.
[507] Herod. 7, 65, 66, 86.
[508] Herod. 8, 113.
[509] Herod. 4, 40; 3, 102.
[510] Strabo, p. 705, 706. Cf. Arrian, "Anab." 5, 4; Plin. "Hist. Nat."
6, 22; 11, 36.
[511] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2, 1020.
[512] Above, p. 249. Manu, 10, 43-45.
[513] Ritter, "Asien," 2, 653. Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 499, 500.
[514] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 1022.
[515] Moorcroft, "Asiatic Researches," 12, 435 ff.
[516] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 769; 2^2, 151, n. 5.
[517] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 4, 249.
[518] Muir, _loc. cit._ 3, 350. "Mahavança," p. 47.
[519] "Anab." 3, 8. Strabo, p. 678.
[520] A. Weber, "Vorles." s. 147^2.
[521] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 2, 522 ff.
[522] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 408. "Mahavança," ed. Turnour, p. 39
ff.
[523] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 861; cf. 2^2, 163.
[524] A. Weber, "Vorlesungen," 74^2, 85^2.
[525] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 794; 2^2, 181.
[526] Lassen, "De Pentapotamia Indica," p. 22, 63: "Alterthumskunde," 1,
822.
[527] Arrian, "Anab." 5, 22; Curt. 8, 12, 13.
[528] Droysen, "Alexander," s. 302.
[529] The Kophaios of the Greeks is obviously the prince who reigns at
Kophen, _i.e._ at Cabul.
[530] Droysen explains this name, no doubt correctly, from the name of
the river Astacenus; _loc. cit._ s. 374.
[531] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 502.
[532] Aristobulus in Strabo, p. 691, tells us that the army wintered in
the mountain land of the Hippasians and the Assacanus (so we must read
here for [Greek: Mousikanos]). The Guræans must be considered a tribe of
the Açvakas.
[533] Arrian, "Anab." 4, 24.
[534] Arrian, "Anab." 4, 25.
[535] Curt. 8, 10; Justin, 12, 7; Arrian, "Anab." 4, 27.
[536] 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.
[537] The Abissareans of Arrian ("Ind." 4, 12), 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 ("Alexander," s. 373), Lassen ("Alterth." 2^2,
163), and the statements of Onesicritus (in Strabo, p. 598) 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.
[538] Arrian, "Anab." 4, 22, 30. Strabo, p. 691, 698.
[539] Diod. 17, 86.
[540] Cunningham, "Geogr." p. 111, considers the ruins near the modern
Shahderi to mark the site of the ancient Takshaçila.
[541] Diod. 17, 86.
[542] Arrian. "Anab." 5, 8. Strabo, p. 698.
[543] Onesicritus in Strabo, p. 715
[544] Arrian, "Anab." 7, 2.
[545] Aristobulus in Strabo, p. 714.
[546] In Arrian ("Anab." 7, 2) and Plutarch ("Alex." 65) Dandamis.
[547] Onesicritus in Strabo, p. 715.
[548] Arrian, "Anab." 7, 2.
[549] Plutarch, "De Fluviis," 1. Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 721; 2^2, 154.
[550] Droysen, _loc. cit._ s. 388.
[551] Arrian, "Anab." 5, 18.
[552] Droysen, _loc. cit._ s. 400.
[553] Arrian, "Anab." 5, 21
[554] Lassen, 1^2, 127; 782, 2^2, 167.
[555] Arrian, "Anab." 5, 21.
[556] Arrian, "Anab." 6, 2. According to Plutarch ("Alex." 60) there
were 15 nations and 5000 cities.
[557] Diod. 17, 92. "Ramayana," 2, 70, 21.
[558] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 175.
[559] Arrian, "Ind." 5, 12. Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 792.
[560] Diod. 17, 98. Curt. 9, 4.
[561] Arrian, "Anab." 6, 7.
[562] Arrian, "Anab." 6, 9, 10; Droysen, _loc. cit._ s. 438 ff.
[563] Droysen, _loc. cit._ s. 445.
[564] "Brahma-Vasatya" in the Mahabharata; Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 973.
[565] Diod. 17, 102.
[566] Praesti; Curt. 9, 8. Lassen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 187.
[567] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 125.
[568] Droysen, _loc. cit._ 464, 469.