E is for ... Enormous ... n ... Exchange ... n ... Events

Enjoy it while it lasts – a good precept! but  also the title of this first track I have for you today, from the band Easy Wanderlings. And then listen to the veteran Anjan Dutta with Ekhono Tai, where Dylan’s influence on Indian contemporary music is very clearly audible. Well, enjoy! :) 

Exchanges and Empires

This is a small, hand-carved and painted bit of marble from Rajasthan, a state in the North-West of India. A very common object depicting an animal fundamentally associated with Indian culture, made and sold in their thousands probably. It's been with my knickknacks for ages, can't even remember how and when it joined the general mess. 

Credit.
Victory coin of Alexander, minted
324-322 BCE. British Museum. 

Here’s another depiction of it on a slightly less common object. This one came about as a result of an enormously significant event - a military expedition undertaken, and then abandoned, by an emperor. For all that it was unfinished, it still left some dramatic prints on Indian history.

It's a victory coin minted after Alexander's India campaign, showing Alexander on horseback defeating the Indian king Porus on the reverse face and the goddess Nike crowning Alexander on the other. The story goes that King Porus' valiant, uncompromising demeanor even as a wounded and defeated warrior, impressed Alexander. 'Treat me as one king should treat another,' Porus is supposed to have said to Alex the G, according to some historians. Some others dispute it hotly. What is indisputable is that Alexander and Porus engaged in the battle of Hydaspes River in 326 BCE on the bank of the Jhellum, at a site part of modern day Pakistan. And that Porus, with his personal courage and superhero physique (he stood nearly 7 feet tall and was of great physical strength apparently) gave Alexander a hard time in battle.  Alexander was so taken with Porus' courageous rejoinder that he not only gave back his kingdom, but also reinstalled Porus as a one of the satraps.

Alexander wanted to push south-east into the Gangetic plains and the heart of India. But after the long marches, the river crossing and the bitter battles, the Macedonian army was exhausted and resentful. They had heard that the rivers (the Ganges) and warriors (the Nandas, the Gangaderai of Bengal) towards the east were even more ferocious! They had had enough. Alexander, being the astute military commander he was, did not turn back immediately but went south along the banks of the Indus, securing the easternmost frontiers of his conquests. He left two of his generals, Eudemus and Peithon, to administer his Indian territories and turned his armies back towards Persia in a sort of  large U turn.

War elephant at the east gateway to Sanchi.
Built by Ashoka the Great, 2nd century BCE.

Alexander's Indian campaign was the first exposure the Greeks had to war elephants. They wreaked havoc during battle, killing by trampling, goring and also lifting soldiers up in their trunks and dashing them down. Crushing by elephants was and remained a method of execution in India till well into Mughal times (1815). Elephants were also used by kings and nobles for hunting, travelling and as beasts of burden.

Alexander also opened up the Indian subcontinent to a whole new world of Greek influences and cultural exchange. The battle of Hydaspes was recorded and used in military strategy by later Indian empire builders. Less than a decade after Alexander turned back, Chandragupta Maurya, (Remember Ashoka? the one whose Pillar I told you about in my A post? Ashoka's grandfather) created one of the largest empires that India ever knew. Chandragupta maintained a standing army, a lesson learnt directly from Alexander. His mentor and advisor, the equally famous Chanakya, emphasised the need for military training before battles were fought. 

After Alexander's death, Seleucus Nikator, one of his generals established his own empire in Babylon and Persia and came east again. Seleucus and Chandragupta fought for two long years before the latter forced a peace treaty, as part of which Seleucus ceded some of the territories Alexander had conquered. He also gave one of his daughters in marriage to Chandragupta and got 500 war elephants as a gift from the Mauryan emperor. The Greeks maintained an ambassador in the Mauryan court thereafter paving the way for further cultural exchanges. The elephants Seleucus took back with him played a key role in several subsequent victories and established his hold over all of Alexander's territories, except India and Egypt. 

Did you know that an elephant eyelash can be up to 5 inches long? And that elephants are self-aware and can recognise themselves in a mirror? They are among the most intelligent of mammals.  

Edited to add : of the blogs I ended up at yesterday, I liked this ephemeral  photo and poetry post at Tommia's Tablet.

A-Z Challenge 2020