The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c30.s1.14

v1.c30.s1.14

On three occasions have Yavana conquerors occupied the Kābul valley, the North-Western Frontier Province, and large portions of the Punjab. The earliest of these episodes, the Indian expedition of Alexander the Great, has for more than twenty-two centuries been celebrated in the Western world as one of the most amazing feats of arms in the whole of history. Of its progress detailed accounts have been preserved by Greek and Latin authors whose information was derived from the writings of officers who themselves took part in the events which they describe; and in all these accounts Alexander himself is the great central figure. No personage of the ancient world is better known; but of this great conqueror the records of India have preserved no certain trace: he had failed to reach the Midland Country, to which the literature of the period is almost exclusively confined.