150 Part III: South Asia
India, but India itself had no historical memory of this, and Buddhism had dis-
appeared from the land of its origination.
Masson had received a good education in England. He could read Latin
and Greek. He knew from Greek sources that Alexander the Great had con-
quered parts of northwestern India in 326 B.C.E., and so he trudged on a peril-
ous journey into the upper Punjab region, the area of northern Pakistan where
five rivers join to become the Indus. He made records on the land and people as
he went, and collected oddities that he could carry. There were many ancient
coins, eventually 80,000 in his collection, of bronze, silver, and gold depicting
ancient kings and gods, many of them Greek, providing the first strong evi-
dence that Alexander had left Greek kingdoms behind. He found two heads ofJum
na
Riv
er
Ganges RiverDaroMojenjoPeshawarLahoreCALCUTTANalanda
Bodh GayaKapilavastu KATHMANDUPATNALUCKNOWDELHIJAIPURAllahabad
SanchiHarappaKARACHISIMLABOMBAY
HYDERABADGoaMaduraiMysoreMADRASCOLOMBOPAKISTANNEPAL BHUTANBANGLADESHSRI LANKAI N D I AArabian
SeaBay
of
BengalSOUTH
ASIABURMA
Narmada RiverGodavari RiverIndus^ RiverBrahmaputra^ RiverMap 5.1 India.