A History of India, Third Edition

THE GREAT ANCIENT EMPIRES

By this time the monsoon had set in and the rains obstructed
Alexander’s march east. He was determined to go on, but when his army
reached the river Hyphasis (Beas), east of the present city of Lahore, his
soldiers refused to obey his orders for the first time in eight years of
incessant conquest. Alexander was convinced that he would soon reach the
end of the world, but his soldiers were less and less convinced of this as
they proceeded to the east where more kings and war elephants were
waiting to fight against them. Alexander’s speech in which he invoked the
memory of their victories over the Persians in order to persuade them to
march on is one of the most moving documents of Alexander’s time, but so
is the reply by Coenus, his general, who spoke on behalf of the soldiers.
Alexander finally turned back and proceeded with his troops south along
the river Indus where they got involved in battles with the tribes of that
area, especially with the Malloi (Malavas). Alexander was almost killed in
one of these encounters. He then turned west and crossed, with parts of his
army, the desert land of Gedrosia which is a part of present Baluchistan.
Very few survived this ordeal. In May 324 BC, three years after he had
entered India, Alexander was back at Susa in Persia. In the following year
he died in Babylon.
Alexander’s early death and the division of his empire among the
Diadochi who fought a struggle for succession put an end to the plan
of integrating at least a part of India into the Hellenistic empire. By
317 BC the peripheral Greek outposts in India had been given up. Thus
Alexander’s campaign remained a mere episode in Indian history, but
the indirect consequences of this intrusion were of great importance.
The reports of Alexander’s companions and of the first Greek
ambassador at the court of the Mauryas were the main sources of
Western knowledge about India from the ancient to the medieval
period of history. Also, the Hellenistic states, which arose later on
India’s northwestern frontier in present Afghanistan had an important
influence on the development of Indian art as well as on the evolution
of sciences such as astronomy.

The foundation of the Maurya empire

Alexander’s campaign probably made an indirect impact on the further
political development of India. Not much is known about the antecedents
of Chandragupta Maurya, but it is said that he began his military career by
fighting against the outposts which Alexander had left along the river
Indus. How he managed to get from there to Magadha and how he seized
power from the last Nanda emperor remains obscure. Indian sources,
especially the famous play Mudrarakshasa, give the credit for
Chandragupta’s rise to his political advisor, the cunning Brahmin Kautalya,
author of the Arthashastra.