Alexander's conquest of "India" & historical revisionism

[Maira La]

Numerous modern history books state that Alexander did not invade India upon hearing about ancient India's large army and elephants. So he halted his army's advance after conquering much of what is modern Pakistan and headed back home.

However after doing a bit of a research on this topic I couldn't find any Greek historical sources mentioning that Alexander didn't conquer India. They mention about a region next to 'India' called Gangaridai, which is roughly modern Northern India, which they didn't invade.

Can anyone (not necessarily Indian member) with good knowledge on this topic quote text written by any contemporary Greek historian (of Alexander's time) that says Alexander didn't conquer India, so we know these books are teaching us true history and the claims made are not merely a result of confusing modern country of India with ancient India (Eastern Pakistan)?

 

[Jaeger]

Numerous modern history books state that Alexander did not invade India upon hearing about ancient India's large army and elephants. So he halted his army's advance after conquering much of what is modern Pakistan and headed back home.

However after doing a bit of a research on this topic I couldn't find any Greek historical sources mentioning that Alexander didn't conquer India. They mention about a region next to 'India' called Gangaridai, which is roughly modern Northern India, which they didn't invade.

Can anyone (not necessarily Indian member) with good knowledge on this topic quote text written by any contemporary Greek historian (of Alexander's time) that says Alexander didn't conquer India, so we know these books are teaching us true history and the claims made are not merely a result of confusing modern country of India with ancient India (Eastern Pakistan)?

It's a well know fact Alexander turned back from Sutlej river after his army mutinied .

 

[Foinikas]

Numerous modern history books state that Alexander did not invade India upon hearing about ancient India's large army and elephants. So he halted his army's advance after conquering much of what is modern Pakistan and headed back home.

However after doing a bit of a research on this topic I couldn't find any Greek historical sources mentioning that Alexander didn't conquer India. They mention about a region next to 'India' called Gangaridai, which is roughly modern Northern India, which they didn't invade.

Can anyone (not necessarily Indian member) with good knowledge on this topic quote text written by any contemporary Greek historian (of Alexander's time) that says Alexander didn't conquer India, so we know these books are teaching us true history and the claims made are not merely a result of confusing modern country of India with ancient India (Eastern Pakistan)?

Have you checked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indica_(Arrian) ?

 

[Maira La]

Have you checked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indica_(Arrian) ?

Can you answer the question in the OP, and quote relevant text as requested?

I'm interested to know what Alexander and his army thought - whether they believed they conquered India or not.

 

[Foinikas]

Can you answer the question in the OP, and quote relevant text as requested?

I'm interested to know what Alexander and his army thought - whether they believed they conquered India or not.

As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having done all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at-arms and horsemen and elephants. For they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand fighting elephants.[38]

Alexander spoke to his army and tried to persuade them to march further into India but Coenus pleaded with him to change his opinion and return, the men, he said, "longed to again see their parents, their wives and children, their homeland". Alexander, seeing the unwillingness of his men agreed and diverted. Along the way his army conquered the Malli clans (in modern-day Multan). In the territory of the Indus, he nominated his officer Peithon as a satrap, a position he would hold for the next ten years until 316 BC, and in the Punjab he left Eudemus in charge of the army, at the side of the satrap Porus and Taxiles. Eudemus became ruler of a part of the Punjab after their death. Both rulers returned to the West in 316 BC with their armies. In 321 BC, Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya Empire in India and overthrew the Greek satraps.

 

[Clutch]

It's a well know fact Alexander turned back from Sutlej river after his army mutinied .

I thought it was the smell that made him turn back...

 

[Jaeger]

I thought it was the smell that made him turn back...

Must have been, after all they did mutiny after they reached present day Pakistan.

 

[K_Bin_W]

Why is Alexander "the great" when it was Khalid Bin Al-Waleed who never lost a single battle or a single duel and defeated two super powers of the time?

 

[nahtanbob]

Can you answer the question in the OP, and quote relevant text as requested?

I'm interested to know what Alexander and his army thought - whether they believed they conquered India or not.

What knowledge of cartography did people in Alexander's era know to even figure out what is "India" ?

I thought it was the smell that made him turn back...

Do you know what a mosquito is ?

 

[Clutch]

Why is Alexander "the great" when it was Khalid Bin Al-Waleed who never lost a single battle or a single duel and defeated two super powers of the time?

They will always write their history from their perspective. As we should from ours. We should write "Khalid Al-Walid the great" and "Alexander the Greek"

 

[Maira La]

As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having done all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at-arms and horsemen and elephants. For they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand fighting elephants.[38]

I would have expected you to do a little more digging beyond Wiki and check the Greek sources, since you are supposedly Greek, and you understand Greek, but I did that for you..

From Anabasis by Arrian, 5.24.8 -

ὡς δὲ ἀπέγνω διώκειν τοῦ πρόσω τοὺς φεύγοντας, ἐπανελθὼν ἐς τὰ Σάγγαλα τὴν πόλιν μὲν κατέσκαψε, τὴν χώραν δὲ τῶν Ἰνδῶν τοῖς πάλαι μὲν αὐτονόμοις, τότε δὲ ἑκουσίως προσχωρήσασι προσέθηκεν. καὶ Πῶρον μὲν ξὺν τῇ δυνάμει τῇ ἀμφ᾽ αὐτὸν ἐκπέμπει ἐπὶ τὰς πόλεις αἳ προσκεχωρήκεσαν, φρουρὰς εἰσάξοντα εἰς αὐτάς, αὐτὸς δὲ ξὺν τῇ στρατιᾷ ἐπὶ τὸν Ὕφασιν ποταμὸν προὐχώρει, ὡς καὶ τοὺς ἐπέκεινα Ἰνδοὺς καταστρέψαιτο. οὐδὲ ἐφαίνετο αὐτῷ πέρας τι τοῦ πολέμου ἔστε ὑπελείπετό τι πολέμιον.

Used Google translate to get a rough translation, which is:

"and as I was about to pursue the fugitives, when you came back to Sagala, the city was razed, and the country of the Indians, who were formerly independent, but then they willingly acceded to you. And Poron, as soon as he could by the power of the army, sent him to the cities which they had entered, and sent a garrison into them, but he immediately advanced the army to the river Ephasin, as if he were also to destroy the Indians there. It did not appear to him what was left of the war, what of the war."

So that does indicate the Greeks thought they had conquered India, since they considered it no longer independent. The perspective of the Greeks, as written in the Greek sources, is very different to how thigs are stated in Wiki by unknown Wikipedia editors.

 

[Foinikas]

So that does indicate the Greeks thought they had conquered India, since they considered it no longer independent. The perspective of the Greeks, as written in the Greek sources, is very different to how thigs are stated in Wiki by unknown Wikipedia editors.

No,they didn't conquer all of India. I don't understand where you got that idea initially. India was a vast subcontinent of which they only conquered a relatively small part. Since they didn't continue further to face more kings with their armies,they didn't conquer it all.

 

[Maira La]

No,they didn't conquer all of India. I don't understand where you got that idea initially. India was a vast subcontinent of which they only conquered a relatively small part. Since they didn't continue further to face more kings with their armies,they didn't conquer it all.

Show me Greek historical record saying they only conquered a small unimportant corner of India.

 

[Foinikas]

Show me Greek historical record saying they only conquered a small unimportant corner of India.

I'm starting to think you feel insecure. They themselves knew they didn't conquer the entire subcontinent. When Arrian says "the country of the Indians",he doesn't mean the entire subcontinent. The area back then was divided by many kingdoms as it was later as well,you know it. Did they conquer the area of the Indus valley? Yes. That's what Arrian means "They conquered the country of the Indians".

 

[Maira La]

I'm starting to think you feel insecure. They themselves knew they didn't conquer the entire subcontinent. When Arrian says "the country of the Indians",he doesn't mean the entire subcontinent. The area back then was divided by many kingdoms as it was later as well,you know it. Did they conquer the area of the Indus valley? Yes. That's what Arrian means "They conquered the country of the Indians".

I didn’t ask for your personal opinion, lol. I’m interested in only what the contemporary Greeks had to say.