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Why Alexander did not invade India?

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  Quote ruffian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Why Alexander did not invade India?
    Posted: 28-Jan-2008 at 15:46
"Alexander the great" by Wally Badge which is a Syriac edition, with English translation, of the folk-lore and legends connected to Alexander the Great. This ancient text represents a Greek text that is much older than any text that has been known before. This text shows that alexander was actually defeated (though perhaps a later layering of the text confuses the issue).

a) Darius's call to help from Porus



b) Porus's letter to Alexander and the reply and the ensuing fight




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  Quote ranjithvnambiar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Jul-2010 at 02:11
Alaexander was not prepared to face the extensive army of Nana King Dhana Nanda. may be that's why he didnt invade India.
"The Nandas are sometimes described as the first empire builders in the recorded history of India. They inherited the large kingdom ofMagadha and wished to extend it to yet more distant frontiers. To this purpose they built up a vast army consisting of 200,000 infantry, 20,000 cavalry, 2,000 war chariots and 3,000 war elephants (at the lowest estimates).[3] According to Plutarch however, the size of the Nanda army was even larger, numbering 200,000 infantry, 80,000 cavalry, 8,000 war chariots, and 6,000 war elephants. However, the Nandas never had the opportunity to see their army up against Alexander, who invaded India at the time of Dhana Nanda, since Alexander had to confine his campaign to the plains of Punjab, for his forces, frightened by the prospect of facing a formidable foe, mutinied at the Hyphasis River (the modern Beas River) refusing to march any further."
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  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Dec-2011 at 09:23
What I've read so far suggests that Alexander did invade India:

After conquering the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, the Macedonian king (and now high king of the Persian Empire) Alexander the Great launched a campaign in north-western India. The rationale for this campaign is usually said to be Alexander's desire to conquer the entire known world, which the Greeks thought ended in north-western India. In 321 BC, two years after Alexander's death, Chandragupta Maurya of Magadha, founded the Maurya Empire in India and overthrew the Greek satraps.....

I'm sure I also heard about Alexander's me being battle weary, so they travelled down India until they could find boats to take them home. 
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  Quote balochii Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31-Dec-2011 at 13:08
^ the OP meant he didn't invade today's India, he only went up to Punjab area in Pakistan
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  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31-Dec-2011 at 13:24
Originally posted by balochii

^ the OP meant he didn't invade today's India, he only went up to Punjab area in Pakistan
Thank you for the clarification, balochii, it wasn't apparent to me when I read it.
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  Quote huntergill Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2012 at 18:14
Is this true---
That porous was appointed civil administrator under governor Phillips by Alexander.320-317 BC porous was murdered by Eudemos, phillips successor and hence the revolt by people against Seluekus , headed by Chandragupta who was asociate of Nandas.Having quarelled with them fleeing and living in greek occupied land.
If this is true than Alexanders victory is confirmed over porous.
 
     


Edited by huntergill - 04-Jan-2012 at 19:00
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2012 at 21:21
I think so
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2012 at 08:57
It looks logical of course.Multi ethnic army consisted from former enemies,now allies,had separated apart after they(Tajiks?) came back home(Pakistan areas?).I need ancient Indian sources from this time,cause all
this Alexander's odyssey looks different than.  
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jan-2012 at 16:19
What if they did false history screenplay about winner in India?What did if Alexander loose?Indians conquered Euroasia territories and history was rewritten in those purposes.Phoenicians were Indian's merchants?
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  Quote eurokiller Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Feb-2012 at 22:58
Wow so there is a theory that he lost in India? That would explain him running back West and dying in Iran ... probably died of depression and sorrow .. the death of a failure Big smile
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  Quote balochii Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Feb-2012 at 15:05
^ he got injured in the punjab region and king porus gave him a really good fight, but I think his army won, but they were also damaged badly, that's why they didn't go further in the plains of India
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  Quote Centrix Vigilis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Feb-2012 at 17:33
That and his love hate for Roxanne.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

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Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true'

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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Feb-2012 at 19:24
Some relevant reading material for Classical historians: The invasion of India as described by Arrian, Curtius, Diadorus, Plutarch and Justin
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  Quote oxydracae Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Feb-2012 at 10:41
Q: Why Alexander did not invade India?
 
 
Please Note: italic text in parentheses is my explanation of bold terms
 
As per Diodorus (~50 B.C.)
 
"Alexander had obtained from Phegeus (a tribe from modern region of Punjab; probably modern Bhangu tribe) a description of the country beyond the Indus: First came a desert (obviously, Great Indian Desert) which it would take twelve days to traverse; beyond this was the river called the Ganges (if we came from Indus side and crosses Great Indian Desert, first comes River Jumna, then River Ganges; then note this description to Alexander was given by a Punjabi tribe and in many Punjabi texts upto the modern times Ganga and Jumna were mentioned always together as Gang-Jaman; so this tribe is reffering to Ganga or Ganga-Jumna is not clear) which had a width of thirty stadia (3.5 miles, rough idea given by Punjabi tribe as this measurement is equal to 1 kos an Indian unit of length), and a greater depth than any other Indian river; beyond this again were situated the dominions of the nation of the Prasioi (Greek form of Indian word "Prachi", i.e. one from the East, even today people of Punjab refer to people from the Province of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar as "poorbias" i.e. Easterners) and the Gangaridai (probably Greek form of Indian word "Gangadri", Gangadri is a place where River Ganges descends into the plains), whose king, Xandrammes (probably Greek form of Indian word Chandrama), had an army of 20,000 horse 200,000 infantry, 2,000 chariots and 4,000 elephants trained and equipped for war.

"Now this Ganges river flows from north to south" (in western Uttar Pradesh it flows from north to south, however in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar it flows from west to east)
 
As per Quintus (~ 50 A.D.)
 
"Next came the Ganges, the largest river in all India, the farther bank of which was inhabited by two nations, the Gangaridae and the Prasii, whose king Agrammes (probably Greek form of Indian name Agrani; Agrani means Chief or Leader in Indian Language) kept in field for guarding the approaches to his country 20,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry, besides 2,000 four-horsed chariots, and, a troop of elephants which he said ran up to the number of 3,000"
 
As per Plutarch (~ 100 A.D.)
 
""The Battle with Porus depressed the spirits of the Greeks, and made them very unwilling to advance farther into India...For the kings of the Gandaritai and the Prasiai were reported to be waiting for Alexander with an army of 80,000 horse, 200,000 foot, 8,000 war-chariots, and 6,000 fighting elephants."
 
As per Megasthenes (~ 300 B.C.; was in Alexander's army under Commander Sibyrtius)
 
"Thus Alexander the Macedonian, after conquering all Asia, did not make war upon the Gangaridai, as he did on all others; for when he had arrived with all his troops at the river Ganges, he abandoned as hopeless an invasion of the Gangaridai and India when he learned that they possessed four thousand elephants well trained and equipped for war"
 
POINTS TO BE NOTED:
 
1.) Alexander was afraid of Magadhan Empire (Nandas), is not mentioned anywhere ? Rather all resouces refer to Kingdom of Gangaridai, and as discussed above it seems to be lying in western Uttar Pradesh, most probably Kingdom of Kurus and Panchals.
 
2.) Magadhan King Dhanananda was not mentioned anywhere, rather they are talking about some Xandrammes or Agrammes ?


Edited by oxydracae - 26-Feb-2012 at 10:48
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