The Paurava kingdom of Porus

The kingdom

Everything known about this state comes from the Alexander historians. It lay in the doab between the Jhelum and the Chenab, in ancient India (modern-day Pakistan), was hostile to Ambhi's Taxila across the river, and fielded a substantial force of infantry, chariots and elephants. The name Porus is generally taken as a Greek rendering of Puru or Paurava, a lineage name attested a thousand years earlier in the Ṛgveda, though continuity across that interval cannot be demonstrated.

The Hydaspes

Alexander crossed the swollen Jhelum upstream by night in the monsoon of 326 BCE and engaged Porus's army on the far bank. The Macedonian cavalry outmanoeuvred the Indian wings while the elephants, driven back into their own lines, did much of the damage to the Indian centre. It was among the costliest of Alexander's battles.

The exchange afterwards is the most repeated anecdote of the campaign: asked how he wished to be treated, Porus replied "as a king," and was restored to his kingdom with additional territory. The story reaches us only through the Greek tradition, which had reasons of its own for magnifying the defeated adversary.

Afterwards

Porus governed the Punjab as Alexander's client and was killed around 317 BCE by Eudemus, the Macedonian commander who then withdrew westward with his elephants. The kingdom disappears from the record; its territory passed into the Mauryan empire under Candragupta.

No Indian source names Porus or the battle. The absence is a standing illustration of how differently the two traditions recorded events: what is a landmark in the European account of India left no mark in India's own.