perplexing problems of Indian archaeology. The descriptions given of
it by the classical writers are more or less discrepant, and their
indications as to its position very vague and obscure. It has thus been
identified with various positions, against each of which objections
of more or less weight may be urged, but the view of General Abbott,
who has identified it with Mount Mahâban, has the balance of argument
in its favour, and is now generally adopted. The rock, to judge from
Arrian’s description of it, must have been in reality a mountain of very
considerable height, with a summit of tableland crowned here and there
with steep precipices. Curtius, on the other hand, says that the rock,
which was on all sides steep and rugged, did not rise to its pinnacle
in slopes of ordinary height and of easy ascent, but that in shape it
resembled the conical pillar of the racecourse, called the _meta_, which
springs from a broad basis and gradually tapers till it terminates in a
sharp point. Here Arrian, who drew his facts from Ptolemy, a prominent
actor in capturing Aornos, is, as usual, a safer guide than Curtius,
who wrote for effect, and often dealt unscrupulously with the facts of
history. Arrian, again, is at variance with Diodôros in his estimate
both of the circuit and of the height of the rock, for while with him
it has a circuit of 200 stadia (about 23 miles) and a height of 11,
Diodôros reduces the circuit by one-half and increases the height to 16
stadia. Curtius is silent on these points, but he mentions a circumstance
of great importance which Arrian has failed to note, namely, that the
roots of the rock were washed by the river Indus. That he is right here
cannot be questioned, for the statement is corroborated both by Diodôros
and by Strabo (xv. 687), while Arrian, who says nothing that can lead
us to think that his view was different, supplies us with a proof that
Aornos was close to the Indus, for he says of the city of Embolima, which
we now know to have been on the Indus, that it was situated close to
Aornos. The position thus indicated is about sixty miles above Attak,
where the Indus escapes into the plains from a long and narrow mountain
gorge which the ancients mistook for its source. Colonel Abbott in 1854
explored this neighbourhood, and came to the conclusion that Mount
Mahâban, a hill which abuts precipitously on the western bank of the
Indus about eight miles west from the site of Embolima, was Aornos. His
arguments in support of this identification are given in his _Gradus ad
Aornon_. His description of Mount Mahâban agrees in the main with that
which Arrian has given of Aornos. “The rock Aornos,” he says, “was the
most remarkable feature of the country, as is the Mahâban. It was the
refuge of all the neighbouring tribes. It was covered with forests.
It had good soil sufficient for a thousand ploughs, and pure springs
of water everywhere abounded. It was 4125 feet above the plain, and
14 miles in circuit. It was precipitous on the side of Embolima, yet
not so steep but that 220 horse and the war-engines were taken to the
summit. The summit was a plain where cavalry could act. It would be
difficult to offer a more faithful description of the mount.” “Why the
historians,” he adds, “should all call it the _rock_ Aornos, it would
be difficult to say. The side on which Alexander scaled the main summit
had certainly the character of a rock, but the whole description of
Arrian indicates a table mountain.” Cunningham, in his _Ancient Geography
of India_, advances some arguments against this identification, but
they cannot be considered sufficiently cogent to warrant its rejection
unless a better could be substituted. That which he proposes, however,
is altogether untenable. What he suggests is that the hill-fortress of
Râni-gat, situated immediately above the small village of Nogram, about
sixteen miles north by west from Ohind, which he takes to be the site
of Embolima, corresponds in all essential particulars, except in its
elevation (under 1200 feet), with the description of Aornos as given by
Arrian, Strabo, and Diodôros. Now if the elevation stated, which is some
6000 feet under what Arrian assigns to Aornos, was really the height of
the rock, then the details of the operations by which it was captured are
rendered partly unintelligible. Thus, why should Ptolemy, after ascending
the rock to a certain distance, have kindled a fire to let Alexander, who
remained at the base, know where he was? Can we not easily see with the
naked eye from the foot to the top of a small hill only ten or eleven
hundred feet high? Moreover, we are informed that it took Alexander from
daybreak till noon to reach the position occupied by Ptolemy. Can it
be supposed that all that space of time was required for the ascent of
a hill not much higher than Arthur’s Seat, near Edinburgh? The highest
mountain in Great Britain could be climbed in half the time. Another
equally fatal objection to this theory is the distance of Râni-gat from
the Indus. The roots of the rock were indubitably washed by that river,
but Râni-gat is no less than sixteen miles distant from it. At the same
time, if Râni-gat were Aornos, then Ohind cannot be Embolima, for Arrian
says that Embolima was close to (ξύνεγγυς) Aornos. The identification of
the rock with Raja Hodi’s fort opposite Attak, first suggested by General
Court and afterwards supported by the learned missionary Loewenthal,
has in its favour the fact that the position is on the Indus, but it is
otherwise untenable. It is uncertain whether the name Aornos is purely
Greek or an attempt at the transliteration of the indigenous name.
If purely Greek, then Dionysios Perieg. (l. 1150) is right in saying
that men called the rock Aornis because even swift-winged birds had
difficulty in flying over it. If indigenous, the name may be referred to
_Aranai_, which, as Dr. Bellew states, is a common Hindi name for hill
ridges in these parts. He identifies the rock as _Shàh Dum_ or _Malka_,
on the heights of Mahâban, the stronghold of the Wahabi fanatics, at the
destruction of which he was present in 1864. See his _Inquiry_, p. 68.
NOTE G.—NYSA
Arrian’s narrative indicates neither in what part of the Kôphên and Indus
Dôâb Nysa was situated, nor at what time Alexander made his expedition
to the place. But we learn from Curtius (viii. 10), Strabo (xv. 697),
and Justin (xii. 7) that he was there before he had as yet crossed the
Choaspes and taken Massaga, and Arrian says nothing from which it can be
inferred that his opinion was different. Nysa was therefore most probably
the city which Ptolemy calls Nagara or Dionysopolis, and which has been
identified with Nanghenhar (the Nagarahâra of Sanskrit), an ancient
capital, the ruins of which have been traced at a distance of four or
five miles west from Jalâlâbâd. This place was called also Udyânapura,
_i.e._ “the city of gardens,” which the Greeks from some resemblance in
the sound translated into Dionysopolis, a compound meaning “the city of
Dionysos.” At some distance eastward from this site, but on the opposite
bank of the river, there is a mountain called Mar-Koh (_i.e._ snake-hill)
which, if Nysa be Nagara, may be regarded as the Mount Meros which lay
near it, and was ascended by Alexander. It has, however, been assumed
that, in Arrian’s opinion, the expedition to Nysa was not an early
incident of the campaign in the Dôâb, but the last of any importance
after the capture of Aornos. The only ground for this assumption is that
his account of the expedition to Nysa follows that of all the other
transactions recorded to have occurred west of the Indus. But the reason
of this is not far to seek. Arrian, on examining the accounts given
by different writers of the visit to Nysa and Meros, concluded that
they were for the most part apocryphal, and as he did not wish to mix
up romance with history, reserved the subject for separate treatment.
Abbott, who took it for granted that Arrian wished it to be understood
that Alexander visited Nysa after the capture of the rock, looked for
the site of that city nearer the Indus than the plain of Jalâlâbâd; and
found one to suit the requirements in the neighbourhood of Mount Elum,
called otherwise Râm Takht or “the throne of Râm.” This remarkable
mountain, he says, rises like some mighty pagoda to the height of nine or
ten thousand feet, and answers in many points to the descriptions given
of Meros, being densely covered with forests, full of wild beasts and
of a height at which, in that part of India, ivy, box, etc., flourish.
At its roots are the following old towns with names all derivable from
Bacchos: Lusa (Nysa), Lyocah (Lyaeus), Elye, Awân, Bimeeter (Bimêtêr),
Bôkra (Bou-Kera), and Kerauna (Keraunos). Beneath the town of Lusa flows
the river Burindu, which is occasionally unfordable during the spring.
Abbott makes this remark about the river with reference to the statement
in Plutarch that when Alexander sat down before Nysa, the Macedonians
had some difficulty of advancing to the attack on account of the depth
of the river that washed its walls. V. de Saint-Martin and Dr. Bellew
identify Nysa with Nysatta, a village near the northern bank of the Kâbul
river about six miles below Hashtnagar, but except some correspondence
between the names, there seems little to recommend this view. Strabo has
one or two passages concerning Nysa. “In Sophoclês,” he says, “a person
is introduced speaking the praises of Nysa, as a mountain sacred to
Bacchos: ‘Whence I beheld the famed Nysa, the resort of the Bacchanalian
bands, which the horned Iacchos makes his most pleasant and beloved
retreat, where no bird’s clang is heard.’ From such stories they gave
the name Nysaians to some imaginary nation, and called their city Nysa,
founded by Bacchos; a mountain above the city they called Mêros, alleging
as a reason for imposing these names that the ivy and vine grow there,
although the latter does not perfect its fruit, for the bunches of grapes
drop off before maturity in consequence of excessive rains” (xv. 687).
In a subsequent passage (697) he says: “After the river Kôphês follows
the Indus. The country lying between these two rivers is occupied by the
Astakênoi, Masianoi, Nysaioi, and the Hippasioi. Next is the territory of
Assakanos, where is the city Masoga.” Pliny also has one or two notices
of Nysa. “Most writers,” he says (_H. N._ vi. 21), “assume that the city
Nysa and also the mountain Merus, consecrated to the god Bacchus, belong
to India. This is the mountain whence arose the fable that Bacchus issued
from the thigh (μηρός) of Jupiter. They also assign to India the country
of the Aspagani so plentiful in vines, laurel, and box, and all kinds of
fruitful trees that grow in Greece.” In Book viii. 141, he says “that on
Nysa, a mountain in India, there are lizards 24 feet in length, and in
colour yellow or purple or blue.”
The legend that Dionysos was bred in the thigh of Zeus owes its origin
to a figurative mode of expression, common among the Phoenicians and
Hebrews, which was taken by the Greeks in a literal sense. See the
Epistle to the Hebrews, vii. 10. The Kafîrs who now occupy the country
through which Alexander first marched on his way from the Kaukasos to
the Indus, are said by Elphinstone to drink wine to great excess, men
and women alike. “They dance,” he adds, “with great vehemence, using
many gesticulations, and beating the ground with great force, to a
music which is generally quick, but varied and wild. Such usages would
certainly have struck the Macedonians as Bacchanalian.” So certainly
would such a spectacle as the following, described by Bishop Heber in
his _Indian Journal_: “The two brothers Rama and Luchman, in a splendid
palkee, were conducting the retreat of their army. The divine Hunimân,
as naked and almost as hairy as the animal he represented, was gamboling
before them, with a long tail tied round his waist, a mask to represent
the head of a baboon, and two great pointed clubs in his hands. His army
followed, a number of men with similar tails and masks, their bodies dyed
with indigo, and also armed with clubs. I was never so forcibly struck
with the identity of Rama and Bacchus. Here were before me Bacchus, his
brother Ampelus, the Satyrs, smeared with wine-lees, and the great Pan
commanding them.” I may, in conclusion, subjoin a notice of Bacchos in
India from Polyainos: “Dionysos marching against the Indians in order
that the Indians might receive him did not equip his troops with armour
that could be seen, but with soft raiment and fawn skins. The spears
were wrapped round with ivy, and the thyrsus had a sharp point. In
making signals he used cymbals and drums instead of the trumpet, and,
by warming the enemy with wine, he turned them (from war) to dancing.
These and all other Bacchic orgies were the stratagems of war by which
Bacchos subjugated the Indians and all the rest of Asia. Dionysos, when
in India, seeing that his army could not endure the burning heat, seized
the three-peaked mountain of India. Of its peaks one is called Korasibiê,
another Kondaskê, but the third he himself named Mêros in commemoration
of his birth. Upon it were many fountains of water sweet of taste,
abundance of game and fruit, and snows, which gave new vigour to the
frame. The troops quartered there would take the barbarians of the plains
by surprise, and put them to an easy rout by attacking them with missiles
from their commanding position on the heights above. Dionysos having
conquered the Indians, invaded Baktria, taking with him as auxiliaries
the Indians themselves and the Amazons.”
NOTE H.—GOLD-DIGGING ANTS
Herodotos was the first writer who communicated to the Western nations
the story of these ants. He relates it thus (iii. 102): “There are other
Indians bordering on the city of Kaspatyros and the country of Paktyike
(Afghânistân) settled northward of the other Indians, who resemble the
Baktrians in the way they live. They are the most warlike of the Indians,
and are the men whom they send to procure the gold (paid in tribute to
the King of Persia), for their country adjoins the desert of sand. In
this desert then and in the sand there are ants, in size not quite so
big as dogs, but larger than foxes. Some that were captured were taken
thence, and are with the King of the Persians. These ants, forming their
dwelling underground, heap up the sand as the ants in Greece do, and in
the same manner; and are very like them in shape. The sand which they
cast up is mixed with gold. The Indians therefore go to the desert to get
this sand, each man having three camels ... (c. 105). When the Indians
arrive at the spot they fill their sacks with the sand, and return home
with all possible speed. For the ants, as the Persians say, having
readily discovered them by the smell, pursue them, and, as they are the
swiftest of all animals, not one of the Indians could escape except by
getting the start while the ants were assembling.”
Nearchos (quoted by Strabo, xv. 705) says that he saw skins of the ants
which dig up gold as large as the skins of leopards. Megasthenes also
(as quoted in the same passage) says that among the Dardai, a populous
nation of the Indians living towards the east and among the mountains,
there was a mountain plain of about 3000 stadia in circumference, below
which were mines containing gold, which ants not less in size than foxes
dig up. In winter they dig holes and pile up the earth in heaps, like
moles, at the pit-mouths. Pliny (xi. 31) repeats the story in these
terms: “The horns of the Indian ant fixed up in the temple of Hercules
at Erythrae were objects of great wonderment. These ants excavate gold
from mines found in the country of those Northern Indians who are called
the Dardae. They are of the colour of cats and of the size of Egyptian
wolves. The Indians steal the gold which they dig up in winter during the
hot season when the ants keep within their burrows to escape the stifling
sultriness of the weather. The ants, however, aroused by the smell,
sally out and frequently overtake and mangle the robbers, though they
have the swiftest of camels to aid their flight.” It is now understood
that the gold-digging ants were neither, as the ancients supposed, an
extraordinary kind of real ants, nor, as many learned men have since
supposed, larger animals mistaken for ants, but Tibetan miners who, like
their descendants of the present day, preferred working their mines in
winter when the frozen soil stands well and is not likely to trouble them
by falling in. The Sanskrit word pîpilika denotes both an _ant_ and a
particular kind of _gold_.
The Dards consist now of several wild and predatory tribes which are
settled on the north-west frontier of Kashmir and by the banks of the
Indus. The gryphons who guarded the gold were Tibetan mastiffs, a breed
of unmatched ferocity. Gold is still found in these regions.
NOTE I.—TAXILA
Pliny, in his _Natural History_ (vi. 21), gives sixty miles as the
distance from Peukolatis (Hashtnagar) to Taxila. This would fix its
site somewhere on the Haro river to the west of Hasan Abdâl, or just
two days’ march from the Indus. But according to the itineraries of the
Chinese pilgrims, Fa-Hian and Hwen Thsiang, Taxila lay at three days’
journey to the east of the Indus, and as they made that journey, their
authority on the point cannot be questioned. Taxila, it may be therefore
concluded, must have been situated in the immediate neighbourhood of
Kâla-ka-Sarâi. Now at the distance of just one mile from this place, near
the rock-seated village of Shah-Dheri, Cunningham discovered the ruins of
a fortified city scattered over a wide space, extending about three miles
from north to south, and two miles from east to west, and these ruins
he took to be those of Taxila. They lie about eight miles south-east of
Hasan Abdâl, thirty-four miles west from the famous tope of Manikyâla,
and twenty-four miles north-west from Rawal Pindi. The most ancient part
of these ruins, according to the belief of the natives, is a great mound
rising to a height of sixty-eight feet above the bed of the stream,
called the Tabrâ Nala, which flows past its east side. Cunningham’s
identification has now been accepted by all archaeologists, and a Greek
text hitherto neglected strikingly confirms its correctness. This text is
to be found in the Pseudo-Kallisthenes, and I here translate the remarks
made upon it by Sylvain Lévi in a paper which he submitted last year to
the Société Asiatique, and which will be found printed at pp. 236, 237 in
the 15th volume of the 8th series of the _Journal_ of that society: “The
Pseudo-Kallisthenes dwells complacently on the sojourn of Alexander at
Taxila and his conversations with the Brahmans. The Brahmans (III. xii.
9, 10) blame the conduct of Kalanos, who, in violation of the duties of
his caste, went to live with the Macedonians. ‘It has not pleased him,’
say they, ‘to drink the water of wisdom at the river Tiberoboam.’ And
further on (III. xiii. 12) they ask, ‘How could Alexander be the master
of all the world when he has not yet gone beyond the river Tiberoboam?’
The Latin of Julius Valerius gives, in the first case, Tiberunco
fluvio; in the second, Tyberoboam. The various readings of the Greek
manuscripts, indicated by C. Müller in his edition (Didot, 1846), give
Boroam, Baroam, Tiberio-potamos, and lastly (MS. A.) Tibernabon. The
site fixed by Cunningham for the city of Taxila is distinctly traversed
by a river called Tabrâ Nala, which divides into two the ancient city,
and washes the foot of the citadel. The ease of confounding the β
with λ in the manuscripts permits the correction of Tibernabon into
Tibernalon. The essential part of the name is, moreover, Tabrâ, _nala_
being a designation common to small affluents. The resemblance of the
two words Tabrânala and Tibernalos is at once apparent; the persistence
of geographical names has nothing surprising in it, especially in India.
The city of Takshaśila ought then to be placed definitely on the banks of
the Tabrânala (a small affluent of the Haro, which bends its course to
the Indus, into which it falls twelve miles below Attock) in the position
proposed by General Cunningham.”
Taxila, as Alexander found it, was very populous, and possessed of
almost incredible wealth. Pliny states that it was situated on a level
where the hills sink down into the plain, while Strabo praises the soil
as extremely fertile from the number of its springs and water-courses.
The Chinese pilgrim, Hwen Thsiang, by whom it was visited in 630 A.D.,
and afterwards in 643, confirms what Strabo has reported. Taxila,
which in Ptolemy’s _Geography_ appears as _Taxiala_, represents either
the Sanskrit Takshaśilâ, _i.e._ “hewn stone,” or, more probably,
Takshakaśilâ, _i.e._ “Rock of Takshaka,” the great Nâga King. Others,
however, take it to represent the Pali Takkasila, _i.e._ the rock of the
Takkas, a powerful tribe which anciently occupied the regions between
the Indus and the Chenâb (v. _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_,
vol. xx. p. 343). The famous Aśôka, the grandson of Chandragupta
(Sandrokottos), resided in Taxila during the lifetime of his father,
Vindusâra, as viceroy of the Panjâb. About the beginning of the second
century B.C. Taxila appears to have formed part of the dominions of
the Graeco-Baktrian king, Eukratides. In 126 B.C. it was wrested
from the Greeks by the Sus or Abars, with whom it remained for about
three-quarters of a century, when it was conquered by the Kushân tribe
under the great Kanishka. In the year 42 A.D. it is said to have been
visited by Apollonios of Tyana and his companion, the Assyrian Damis,
who wrote a narrative of the journey, which Philostratos professes to
have followed in his life of Apollonios. In 400 A.D. it was visited by
Fa-Hian, who calls it Chu-sha-shi-lo, _i.e._ “the severed head,” the
usual name by which Taxila was known to the Buddhists of India (_v._
Cunningham’s _Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 104-121).
[Illustration: FIG. 15.—EUKRATIDES.]
NOTE J.—SITE OF ALEXANDER’S CAMP ON THE HYDASPÊS
It is a point of great importance to determine where the camp was
situated which Alexander formed on reaching the Hydaspês, and which
he made his headquarters till he effected the passage of the river.
Without knowing this it cannot with certainty be decided at what point
he made the passage or where he defeated Pôros, or where he founded the
two cities, Nikaia and Boukephala, which he built after his victory.
Such high authorities as Sir A. Burnes, General Court, and General
Abbott have placed the camp at Jhîlam, but Lord Elphinstone and General
Cunningham prefer Jalâlpûr, a place some thirty miles lower down the
stream. These writers all drew their conclusions from personal knowledge
of the localities concerned. Cunningham, who wrote later than the
others, visited the Hydaspês in 1863, and in his _Geography of Ancient
India_ (pp. 157-179) gives an account of the scope and results of his
investigations. He points out that Alexander in advancing from Taxila
to the Hydaspês had two roads—one called the _upper_, which proceeded
through a rich and fertile country, past Rawal Pindi, Manikyâla, and
Rohtâs to Jhîlam, and another called the _lower_, which proceeded, with
an inclination to southward, to Dudhiâl, and thence by Asanot and Vang
to Jalâlpûr. He then shows from Strabo and Pliny that Alexander must
have advanced by the _lower_ road. According to Strabo (XV. i. 32), “the
direction of Alexander’s march, as far as the Hydaspês, was, for the
most part, towards the south; after that, to the Hypanis, it was more
towards the _east_.” Now, if Alexander had taken the route by Jhîlam
he would have advanced in one continuous straight line, which is in
direct opposition to the explicit statement of Strabo, which makes him
deviate towards the south. Pliny again (vi. 21), quoting from Diognêtos
and Baitôn, the _mensores_ of Alexander, gives the distance from Taxila
to the Hydaspês as 120 (Roman) miles. In comparing this distance with
that from Shah-Dheri to Jhîlam and Jalâlpûr respectively, we must reject
Jhîlam, which is no less than sixteen miles short of the recorded
distance, while Jalâlpûr differs from it by less than two miles. The same
author thinks that the camp probably extended for about six miles along
the bank of the river from Shah Kabir, two miles to the north-east of
Jalâlpûr, down to Syadpûr, four miles to the west-south-west. In this
position the left flank of the camp would have been only six miles from
the wooded promontory of Kotera, where he intended to steal his passage
across the river. The breadth of the Hydaspês at Jalâlpûr is about a mile
and a quarter.
NOTE K.—BATTLE WITH PÔROS
To the accounts of this memorable battle given by Arrian and the four
other writers translated in this volume, I here add the account of it
given by Polyainos in his work _On the Stratagems of War_ (II. ix. 22):
“Alexander, in his Indian expedition, advanced to the Hydaspês with
intention to cross it, when Porus appeared with his army on the other
side determined to dispute his passage. Alexander then marched towards
the head of the river, and attempted to cross it there. Thither also
Porus marched, and drew up his army on the opposite side. He then
made the same effort lower down; there, too, Porus opposed him. Those
frequent appearances of intention to cross it, without ever making one
real attempt to effect it, the Indians ridiculed, and, concluding that
he had no real design to pass the river, they became more negligent in
attending his motions, when Alexander, by a rapid march gaining the
banks, effected his purpose on barges, boats, and hides stuffed with
straw, before the enemy had time to come up with him, who, deceived by
so many feint attempts, yielded him at last an uninterrupted passage.
In the battle against Porus, Alexander posted part of his cavalry in the
right wing, and part he left as a body of reserve at a small distance
on the plain. His left wing consisted of the phalanx and his elephants.
Porus ordered his elephants to be formed against him, himself taking his
station on an elephant at the head of his left wing. The elephants were
drawn up within fifty yards of each other, and in those interstices was
posted his infantry, so that his front exhibited the appearance of a
great wall; the elephants looked like so many towers, and the infantry
like the parapet between them. Alexander directed his infantry to attack
the enemy in front, while himself at the head of the horse advanced
against the cavalry. Against those movements Porus ably guarded. But the
beasts could not be kept in their ranks, and, wherever they deserted
them, the Macedonians in a compact body pouring in closed with the enemy,
and attacked them both in front and flank. The body of reserve, in the
meantime wheeling round and attacking their rear, completed the defeat”
(_Shepherd’s Translation_).