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Art. XXIII.—The Position of the Autonomous Tribes of the Panjāb conquered by Alexander the Great

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Vincent A. Smith
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For the right understanding of Alexander's Indian campaign it is essential to place correctly the nations called Malloi, Kathaioi, and Oxydrakai by Arrian, who were among the most formidable opponents of the invader. Mr. McCrindle, in his valuable work, “The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great” (new ed., 1896), seems to me to have gone wrong in this matter, and to have seriously misplaced all three nations. He has located the Malloi about one degree of latitude too far south, and, with respect to the Oxydrakai, his error, in my judgment, amounts to about three degrees. He has also failed to indicate correctly the position of the Kathaioi. I propose in this paper to examine all the evidence on the subject, and to try to establish the true approximate positions of the three nations on the map of ancient India.

Type
Original Communications
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , October 1903 , pp. 685 - 702
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1903

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References

page 685 note 1 I desire to acknowledge in the most emphatic manner my indebtedness to the very learned paper, really a large work, by MajorRaverty, G. H., Bombay Army retired, entitled “The Mihrán of Sind and its Tributaries,” with nine plates, which appeared in the J.A.S.B. for 1892, part iGoogle Scholar. It is the only publication known to me which fully and practically recognizes the enormous scale of the changes in the courses of the Panjāb and Sind rivers since Alexander's time. Major Raverty pricks many bubbles, and has cleared away the rubbish of guesswork which has accumulated around the subject of Alexander's Indian campaign. His most valuable observations on this topic will be found at pages 155, 226, 244 (note 192), 246, 250, 252, 304, 307, 313, 343 (note 345), 345 (note 348), 351 (note 353), especially 362 (note 360), 372, 377, 380 (note 390, with error as to site of Sangala), 405 (note 427), 417 (changes of climate), 461 (note 530), 465, 469 (results), 477, 505, 508. Major Raverty's work is such difficult reading that it is very little known. If Mr. McCrindle had studied it, he would have been saved from considerable errors, which detract from the value of his otherwise admirable work. I have generally made use of Mr. McCrindle's translations, which are good, and, as a rule, accurate.

page 686 note 1 As ProfessorFranke, Otto points out, the ɛ of the Greek would also serve to represent ch, the Prākrit (Pāli) equivalent of , kṣ (“Pāli und Sanskrit,” Strassburg, 1902, p. 71)Google Scholar.

page 686 note 2 But Dr. Fleet, to whom I am indebted for the references to the Mahābhārata, writes:—“As regards Malloi = Mālavas, I do not see how by any possibility any Mālavas can be taken so far north as the Rāvi. Bühler located Northern Mālava about Fatḥpur, but I cannot give you the reference to his remarks. And I cannot see any grounds for extending Mālava beyond the Sambhar lake. I am aware that Varāha Mihira placed Mālava in the ‘northern division’; but that is certainly not accurate. I should be much more inclined to take Malloi as = Malla, or Malaya. For a northern Malaya, see Ind. Ant., vol. xiv, 105 foll., but also p. 320.”

page 687 note 1 I have worked out the detailed chronology of the campaign.

page 688 note 1 Rodgers, C. J. in Proc. A.S.B. for 1896, p. 81.Google Scholar

page 688 note 2 The ancient course of the Biās was appreciably further west than the modern course, but the assertions commonly made that “in Alexander's time” rivers flowed in such and such a way are absolutely baseless. Many such assertions will be found in Mr. McCrindle's book. We have no details about the Panjāb rivers until the time of the Arab conquest in 712 A.D., more than 1,000 years after “Alexander's time.”

page 689 note 1 “They dressed themselves with the skins of wild beasts, and had clubs for their weapons” (Curtius, ix, 4). Another neighbouring tribe, the Agalassians, is mentioned by Diodorus. These tribes were probably the ancestors of some clans of the half-wild pastoral Jāts who now inhabit the same region.

page 689 note 2 “Some seven miles east of the Chenáb the country once more abruptly rises, and changes from a wooded cultivable plain to the lifeless wilderness characteristic of the higher lands between the river valleys of the Punjab…. The bár, or wild upland plain of the Rechna Doáb, broken here and there by sandy depressions, and inhabited only by pastoral nomads, who dwell in moveable hamlets of thatched huts. Strips of cultivation along the convergent streams enclose this sterile wedge, which runs like an intrusive spur of Sháhpur District down the centre of the Jech Doáb” (Imp. Gaz., 1881, s.v. Jhang). Much of the “lifeless wilderness” of the Panjāb is now being restored to life by systems of canals. The Jhang District lies between 30° 35′ and 32° 4′ N. lat., and 71° 39′ and 73° 38′ E. long.

page 691 note 1 The interior upland of the Montgomery District is, or was twenty years ago, “a desert plateau, partially overgrown with brushwood and coarse grass, which are interrupted at places by an impenetrable jungle, impassable alike for man or horse. From time immemorial the Rechna Doáb has formed the home of a wild race of pastoral Játs…. The pastoral clans of Játs call themselves the ‘Great Rávi’ tribes, in contradistinction from the purely agricultural classes, who are contemptuously named the ‘Little Rávi.’” Numerous traces of ancient towns and villages exist even in the desert tracts (Imp. Gaz., 1881, s.v. Montgomery). The Játs of the Montgomery District may well be descendants of “the Malloi who survived” Alexander's ruthless handling. This district, which was formerly known as Ghughērah (Gugaira), lies partly in the Bāri and partly in the Racna Doāb. The village, which does duty as its capital, stands in a waterless and treeless plain, in N. lat. 30° 58′, E. long. 73° 21′.

page 691 note 2 That is to say, the great river called by the Greeks the Indus, but which seems to have been really the Hakṛā or ”Wahindah, which has disappeared.

page 692 note 1 Text, as in Schwanbeck, , Megasthenis Indica, p. 108Google Scholar. Aστράβαις seems to be a misprint, as the note gives 'Αστρóβαις v.l. (from the best MS., according to Gronovius) is 'Αστρóβαις. For Κηκ⋯ων the same MS. gives Κηκ⋯ων v.l. Μηκ⋯ων. All MSS. read ⋯μβάλλουσιν, but some editors correct to ⋯µβάλλɛι. Mr. McCrindle, when rendering the words ϒδάσπης δ⋯ ⋯ν 'Oξυδρκαις ἃγων ἅμαοι τòν Σíναρον ⋯ν 'Aρíσπις, ⋯ς τòν 'A;ɛσíνη ⋯κδιδοî και οὗτος, translates: “The Hydaspes again, rising in the dominions of the Oxydrakai, and bringing with it the Sinaros, received in the dominions of the Arispai, falls itself into the Akesinês”; but there is no warrant for the insertion of the word “rising.” The words ⋯ν 'Aρíσπαις may be connected, as in Mr. McCrindle's version, with the preceding clause, or with the following one, as in Gronovius' edition (Leyden, 1704). Gronovius renders the whole sentence thus: “Hydaspes vero in Oxydracis Sinarum in se recipiens, in Arispis etiam in Acesinem fertur.” This version is, I think, preferable.

page 693 note 1 The Oxydrakai do not seem to have ever actually come into conflict with Alexander, being saved by their delay in joining their allies.

page 694 note 1 The Akesines (carrying with it the Hydaspea, Hydraotes, and Hyphasia) probably fell into the Indus, and the Indus joined the Hakṛā, but the Greeks do not recognize the Hakṛā as a separate river, and call the stream all through down to the sea by the name of Indus. It ia very unlikely that the Hakṛā, did not exist in Alexander's time.

page 695 note 1 The fruit described is unmistakably the ‘jack’ (Artocarpus integrifolius); but by a curious blunder the information supplied to Pliny has fitted the leaves of the banana, or plantain as Anglo-Indians call it (Musa, sp.), to the fruit of the jack-tree. The description of the leaves applies to Musa as unmistakably as the description of the fruit applies to Artocarpus integrifolius. Bookish commentators have failed to recognize these obvious facts. The names seem to have been derived from merchants trading with South India. Pala = Tamil palā = ‘jack.’ Ariena may possibly be a corrupt transcription of ariti, the. Telugu word for ‘banana.’

page 696 note 1 In Book xv, ch. 6, Strabo mentions a people called Hydrakai, whom the Persians summoned to attend them as mercenaries. MrMcCrindle, (Ancient India as described in Classical Literature, p. 12)Google Scholar is clearly mistaken in identifying these people with the Oxydrakai mentioned by Strabo on the next page. Strabo would not have called the same people by two different names in passages separated only by a few lines, nor could the Persian kings have sought for mercenary troops on the banks of the Rāvī and Biās. The Hydrakai must have lived near the Indus.

page 699 note 1 Raverty (p. 375, note 380) gives a full account of Debálpur.

page 700 note 1 They were “to equal in height the highest military towers, and to exceed them in point of breadth” (Arrian, , Anab., v, 29)Google Scholar; built “of squared stone” (Curtins, ix, 3); “50 cubits ia height” (Diodorus, xvii, 95); subsequently worshipped “in the Hellenic fashion by the kings of the Praisiai” (Plutarch, Alex., ch. lxii); erected in “a camp of unusual size and splendour” (Justin, xii, 9). Pliny places the altars on the left or eastern bank of the Hyphasis.

page 700 note 2 Cunningham, “Ancient Geography of India,” facing p. 104; McCrindle, “The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great,” facing p. 57. Major Raverty erroneously accepts Cunningham's site for Sangala.

page 702 note 1 The advance of the coastline, which has greatly increased the length of the rivers, must necessarily have reduced their gradients and the force of their currents. The Cināb and Jihlam now unite quietly, without the turmoil which marked the confluence of the Akesines and Hydaspes in Alexander's time, and was still marked at the time of Tīmūr's invasion at the close of the fourteenth century. Rain used to fall copiously in regions now practically rainless.