Alexander: Why did the world conqueror decide against fighting the Nanda rulers of India

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There is an ancient military saying “The Turks are known for their horsemen, the Persians for their Archers, and the Indians for their Armies”.

Alexander is regarded as one of the greatest of conquerors the world ever saw. Starting from small kingdom of Macedonia, he went on to conquer vast stretches of land in Central Asia including Ancient Persia and western India.

Now we all have read in our school textbooks about how Alexander fought King Porus and after defeating Porus at the Battle of the Hydapes (the river Indus), his soldiers felt homesick and so Alexander decided to return to Macedonia. Offcourse Alexander himself could never return to Macedonia and died on his way back in Babylonia due to a mosquito bite. An emperor who ruled most of the then known world died due to a small mosquito.

Now why would someone who was so determined on conquering the entire world, give up his dream after a battle with an Indian king. A fact that many historians agree on is that the homesick soldiers theory was not the real reason for Alexander’s decision to return back. Now here are some facts:-
  1. Alexander had been known to have ambition to conquer all of the known world.
  2. His soldiers were rotated, and it was not like all who were fighting were from Macedonia. His army consisted of greeks, persians and many other ethinicities that he ruled. 
  3. Majority of the soldiers in his army were Persians.
Some believe the real reason was supposed to be the mutiny by his soldiers, who were unwilling to fight the Nanda rulers of Magadh.

There is not much historical data on King Porus except for his battle with Alexander. That’s because Porus was actually a small ruler on India’s western frontier. He was one of the many satraps ruling areas on the frontiers of the Magadh empire, an empire which stretched from the current day Bengal to the Indus river.

Alexander marched into western India in 326 B.C. The Macedonian armies had defeated the Turks, Persians and were now on their way to India. At the Battle of Hydapes against King Porus in 326 B.C, Alexanders army came to the verge of defeat and decimation. Porus had deployed 200 war elephants between his 40,000 infantry troops. Many of the Macedonian troops had never seen an elephant in their lives and here they had armour plated elephants charging at them with archers on their backs. Alexander defeated Porus with great difficulty, losing his own horse Bucephalus in the battle,  and being struck with an arrow in his thigh.

A painting depicting Porus (on left) surrendering to Alexander 
After the battle, the tired and weary Macedonians were informed by Porus, about the Nanda army which was waiting for Alexander across the River Beas. The Nandas', then rulers of Magadh, controlled the area of the Ganga basin. Dhan Nanda, the Nanda king, had one of the largest armies of the time. It is estimated that his army amassed on river Beas (the western boundary of the Nanda empire) consisted of 2,00,000 infantry, 80000 cavalry, 8000 chariots and 3000-6000 war elephants. The thought of facing a massive Indian army (compare this with only 200 war elephants deployed by Porus) caused a mutiny among Alexander’s troops, who refused to march any further. Alexander had to thus order a hasty retreat back to Persia, and died along the way in Babylon in 323 B.C.

Chandragupta Maurya (who defeated Dhan Nanda in 324 B.C and founded the Mauryan empire) would later go on to defeat the Greek general Seleucus Nicator (successor of Alexander for his eastern Persian empire). As a peace strategy, Seleucus married his daughter, Helena to Chadragupta, who in return gave 500 war elephants to Seleucus as a gesture of this new relationship. These war elephants were later used by Seleucus in his battles with other Greek generals.

Some more interesting facts:
  • Alexander's horse Bucephalus was supposedly afraid of his own shadow, and so Alexander always aligned his army to march in such a way as always facing the sun. In the battle of Hydaspes, he could not do that as Porus had moved to Alexander's south to encircle him, and due to this Alexander would be riding with the sun behind his back, and Bucephalus would see his shadow while galloping. This Alexander had supposedly believed to be a bad omen for him.
  • Another interesting fact is the height of King Porus. He was supposed to be more than 7 feet tall, and towered over Alexander. This can be seen in all paintings depicting the surrender of Porus.

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