The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c25.104

v1.c25.104

Here again the Indians saw the Yavanas honour their gods in their own peculiar fashion—the sacrifices of thanksgiving for victory, the obsequies of the slain, the horse-racing and the running, wrestling and boxing of naked men. To the Sun especially Alexander made offerings on this occasion, whose grace, he deemed, had opened for him the way to the Orient¹. Then the army turned once more to the business of war. The state of things, as we saw, which the Europeans found in the Punjab was one of extreme division, free tribes everywhere maintaining their separate independence against princes like Āmbhi and the Paurava. The first effect of the Macedonian conquest, as it has been of other conquests, was internal unification. It seemed good policy to recognise a certain number of native princes and make their authority really effective over large spheres. Even to the west of the Acesines (Chenāb), the next river after the Hydaspes (Jhelum), there was a people with thirty-seven towns of over 5000 inhabitants—the Greeks give their name as Glausai or Glauganikai—which had held their independence against the Paurava. But it was a different matter, when the summons was brought by the conquerors of the Paurava, when they saw the wave of European and Central-Asian cavalry sweeping over their fields, columns of Macedonian footmen and Thracian archers marching against them. They surrendered, and the principality of the Paurava was extended over their land.