Q-113)Write an essay on the impact of Alexander’s Indian campaign. Answer-The Indian campaign of Alexander the Great is certainly one of the best- known events of ancient Indian history as far as European historiography is concerned. The historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have devoted much attention to this event. But Indian sources remain silent about Alexander’s campaign. To the Indians he was only one of the nameless conquerors of the northwest who touched this part of India in an endless sequence of raids. The memory of Alexander the Great returned to India only much later with the Islamic conquerors who saw him as a great ruler worth emulating. One of the sultans of Delhi called himself a second Alexander, and the Islamic version of this name (Sikander) was very popular among later Islamic rulers of India and Southeast Asia. Alexander crossed the Hindukush mountains in eastern Afghanistan in the month of May, 327 BC. He fought for more than a year against various tribes in what is now North Pakistan until he could cross the river Indus in February 326 BC. The king of Takshashila (Taxila) accepted Alexander’s suzerainty without putting up a fight. He was a generous host to the Greeks and is reported to have fed them with the meat of 3,000 oxen and more than 10,000 sheep. Then he provided them with 5,000 auxiliary troops so that they could better fight his neighbour, King Poros. King Poros belonged to the tribe of the Pauravas, descended from the Puru tribe mentioned so often in the Rigveda. He joined battle with Alexander at the head of a mighty army with some 2,000 elephants, but Alexander defeated him by a sudden attack after crossing the river Hydaspes at night although the river was in flood. Alexander then reinstated the vanquished Poros and made him his ally.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 05:55:16 +0000
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