The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c25.17

v1.c25.17

The rāja of Takshaçilā must have realised at this juncture that a momentous choice lay before him. It may be that the idea of a common Indian nationality, in whose cause he and his brother kings might stand together against the stranger, did not even occur to him: India was too large and too disunited for the mind to embrace it as a unity. But he might well tremble for his own power, if this new resistless deluge came bursting into the land. On the other hand it might perhaps be turned to his account. His policy was largely governed by his antagonism to the rival prince of the Paurava¹ house (Porus), who ruled on the other side of the Hydaspes (Jhelum). The Paurava was indeed a neighbour to be dreaded. He is described to us as a man of gigantic and powerful build, a warrior-chief, such as in an unsettled world extends his power by aggressive ambition and proud courage. He had conceived the idea of building up for himself a great kingdom, and he was the man to realise it. He had already made an attempt to crush the free tribes to the east, pushing his advance even beyond the Hydraōtes (Rāvi), in alliance with the rāja of the Abhisāra country (corresponding roughly with the Pūnch and Naoshera districts in Kashmīr) and with many of the free tribes whom he had drawn into vassalage swelling his army, although the resistance he there encountered from the Kshatriyas² had made him temporarily give back³. His hand had perhaps also reached westward across the Hydaspes into the country which the rāja of Takshaçilā considered his own⁴. It might well seem to the rāja of Takshaçilā that, threatened on the one side by the Paurava and on the other side by the European invader, his safest course lay in allying himself with the European, riding on the crest of the wave that would sweep his rival to destruction.