The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c25.129

v1.c25.129

So India, about the end of July 326 B.C.², saw the wave of European invasion, which had washed thus far, begin to ebb, back to the Hydraōtes, back to the Acesines, where a certain number of the Greek veterans were ordered to fix themselves for good in the city which Hephaestion had been building, back to the Hydaspes. The thoughts of Alexander were now turning in another direction. If the most easterly waters of the Indus river-system were for the time being to bound his empire, he would at any rate pass along his frontier, pursue the course of the Indus to the Ocean and return by the sea-board to Babylon. He had to organise the conquered portion of India on a basis that would endure when the European army had departed. And he forecast a different Punjab from the one he had found. Instead of a multiplicity of rival princes and independent tribes, all the country from the Hydaspes to the Hyphasis was to form one kingdom under the Paurava. Another large principality was created for Āmbhi west of the Hydaspes. Similarly in Kashmīr, the rāja of Abhisāra, whose embassies and presents had at last convinced Alexander of his loyalty, was given extended authority, and his neighbouring rāja of Uraçā (Hazāra), called by the Greeks Arsaces, was ordered to regard him as overlord. But if the free tribes, as independent powers, were suppressed, Alexander would leave a new element in the country, which might to some extent counterpoise the power of the kings—the new cities of European men, or Europeans and Indians mingled, plants of Hellenism in a strange soil. The rudimentary walls of Bucephala and Nicaea on the Hydaspes Alexander found on his return damaged by the rains, and the army had to build them stronger before it moved in the new direction down the river.