The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great as described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodoros, Plutarch and Justin: Being Translations of such portions of the Works of these and other Classical Authors as describe Alexander's Campaigns in Afghanistan, the Panjâb, Sindh, Gedrosia and KarmaniaMcCrindle, John Watson
History
The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great as described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodoros, Plutarch and Justin: Being Translations of such portions of the Works of these and other Classical Authors as describe Alexander's Campaigns in Afghanistan, the Panjâb, Sindh, Gedrosia and Karmania
McCrindle, John Watson
Alexander, the Great, 356 B.C.-323 B.C.; India -- History -- To 324 B.C. -- Sources
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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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