The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c6.s1.t6.1

c6.s1.t6.1

From Sindomana Alexander “marched back to the river, where he had ordered his fleet to wait for him. Thence, descending the stream, he came on the fourth day to a town through which was a road to the kingdom of Sabus.”* When Alexander quitted his fleet at Alor (the capital of Musikanus) to march against Oxykanus, he had no intention of going to Sindomana, as Raja Sambus, having tendered his submission, had been appointed satrap of the hilly districts on the Indus.† He must therefore have ordered his fleet to wait for him at some point on the river not far from the capital of Oxykanus. This point I would fix somewhere about *Marija Dand*, on the old *Nára*, below Kator and Tajal, as Mahorta, which I have identified with the chief city of Oxykanus, is about equidistant from Alor and Kator. Thence, descending the stream, he came on the fourth day to a town, through which there was a road to the kingdom of Sambus. From Marija Dand, the point where I suppose that Alexander rejoined his fleet, the distance to the ruined city of Brâhmana, or Brâhmanâbâd, is 60 miles in a direct line by land, or 90 miles by water. As this distance could have been accomplished with ease in four days, I conclude that Brâhmana was the actual city of Brahmans which is described by Alexander’s historians. The king of this city had previously submitted, but the citizens withheld their allegiance, and shut their gates. By a stratagem they were induced to come out, and a conflict ensued, in which Ptolemy was seriously wounded in the shoulder by a poisoned sword.* The mention of Ptolemy’s wound enables us to identify this city with that of Harmatelia, which Diodorus describes as the “last town of the Brâhmans on the river.”† Now, Harmatelia is only a softer pronunciation of Brâhma-thala, or Brahmana-sthala, just as Hermes, the phallic god of the Greeks, is the same as Brahmâ, the original phallic god of the Indians. But Brâhmana was the old Hindu name of the city which the Muhammadans called Brâhmanâbâd; hence I conclude that the town of Brahmans captured by Alexander corresponds both in name and position with the great city of Brâhmanâbâd.