When coterminous Pakistan fought Alexander the Great and almost brought him down to his knees.

[Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8]

Let's end this debate once and for all

Below is the most important map from Joseph E.Schwartzberg's "A Historical Atlas of South Asia"

It shows the strength of each politico-cultural boundary through out subcontinent's history

India the Nation-state covers around 86-90% of India the Geographical expression...that's way better than even Germany

@Joe Shearer

 

[Joe Shearer]

I have a mixed reaction to this.

If you notice, there is a clear demarcation of the present-day portions that form Pakistan. They have a point when they say that they are distinct, although they are also distinct from each other. To my thinking, and this is personal, one leg of the justification for Pakistan is their ancient homogeneity of each constituent portion. When these portions came together and decided to form a state, they became a state, by being loyal to it for seventy years. There is no need for anyone else to poke and pry and to disturb their desire to be together.

It is within the older cultural boundaries of India, but when they chose to be together, they chose for themselves.

My second (amusing) sidelight is to you, @Juggernaut_is_here . Have you noticed that only one zone is not marked as stable, subject to instability or isolated?

 

[Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8]

I have a mixed reaction to this.

If you notice, there is a clear demarcation of the present-day portions that form Pakistan. They have a point when they say that they are distinct, although they are also distinct from each other. To my thinking, and this is personal, one leg of the justification for Pakistan is their ancient homogeneity of each constituent portion. When these portions came together and decided to form a state, they became a state, by being loyal to it for seventy years. There is no need for anyone else to poke and pry and to disturb their desire to be together.

It is within the older cultural boundaries of India, but when they chose to be together, they chose for themselves.

My second (amusing) sidelight is to you, @Juggernaut_is_here . Have you noticed that only one zone is not marked as stable, subject to instability or isolated?

You mean eastern Bangladesh and Tripura? The question of history of the Bangladesh region vexed me since late teenagehood...I mean how come Bangladesh is Muslim without being contiguous with Muslim majority parts of the subcontinent? There is a greater chance that areas around the Mughal core could have been Muslim than BD.....

All those questions were answered when I came across Richard Eaton Maxwell's book "The rise of Islam and the Bengal frontier, 1204-1760"

Eastern Bengal has come much more recently under the plough and it has hosted settled civilized population way more recently..discounting the hallmarks of civilization in Northern Bengal

I mean Western part of Bengal has much more solid documented history since the Guptas and Shashanka....

That the history of the subcontinent is varied and different parts saw different speeds of development completely baffles the Hindu Nationalist

 

[MultaniGuy]

I have a mixed reaction to this.

If you notice, there is a clear demarcation of the present-day portions that form Pakistan. They have a point when they say that they are distinct, although they are also distinct from each other. To my thinking, and this is personal, one leg of the justification for Pakistan is their ancient homogeneity of each constituent portion. When these portions came together and decided to form a state, they became a state, by being loyal to it for seventy years. There is no need for anyone else to poke and pry and to disturb their desire to be together.

It is within the older cultural boundaries of India, but when they chose to be together, they chose for themselves.

My second (amusing) sidelight is to you, @Juggernaut_is_here . Have you noticed that only one zone is not marked as stable, subject to instability or isolated?

Not just for seventy years, but for much more years to come obviously.

Pakistan is country with a very large history going back to Indus River Valley Civilization.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Not just for seventy years, but for much more years to come obviously.

Pakistan is country with a very large history going back to Indus River Valley Civilization.

Pakistan is indeed a country, whose constituent provinces have a very LONG history going back to the Indus Valley Civilisation.

 

[MultaniGuy]

Pakistan is indeed a country, whose constituent provinces have a very LONG history going back to the Indus Valley Civilisation.

The same logic can be applied to Republic of India, the provinces have a long history dating back to the old gangetic days to now.

 

[Joe Shearer]

The same logic can be applied to Republic of India, the provinces have a long history dating back to the old gangetic days to now.

Of course. You are partly right, as usual. If you want to discuss something with me, do try to read, and do try to understand the whole thing. If I show you why you are partly right and not wholly so, will you go away and stop bothering me?

 

[Pangu]

Thank you for setting the record straight Kaptaan, I've always thought Alexander fought the ancient Indians... Congrats on this formidable & victorious event of your people, I am impressed!

 

[Haryanvi Jat]

Please read this thread. The Saraswati myth has been "busted".

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/the-fraud-of-saraswati-river-hindu-myth-busted.419558/

I would rather believe Indian archaeologist than believing your sources.

 

[MultaniGuy]

Thank you for setting the record straight Kaptaan, I've always thought Alexander fought the ancient Indians... Congrats on this formidable & victorious event of your people's, I am impressed!

I sure it was a fierce fight with Alexander the Great.

 

[krash]

Kaptaan’s type of thinking makes me fear for our future. Our past and future lies in Islam. We take our strength from it. Trying to add to our history reaks of someones personal complex. We are a great nation which follows Islam and its tradition. Trying to add Indian elements to it helps hindu ghar vapasi propaganda.

This archaic mentality is what has brought us to nowhere. You have no clue what Islam is, have no clue what you are and you definitely have no clue what academic thought or its benefits are. The stupidity with which you display your empty rhetoric and reason-less statements is exactly why we must learn and teach who we are and where we come from.

What reeks right now is the hypocrisy of our people who want us to discard/not acknowledge anything and everything that is/was our's but not Islam's and yet not against Islam, and still choose to adopt foreign homelands whose ways stand directly against Islam. Don't rejoice yet, I do not see a problem with them adopting those foreign lands, I see a problem with them making no sense what so ever in their statements.

We are a nation whose history pre-dates Islam. Complex-ed is the one who refuses to acknowledge this. Moronic is the one who wilfully forfeits it to the Indians.

 

[Joe Shearer]

This archaic mentality is what has brought us to nowhere. You have no clue what Islam is, have no clue what you are and you definitely have no clue what academic thought or its benefits are. The stupidity with which you display your empty rhetoric and reason-less statements is exactly why we must learn and teach who we are and where we come from.

What reeks right now is the hypocrisy of our people who want us to discard/not acknowledge anything and everything that is/was our's but not Islam's and yet not against Islam, and still choose to adopt foreign homelands whose ways stand directly against Islam. Don't rejoice yet, I do not see a problem with them adopting those foreign lands, I see a problem with them making no sense what so ever in their statements.

We are a nation whose history pre-dates Islam. Complex-ed is the one who refuses to acknowledge this. Moronic is the one who wilfully forfeits it to the Indians.

This is a discussion where someone who is not himself (or herself) Pakistani cannot speak with the frank and forthright manner that a Pakistani might adopt. However we are involved in the conversation, and I would like an opportunity to respond to it. Not to contradict it, but to clarify matters regarding a specific point.

 

[krash]

This is a discussion where someone who is not himself (or herself) Pakistani cannot speak with the frank and forthright manner that a Pakistani might adopt. However we are involved in the conversation, and I would like an opportunity to respond to it. Not to contradict it, but to clarify matters regarding a specific point.

By all means.

 

[Joe Shearer]

By all means.

Forfeiting it to the Indians needs a fool on one side and a knave on the other. I ask you to consider two reasonable people instead. Since nothing hinges on this request but some thought to be spent on your part, do think about that imaginary situation. It might not be a zero sum game after all, as far too many people have feared.

 

[Taimoor Khan]

And against this hearsay, these legends, these crude attempts to preserve his status as undefeated white blond boy, what do you oppose?

Unwritten history, interpolations into the record to read what has not been explicitly denied, quotations from blog-sites, including, the most laughable instance, Indian Defence blog sites, the polar opposites of PDF?

You don't even know whom you are citing: there is no historian named Badge.

Do you even understand that I am a formal student of history, that Alexander's campaign was studied at great depth, that I was a kind of unpaid assistant to a presentation that sought to prove in the 60s that Hydaspes was not such an outright victory as it was made out to be, to an audience that included an appreciative but unconvinced R. C. Majumdar? And you oppose these vague sites, and their totally spurious narrations to this?

What I propose? I am not proposing anything , just stating facts and circumsential evidences which go against this myth created around the unfeated, darling of west , the mighty Alexander. Every dog has its days. He had it. World needs to move on and except the realities. Those who heads are burried deep in their white masters behind, cannot, will not be able to think rationally as the coconut inside wont let them. Slaves minds are worst form of slavery.

Unwritten history?? The history that was written about this battle got more holes in it then swizz cheese. I dont have to keep on repeating myself here.

You can be a janitor, polishing Earl Gray shoes , you can be the Queen of England. Do you see me give a f***???

He was more than willing; what gave you the impression that Alexander did not want to go further?

And since you claim to be so learned in this matter, are you even aware that there was a reason other than the lands and their wealth for Alexander to seek to go further east in the first place? Think about it; you know nothing about the campaign and about the happenings except whatever shallow knowledge exists on the web.

So why did he stop? More of the case, being made to stop.

Seems you are a "phoopa" of Alexander. But as history goes, he has to be worst foreign invader of sub continent. The Nomad Babur created his own legacy and dynasty in the region, and he was nobody when compared to the Alexender, "the great".

Speaking logically in one language would suffice. Unfortunately, in the absence of that, even eighty languages will not do.

If you can get your head out of your behind, maybe it will all start to make sense. In sha Allah.

Because his soldiers didn't want to go on.

beaten? lethargic? tired? heavy toll? mutiny? leadership losing control?


Think loud mouth think.

It implies NOTHING, except that you don't know your subject.

The description of the territory and its armament further east were explicitly mentioned as coming from specific sources; there was no implication, that is not a term needed if you knew Jack Squat about the sources.

Read:

<general comment by R. S. Tripathi, in History of Ancient India> During their progress towards the Hyphasis Alexander's troops had heard all sorts of alarming rumours that beyond it there were extensive and uninviting deserts, impetuous and unfathomable rivers, and, what was more disquieting, powerful and wealthy nations maintaining huge armies.

Tripathi cites two original sources:

<Curtius> Curtius represents Phegeus (Phegelis?), identified with Bhagala, as giving the following information to Alexander: the further bank of the Ganges was inhabited by two nations, the Gangaridae and the Prasii, whose king Agrammes kept in the field for guarding the approaches to his country 20,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry, besides 2,000 four-horsed chariots, and what was most formidable force of all, a troop of elephants, which ran up to the number of 3,000.

<Plutarch> Similarly Plutarch says that the kings of the Gangaritai and Prasiai were reported to be waiting for him with an army of 80,000 horse and 200,000 foot, 8,000 war chariots and 6,000 fighting elephants.

For the information of those not like @Taimoor Khan, born as latter-day Jowetts, who knew all about everything from birth, Gangaridae is an obvious derivation from Ganga, Prasii is only the nominative of Prachya, eastern.

More later: @Kaptaan has posted, and I need to attend. Don't forget your medication.

Its implies EXACTLY what I said. He knew what lies ahead. In military terms he had the INTELLIGENCE, to be precise HUMINT, of the challenges that he might have to face if he move forward. You are honking rubbish, as usual.

For him to be completely oblivious of what lies south is out of question, considering that the midget actually died of the wounds received in the battle of Multan, all subsequent actions and path taken are of the defeated army. You said his troops didnt want to move ahead, then why not take the safe passage back to Bactria???

...against which you oppose unwritten history? You put up all that has not been explicitly denied?

Are you serious?

You dont accept the existence of Noah and Adam, mentioned extensively in the written history, from all over the world, different accounts, different races, ethinicities, and here you are pathetically defending a clearly BIASED and hogwash of history written by non other then greeks themselves, defending them shamelessly and rather unsuccessfully.

Have some mercy on yourself.