Hello everyone! It gives me immense pleasure to be back after more than two years. This time, Wandjinns is going to immerse itself in some spheres of life one cannot do without: like food. Hence this post to announce the latest page. It is going to be dedicated to photographs, events, and histories related to food. With a little help from friends, Wandjinns shall be enriched. For now, here is a teaser of what one can expect in the next few days.
Towards the close of spring in the
year 327B.C.E, Alexander the Great led an army of 75,000 across the lofty
Khawak and Khaoshan passes of the Hindukush, in the Kabul valley.[1]
Defeating the republican peoples of the ‘ponchanadas’, Alexander met Porus in
the battle of Hydaspes (326 B.C.E) throughly defeating him. He moved further
east defeating the Agalassoi, the
Malavas, the Kshudrakas and reached the Beas when his world conquering army
revolted. They had started with Alexander in 334 B.C.E and many hadn’t seen
their families since then. In the words of Koinos, their spokesman “… a few out
of many survive, and those few possess no longer the same bodily strength as
before, while their spirits are still more depressed. You see yourself how many
Macedonians and Greeks started with you and how few of us are left.”[2]
Besides this another reason has been attributed to the depression of the
Macedonian troops and that was the awe, fear generated by the enormous wealth,
army of the ‘king of the Gangaridae, and
the Prasii’ who was ‘Augrasainya’ of the Sanskrit sources and ‘Agrammes’ of
the classical accounts. He is reported to possess a huge army of 200,000
infantry, 20,000 cavalry 2,000 four-wheeled chariots and 3,000 elephants by
Curtius Rufus but Diodorus and Plutarch raise the figure of elephants to 4,000
and 6,000 respective. This essay provides a counterfactual perspective where
Alexander wouldn’t have turned back from the Beas, but he would enter the
Gangetic plains, fight Agrammes in a pitched battle thoroughly defeating him
and extending his realm even into the Gangetic plain thereby equating himself
with his legendary ancestors Dionysus and Hercules.
ACHILLES against RAMA
The Chaturanga-Bala dominated sub
continental warfare between 600 B.C.E and 300 C.E. It was the result of
Military Revolutions in the sub-continent since the Vedic age. The
war-chariots, its principal component, originated in Mesopotamia around
1500B.C.E and disseminated throughout the entire Near-East, Egypt, Greece,
India and China by 1200B.C.E. The words ‘Rathin’
or ‘Rathistha’ occurs frequently in
the early Vedic literature.
The great ‘Mahabharata War’ was
principally a war of charioteers, a heroic warfare between leaders of opposite
clans and tribes. This ‘dvandvayuddha’ or individual duels was replaced by
Inter-state warfare by 500B.C.E. [3]
The second important component was the cavalry. The Assyrians (900-612B.C.E)
were the first to use cavalry as an important arm in battle.[4]
In the subcontinent Cavalry came with the Aryans but in the Mahabharata war it
played a secondary role mainly. The next component was an Indian contribution to warfare, that of war
elephants. Elephants were the ‘corps de
elite’ of the Chaturanga Bala[5].
Kautilya emphatically declares that “the victory of kings in battles depends
upon elephants...” [6]
The last and the weakest component was the Infantry. Both the Nandas as well as
the Mauryas possessed huge figures of Infantry (200,000 and 600,000 ) as shown by Diodorus and in the
Arthasashtra respectively. But they were not as effective as in Greece, where
Infantry won battles.
The army of Philip and Alexander was
the product of an amalgamation of two distinct military traditions that
developed parallely in Greece and Persia.The core of Philip’s army consisted of
Hoplites, but they were armed differently from their classical predecessors.
Instead of the regular six-eight feet long spear, the hoplites of Philip were
armed with sarissa , which was around
13 feet long[7].They
presented a bristling, impregnable formation to obstruct the enemy cavalry and
to pin down the enemy infantry, while the Macedonian cavalry did its job. The
premier arm of the Macedonian army was the cavalry. The Macedonian king fought
on a horse and the elite cavalry were organized as the King’s companions.
Macedonian cavalry squadrons were armed with the cavalry ‘sarissa’ (9 feet) which had iron heads on both ends. Besides this
they also had an elite corps of heavy infantry, the Hypaspists, the peltasts
(light infantry) and also skirmishers. This combined with the Scythian Mounted
archers was the strongest military machine of the ancient world. Alexander also
possessed state-of- the- art Siege technology. The Nandas however couldn’t risk
a siege. The dried clay brick walls would be too easy for someone who had
successfully besieged Tyre, an Island city. Nor could Agrammes risk a Guerrilla
war as the light infantry was highly specialized in it and had successfully
subdued the tribes of Bactria, Sogdiana and Eastern Iran where both tradition
and terrain favoured a ‘klienkreig’.The only chance of Agrammes was to fight a
pitched battle and hurl his huge beasts against the Macedonian army.
THE FACE OF BATTLE Agrammes like
DariusIII was an emperor,the ekarat of Gangaridae and Prasii,the commander of a
huge armed force. However being a descendant of a base born,an usurper he was
highly unpopular in his own realm[8].
It is said that he hoarded and amassed a huge fortune which he hid ‘in the
floods of the Ganges.’[9]
Realizing his unpopularity he started charity through an institution named
‘Danasala’ where Kautilya was made the incharge,which later proved to be the
bone of contention between them. Chandragupta Maurya had in fact visited
Alexander and proposed a joint crusade against the Nandas.
STRATEGY: The Battle at Hydaspes had been
fought around May, and when Alexander reached the Beas the monsoon was in full
fervour[10].
Alexander would not have favoured it in monsoon as it made river crossing very
dangerous and weakened the mounted archers as the composite bow would be less
effective in monsoon. It would also be difficult for the heavy infantry. So
Alexander would probably wait till the end of the wet season and in between
recruit new forces, know the terrain and would provoke Agrammes to meet him in
upper Gangetic plains by conducting short raids in the frontier towns of the
Nanda Kingdom. Already unpopular, Agrammes couldn’t afford to sit tight at
Pataliputra while Alexander ravaged his kingdom. The segmented nature of the
polity also meant that the kings of the Uttarapatha and the Gangetic plains
could not unite against Greek invasion in a united fightfor independence. People
detested the Nandas as much as Alexander.
TACTICS: It would be a war of Alexander’s
cavalry against the Indian elephants. Alexander had himself around 200
elephants captured from the various republican tribes of the ‘Ponchanadas’,
from Porus, as well as gifts. But he didn’t use them at Hydaspes, as he had to
cross the river[11].
In this case he could have placed them as reserve as his last resort, in case
his cavalry was routed by the Indian elephants, the elephants would be brought
in battle to win time, to regroup and attack just as Seleucus had done at the
Battle of Ipsus (310 B.C.E) where his elephants were placed at the rear and
successfully prevented the cavalry of Demetrius to wheel round and attack the
rear of his infantry. Alexander’s tactic would be to create a gap between the
elephants so that his Heavy companion cavalry could penetrate the ranks of the
massed Indian infantry and create havoc. The task of harassing the elephants,
the chariots would be placed on the Mounted archers while his Heavy infantry
would pin down their Indian counterparts.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE TWO ARMIES
INFANTRY: Diodorus tells us that the Nandas
had an infantry that numbered around 200,000.[12]This
figure though intimidating might not be greatly exaggerated as Agrammes was the
king of the fertile gangetic plains that supported a huge population. Moreover
on looking at the figure of the armies of the Ponchanadas that Alexander had
defeated, the figure doesn’t seem improbable at all. On the other hand
Alexander entered India with an army of 75,000 but at Hydaspes he fielded only
15,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. When he would go out to meet Agrammes, his
army would be swollen with new recruits from his allies namely Porus, Ambhi. He
could probably field around 50,000 infantry which however would be badly
outnumbered by 4:1.But the Hoplites had proved its supremacy over other
infantries at Marathon, at Thermopylae where a mere 300 held back the 200,000 strong Persian army for 3 days. Even
at Gaugamela Alexander had successfully fielded only 40,000 infantry against
Darius’s 200,000. At Hydaspes Alexander’s infantry numbered only half of
Porus’s. So the Indian Infantry,the weakest of the Chaturanga –Bala would not
stand ground against the elite Heavy Infantry of Alexander as it was both
technologically and organizationally inferior to the Greek phalangites. The Indians
carried broad swords but they would not get any chance to use them on the
Greeks as they would be finished off by the long sarissa. To make things worse they wore little or no armour and
worst of all they were ill-coordinated, less disciplined as was evident as
Hydaspes. Some of them yielded Long-bows
that were 5 feet long. These bows had to be pressed with the left feet before
firing. But the infantry archers were vulnerable as though their shots were
very dangerous which no armour could protect, the sheer length, weight and the
thrust required for every shot would naturally mean longer reloading time, than
the composite bows yielded by Alexander’s mounted archers becoming easy targets for Macedonian cavalry.
CAVALRY
AND CHARIOTS :
According to both Diodorus and Plutarch, the field cavalry of Agrammes amounted
to 20,000 in number, while the figure of the chariots was around 2000.These
were four-horsed and carried six men : two archers, two shield bearers and two
charioteers who were also combatants armed with darts. These were probably
fitted with long knives just as the Scythe chariots of Darius. Such Scythe
chariots were developed under Ajatashatru around 500 B.C.E and played an
important role in establishing Magadhan hegemony.[13]According
to the offence-defence inventive cycle, security is inversely proportional to
mobility and firepower. So these heavy chariots were less mobile. Moreover at
Gaugamela, Alexander’s infantry had adopted a technique to nullify the Scythe
chariots.[14]
These chariots were simply allowed to pass by opening a channel in the Infantry
and then finished off by the Peltasts. A similar tactic would be followed
against the Nandas. Infact the chariots had become obsolete but the time of
Alexander. Rain or no rain the archers in the Rathas were vulnerable to the
armoured Greek cavalry and the Mounted archers. Now regarding cavalry, the
Indians were technologically backward than their foes. Unlike the Companions,
the Indian horsemen were not equipped with metal greaves, shields and helmets.
Alexander’s companion cavalry wielded double edged lances that were very
effective in all the battles that he fought, in Granicus, Issus, Gaugamela and
also at Hydaspes.In addition the Companions had the advantage of superior
discipline and were battle hardy compared to the one of the weaker components
of the Chaturanga-Bala.
ELEPHANTS : According to Diodorus, Agrammes
had around 2,000 elephants, while Curtius puts it to 3,000.There is good reason
to think that this figure of 2,000 or 3,000 was exaggerated and even if it is
rational the figure included Pack elephants.[15].Moreover
2,000 or 3,000 elephants could not be used in a battle. If we remember
Hydaspes, we will see that the elephants of Porus were stationed 50 feet from
each other and that extended his battle line around 2 miles. So even if
Agrammes fielded 500 elephants it would extend his line to around 10 miles! So
if we think rationally the Nanda King could max out no more than 200 to 250
elephants. Even then the huge beasts
with its trumpeting would have turned on the heat against the Macedonians. Now,
the Indian Elephants carried 2- 4 men including the Mahout, who were mostly
archers. The Mahout had an ankusha
which was thrust in the elephant’s neck in case it became uncontrollable. It
was this feature of the elephants that made them dangerous equally for friends
and enemies.
At Hydaspes, after the initial
casualties inflicted by them, the elephants were tied down in a close space
with arrows, javelins were rained which made them uncontrollable and they
crushed many of the Indian Infantrymen. The same tactic could be repeated.
Alexander leading his right flank could easily push back the Indian left and
turn around to attack the elephants in the rear, while his Mounted Archers
could perform the Double-envelopment tactic, driving the elephants mad creating
a great confusion in the Indian-ranks, taking advantage of which the Heavy
Infantry would render the final blow In a classic Hammer and Anvil move. Infact
Chandragupta’s revolutionary movement to uproot the unpopular ‘Agrammes’
culminated in a decisive battle where there was killing of biblical
proportions. Kautilya mentions the sources of the recruitment for
Chandragupta’s army: Choras, Chora-Ganas,
Mlechchha, Atavikas (the foresters),
Sastropajivisrenis (warrior clans). [16]Interestingly,
the word choras or choragana actually meant mercenaries which the Punjab region
was full off and the people of these regions actually did this for a
profession. Interestingly the Punjab was predominantly a region of horses. In
fact, the republican people whom Alexander fought had huge infantry and cavalry
but few elephants. To take the example of the Assakenians their army comprised
of 30,000 cavalry 38,000 infantry but only 30 elephants. The combined army of
the Kshudrakas and the Malavas comprised of 90,000 foot, 10,000
horse and 900 chariots but no elephants[17].Chandragupta’s
success over the Magadha war Machine of which the elephants were the corps
de-elite demonstrates the superiority of mobility over the tanks of
antiquity.
AFTERMATH
Alexander would have probably
founded Alexandria at the erstwhile capital of the Nandas thus equalling his
glory with that of Dionysus and Hercules. Alexander would have probably wanted
to press on reach the ‘southern ocean’
but his battle tired army would now surely mutiny on any thought of crossing
the Ganges. Moreover the summer season would be due shortly and the paucity of
grasses would be render his horses ineffective. Alexander’s huge empire now
embracing most of Asia would be exactly like the raw hide skin of the Indian
sage whose one corner would move up if another corner was moved down. As said
before Alexander was equally hated as the Nanda King for his massacres of the
republican tribes that had dared to oppose him. In fac,t shortly after
Alexander left for Persepolis, the Greek satrap
Nicanor was killed and rebellion broke out at Kandahar and other parts of the Ponchanadas. Time
would be ripe for the emergence of the Indian hero, Chandragupta Maurya who
would defeat the weakened Greek rule as he defeated Selucas in 301B.C.E and
would lay the foundation ofthe Mauryan empire.
[1]- Arther Ferrill, The Origins Of War From
The Stone Age To Alexander The Great.
[2]R.K.Mookherjii, Chandragupta Maurya and His Times
[3]Kaushik Roy, From Hydaspes To Kargil, A History Of
Warfare in India from 326 BC To 1999 A.D
[4]Arther Ferrill, The Origins Of War From The Stone Age To Alexander The Great
[5]B.P. Sinha’s The Art of War in Ancient India(600 B.C- AD
300) in Kaushik Roy ed. Warfare,State and Society in South Asia(500 BCE-2005
CE)
[6]Osprey New Vanguard, War Elephants, Dr. Konstantin Nossov.
[7]Arther Ferrill, The Origins Of War From The Stone Age To Alexander The Great
[8]The Classical,Jain,and the Brahmanaical Sources are
unanimous in this regard. For all the arguments see H.C.Raychauduri,Political History Of Ancient
India
[9]R.K.Mookherjii, Chandragupta Maurya and His Times
[10]A.B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire , The Reign of Alexander The Great.
[11]Osprey New Vanguard, War Elephants,Dr. Konstantin Nossov
[12] R.K.Mookherjii, Chandragupta Maurya and His
Times.
[13]Kaushik Roy, From Hydaspes To Kargil, A History Of
Warfare in India from 326 BC to AD 1999
[14]Arther Ferrill, The Origins Of War From The Stone Age To Alexander The
Great.
[15]Osprey New
Vanguard, War Elephants,Dr. Konstantin Nossov.
[16]H.C.Raychauduri,Political History Of Ancient India
It's been raining for days now in Calcutta. The weatherman reports depression over the Bay of Bengal. Today dawned like no other. The cool breeze entering through my window made me draw on the blanket over my lazy legs. That was when I heard my father exclaim: Rituporno Ghosh is no more. The news felt like a dull thud. The news channels kept on repeating his voice, his images, his achievements: like they do every time a star expired. Then the statuses and the tweets, making the news of his death veritable.
The *radical* director of *parallel* Bengali cinema understood the language of relationships like no other. I am no critique to talk at length regarding his craft. The twelve National Awards and several International ones are also no yardsticks to measure his genius. And it would be quite foolish to debate over his cinema being the crowd-puller once again, post-Ray. Because they were.Period. He was the one to provoke the *moddhyobitto Bangali* sentiments all over again. Thanks to him, the *arty*, the *snooty*and the anglicized bought first day,first show tickets, queued outside standalones and multiplexes and came out praising the sensitive and brave script.
Perhaps he handled loneliness like no other because he himself experienced loneliness like no other. The letter which Romita writes to her elder sister in the last scene of Dahan used to haunt me as a child. It still does. More so because, perhaps we are all lonely at some point in life.
Yep,so I'm extremely enthused to have this blog. Yay,finally! Oh,and this also belongs to +Dipanjan Mazumder. Which means he'll be posting on most days.
And no, we didn't create this because we were/are bored (which we are, but that's a different story.). We created this because we wanted to. Because it's still pretty *cool* to have one. Which reminds me, I didn't update my blog for a really, really long time. And also because Dip really wanted to own one. Jointly at that. :-)
