The Site of Alexander's Passage of the Hydaspes and the Battle with Poros

Abstract

THE question of the ground where Alexander secured his bold passage of the Hydaspes and fought his great battle with Poros has been long dis? cussed, but no definite solution has been reached and opinions have remained divided. This has been the result of conflicting locations having been proposed by those officers who in days long past had occasion to visit one portion or another of the ground where routes from the Indus crossing the Salt Range lead down to the Jhelum. Scholars working far away from India in their study could scarcely do more than try and weigh those opinions in the light of the interpretations they were led to put upon the records of Alexander's classical historians. Neither those early visitors to the ground since the days when Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone's famous Mission passed the Jhelum in 1809, nor the scholars discussing the proposed locations, had enjoyed the advantage of such accurate topographical and antiquarian information as the excellent maps produced in recent times by the Survey of India, and the records embodied by British administrators in District Gazetteers have placed at the disposal of the critical student.