The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c26.246

v1.c26.246

THE mists of obscurity cling heavily round the course that events took in India during the years that immediately followed the death of Alexander the Great. The statements of the original authorities, besides being meagre, are so fragmentary that they are seldom perfectly intelligible. One fact, however, seems to stand out clearly. As soon as the grip of the master-hand was removed, the native element began to recover strength and courage, a process which must have been materially assisted by discord amongst the Europeans who had been left behind, whether as soldiers or as settlers. As conqueror of the Persian empire, Alexander had inherited the system of government by satraps; and, so far as can now be gathered, the broad outline of his original organisation contemplated three great Indian satrapies, one corresponding roughly to the modern province of Sind, another covering the whole of the basin of the Upper Indus from the foot of the Paropanisus, or Hindu Kush, to the banks of the Hydaspes (Jhelum), and a third stretching from the southern shore of the last-named river to the northern shore of the Hyphasis (Beās). The first two included the old Achaemenid provinces of ‘India’ or ‘the country of the Indus,’ and Gandhāra which corresponds to the present districts of Peshāwar and Rāwalpindi. The third represents probably the region ‘conquered’ and not merely ‘reclaimed’ by Alexander. In accordance with the traditional Indian policy (Manu vii, 202) that a conquered kingdom should continue to be governed by some member of its ancient royal family, very important positions were assigned to the native rājas, Taxiles and Porus, the latter being placed in sole charge of the satrapy that included his original kingdom, the country between the Hydaspes and the Acesines (Chenāb)¹. According to Diodorus (XVIII, 3, 4), they were recognised as virtually independent rulers. And they appear to have been quick to make use of their opportunity. The accounts of the division of the empire by Alexander's generals at Babylon (323 B.C.) and those of the subsequent partition of Triparadisus (321 B.C.) agree in pointing to a considerable modification of the limits of the Indian satrapies as at first mapped out. A Macedonian—Pithon, son of Agenor—seems to be entrusted with the control of the land lying between the Paropanisus and the Indus; Taxiles is left supreme in the country between the Indus and the Hydaspes; and Porus is given a great accession of territory, his sphere of influence now extending all the way down the main stream to the sea. Diodorus more than hints that the recognition thus accorded to the native princes was due to a wholesome respect for their material power: Antipater, he says (XVIII, 39, 6), felt that it would be dangerous to attempt to circumscribe their jurisdiction except with the support of an expedition equipped on a scale of the first magnitude and commanded by a general of the highest capacity.