The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c14.24

c14.24

The argument which Cunningham places first, and on which he lays most stress, is based on Pliny's figures for the distance from Peukolaitis (Chārsadda), via Taxila, to the Hydaspes (vi, 21). Pliny gives the distances as (1) from Peukolaitis to Taxila 60 Roman=55 English miles, and (2) from Taxila to the Hydaspes 120 Roman, or 110 English miles; and Cunningham argues that these figures suit Jalālpur better than they suit Jihlam. But it is notorious that the figures in Pliny's text are often erroneous. For example, the very passage referred to gives the distance from the Hydaspes to the Hyphasis as 390 Roman miles, which is wildly wrong. It is rash, therefore, to rely on the figures in Pliny's text as we possess it. Cunningham himself was satisfied that the actual distance from Peukolaitis to Taxila, via Uhand, where Alexander crossed the Indus, is greater than that stated by Pliny, and proposed to correct the text (*Reports*, ii, 112).