by Rahul Mitra
Acrid black smoke billowed out from the thatched roofs of the ashrams and this, together with the huge clouds of whirling ash, further reduced visibility. Shrieks and cries of the students rent the night air. It was impossible to make out what was going on.
The students who were celebrating, immediately melted away into the darkness, running towards the flames to save their classmates. But given the extent of the flames, there was no chance of helping anyone. Sumukha immediately ordered his soldiers to hold back the civilians and to prevent anyone from trying to help the students. He was responsible for their safety and did not want any more lives to be lost. The stunned civilians could do nothing but watch as the whole place turned into an inferno.
The intense heat of the flames forced the soldiers and civilians further and further back towards the Tamra Nala. From there, they watched in horror as the flames grew stronger and stronger.
ya. If you want, you can join us there.”
Escape
Dawn brought with itself, a new clarity. The fires had died down, and a thick carpet of ashes and residue covered the entire University area. Some of the cottages were still smoking, their roofs caved in and walls turned black with soot. At some point during the night, the fire had spread to the udyaan. It was late summer and the bare, dry barks and piles of leaves had all been devoured by the fire. The once impressive gardens now looked devastated. Tree trunks burnt pitch black, stood out in the midst of the desolate landscape.
It was a wonder that the fire had not spread to the settlement of New Takshashila. The stretch of uninhabited land in front of it had acted as a buffer.
Sumukha immediately ordered his officials to provide immediate relief and shelter to the survivors. Soldiers and civilians fanned out through the area to try and locate survivors. Curious citizens, who had gathered to gape at the spectacle, joined in to help. They combed through the burnt-out ruins but couldn’t locate any bodies or survivors.
When realization finally dawned, Sumukha was trembling with rage. Scouts were sent off in all directions. The soldiers guarding the udyaan and the New Takshashila side were questioned, but none of them had heard or seen anything during the night. They had all been forced back by the intense heat of the flames, and the cordon had been broken at a number of places during the night’s confusion.
Messengers and scouts were seen coming and going all morning, but their efforts were fruitless. The entire party of students, acharyas, refugees, and ordinary people had vanished without a trace. It was as if the earth had swallowed them up!
It was well past noon by the time reports started trickling in that a huge party of people bearing weapons had been seen going towards the Hazaar Lakhi forests. It was apparent what had happened. The students had most probably escaped through the densely forested udyaan after setting fire to it. In that case, they would have emerged near the unguarded vihara, which stood next to the udyaan. The monks, who had stayed back at the vihara, were probably complicit in the whole plan.
Sumukha slapped his forehead in exasperation. He had been sending out scouts to search the fields and villages beyond New Takshashila, whereas, the students had actually doubled back towards Takshashila, passed it by in the darkness, and made for the forests. Given the head start, they had probably already entered the Hazaar Lakhi forests.
Finding anyone inside those forests was a next to impossible task. The soldiers were exhausted and Sumukha had been summoned to the palace. There was nothing to be done. Sumukha dismissed the soldiers and hurried to the palace for much needed damage control. He had to convince Maharaj Ambhi to give him fresh troops so that he could lead a search mission into the forests.
The soldiers, all of whom had been alert for more than twenty-four hours, now dispersed. Only Aditya was left behind. He searched through the ruins a number of times, but couldn’t find any sign of Pandi. Not even a charred skeleton. That probably meant that Pandi was alive and safe, and had been carried away by the students. He gave up his search as evening fell, and made his way back to Takshashila.
The city seemed desolate and quiet. Yet, news of the debacle had spread. Behind closed doors, the common people told and retold stories of the government’s embarrassment to each other with barely suppressed glee. In the palace, Ambhi was beside himself with rage. No one knew it at that time, but the full force of his fury was to fall the very next day on the few hapless refugee families that had remained behind in Takshashila.
Meanwhile, the streets of the city were empty. Shops and businesses were closed, and the din and activity usually associated with the markets of a great trading city, were missing. An eerie silence hung over the students’ section of the city. All of Aditya’s friends were gone. The haunts he had frequented, were burnt down and even the old man Tanku had shut shop and disappeared.
Aditya did not inform Mahinda about Pandi. Nor did he try to contact Devika or her family. He knew what he had to do, so he went back to his room and immediately fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep. The next day, he got up early and spent the day arranging supplies, fodder for the horse, and food for himself. He sold off whatever he could of his belongings, and collecting his savings of sixty panas, he slipped out of Takshashila in the evening.
Aditya rode into the night, towards the Hazaar Lakhi forests. Once again, he was back where he had begun—alone and starting life all over again.
Epilogue
Events moved rapidly after that memorable night. Within a week, Alexander and his army had crossed the Indus into Gandhara. They were received lavishly on the far side of the river by Maharaj Ambhi himself, and many gifts were exchanged between the two sovereigns. Three days of celebrations and athletic games were also organized to commemorate this meeting.
The friendship and generosity displayed by the two monarchs was more than mere rhetoric, for Ambhi proved to be an extremely valuable ally. Not only was he a rich source of information on the neighbouring kingdoms and the strength of their forces, but he was also an exceedingly munificent host. Over the next twenty days, the Greeks were provisioned and resupplied from the three hundred towns and villages of this abundantly fertile country, and it was a rejuvenated and well-rested army that finally set off eastwards early in the month of May. The mighty Greek war machine was once again in motion, and a total of over sixty thousand men, now marched towards the river Hydaspes, which formed the border between the kingdoms of Gandhara and Kekeya.
An envoy had been sent earlier to Porus, asking him to meet them at the river with his tribute. He returned with the message that the King of the Kekeyas would certainly meet them at the river but his only tribute would be armed men. The Greek army and their Indian allies now started preparing for war.
Meanwhile, the band of nine hundred students and acharyas had also made their way over to the Kekeyan kingdom. Here, they joined Acharya Chanakya and the three hundred armed students under his command. Aditya, who had made his way to the borders by a different route, had actually crossed over the Vitasta before his friends, and it was in Kekeya that he learnt about the death of his mentor and friend Pandi. In a way, Aditya had been expecting it.
However, there was no time to think of such things, for the students were organized into divisions of infantry and cavalry, and absorbed into the Kekeyan army. The entire kingdom was girding up for war and frenetic preparations were being made to repel the enemy at the river crossing.
By the end of May, everything was in place. The stage was now set for a climactic clash between the Greeks and the Indians.
***
Numberless hordes of Greeks, Persians, Scythians, Bactrians, and Indians had descended upon the borders of Kekeya. Almost overnight, a sprawling tent city sprang to life and the northern bank of the river was abuzz with life and activity.
Countless coloured banners fluttered in the wind, thousands of men marched, to and from foraging missions and a curtain of dust cloaked the entire area. Supplies were being brought up the road to the camp, which was choked with slow-moving
wagons, and dispersed infantry and officers. The constant tramping of the soldiers, orders being shouted in a dozen different languages, the neighing of horses, and the sound of wood being cut, all added to a confused avalanche of sound that could be heard all the way from the opposite bank.
By now, the Greek army consisted of over sixty thousand men, out of which only thirty-five thousand were westerners from Europe. Guarding the other bank of the river, stood Maharaj Puru’s army, twenty-six thousand men in all. But Maharaj also had a couple of aces up his sleeve, and he was betting on these.
The first of these aces was the war elephant, of which his army had over a hundred. Before coming to India, the Greeks had never faced so many of these fearsome beasts in battle. Now the sight of over a hundred of these behemoths towering over the infantry and cavalry on the far side of the river, struck terror into the hearts of men and animals alike.
The second ace up his sleeve was the weather and the river itself. As soon as the news of Alexander’s arrival was received, the Kekeyan army moved up to the riverbank to guard the nearest crossing. Pickets were set up all the way up and down the riverbank, at likely crossing points. Monsoon was coming, the river was rising, and Alexander’s path forward was blocked. The pre-monsoon swell of the Vitasta made any opposed crossing of the river a dangerous proposition. King Porus, as the Greeks called him, now decided to wait, calculating that with the passage of time, the arrival of the monsoons would make the river impassable.
The situation settled into a stalemate. Alexander and his men set up camp on the Northern end of the river, while Porus with his army blocked the crossing to the south. Everyday, boat parties and leather rafts ventured onto the river, as if trying to find a crossing, and sailed up and down just out of bowshot from the Indians. On the other side, the Indians would goad the elephants into a tumult of hideous trumpeting that carried on all day and wrecked the nerves of the Greeks. The racket would terrify their horses so much that the poor beasts often jumped off the rafts mid-stream and swam bank to the shore.
Everyday, Alexander marched his armies up and down the bank, looking for suitable crossing points. The Indian army, on the other bank, followed their every move. During nights, the sentries on the Indian side would hear the sounds of regiments moving about in the darkness, and follow them only to find the sounds die away and restart at some other point, along the opposite river bank. This cat-and-mouse game carried on for two or three weeks, and the monsoon arrived while all this was going on. At this point, the Indians relaxed, while the Greeks sped up their war preparations.
Unknown to the Indians, Alexander had already located a suitable crossing point, about twenty-seven kilometers upstream. The place, which was locally known as Mangal Dev, was situated along a bend in the river. Here, the riverbank on the Greek side was forested and rose to a steep height. This made observation from the other side, very difficult.
In complete secrecy, plans were made for a crossing. Under General Coenus’s leadership, the fleet that had been used to cross the Indus, was secretly transported to the Hydaspes, and additional rafts and ‘skin floats filled with hay’ were manufactured. These were hidden among the reeds and trees along the riverbank.
Meanwhile, Alexander continued parading his soldiers up and down in plain sight of his enemy, and building up huge stockpiles of grain to give an impression that he had decided to wait out the monsoon. To further the deception, he announced in camp that the Greeks would cross the river after the monsoon. Side by side, however, the preparations for the crossing were already taking place.
The night planned for of the crossing soon arrived. As was customary, Alexander led a handpicked force of twenty thousand infantry, six thousand heavy cavalry, and one thousand mounted archers inland, as if on a foraging mission. They marched away from the river and disappeared from sight of the opposite bank. Following an inland route, they finally arrived at the crossing point that evening.
Back at the main camp, huge campfires had been lit. The bulk of Alexander’s forces had been left behind here, under the command of Craterus, with explicit instructions to cross over and attack only if Porus faced Alexander with all his troops. If Porus left even a few of his elephants behind on the opposite riverbank, Craterus was not to attempt the crossing, unless he received signs of a Macedonian victory.
There were a number of other forces stationed between Alexander’s force and the base camp. These were the mercenary commanders, who were ordered to cross over, once battle had been joined. The die was cast.
It was to rain heavily that night.
The Battle of The Hydaspes
The Crossing
“Only three hundred rafts? It’ll take us all night!” Peithon exclaimed.
Coenus nodded vigorously and shrugged. His lips were pressed tightly together and his nostrils flared with each breath.
“It’ll take at least five or more trips back and forth for each raft. Your men had better start work.”
“It’s still light,” spat out Coenus and his exasperated expression momentarily silenced Peithon.
Tension makes different people react in different ways. For some like Peithon, it loosens the tongue and gives rise to an irresistible need to talk, joke, and speculate. Others, it drives into silence. Coenus was clearly of the second type.
The two of them stood at the feet of the huge cliffs that rose straight off the sides of the riverbank. Scattered among the reeds and bushes around them, were the bits and pieces of a vast riverine armada. Sections of the huge oared galleys, boats cut into two, and skin floats stuffed with hay were everywhere, along with Coenus’s men who squatted patiently among the bushes in groups of twos and threes. They were waiting for night to fall, after which, they would drag the separate sections to the clear, sandy strip along the riverbank, and get to work on putting them back together.
Peithon took it all in with a sense of disbelief. Coenus appeared particularly jumpy, his neck twisting this way and that, his mouth opening and closing, as he mumbled soundlessly to himself. Tension precluded all conversation, till Peithon couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Well, you still managed to get enough hay for the rafts, eh?” he started again.
Coenus now turned sharply upon him.
“It’s going to be a hell of a task,” he said through gritted teeth. “Look, do me a favour, will you? Send one of your men up and send us down, maybe say six more lochos of infantry—we’ll need more men.”
“I’ll see to it myself,” said Peithon and saluted. It gave him something to do and kept the uncertainty of it all from getting to him.
Besides, he knew when he was not wanted. He had come down to the riverbank to check out the situation for himself and calm his nerves, but his friend wasn’t helping. So Peithon took his anxiety elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the huge number of men and horses waiting on the other side of the cliffs, grappled with the same problem in different ways. They were sprawled all over the headlands of Mangal Dev, hidden from view of the opposite bank by the rising cliffs in front, as they waited patiently under a rapidly darkening sky. Most congregated together in groups, compulsively exchanging jokes and rumour, while others preferred the company of their own thoughts. Some of the steely-nerved veterans had even stretched out on the ground, rolled up in their cloaks and gone to sleep. Others were not as lucky.
They sprawled, sat, or stood around, all over the gently sloping hillside, jammed tightly together for as far as the eye could see. Messengers picked through this thronging mass, setting off a volley of curses and exclamations everywhere they went. Above them, the sky was covered with dark, heavy clouds. Loud peals of thunder rolled across the heavens and a lively breeze started blowing. Not a single raindrop had fallen, but it looked as if a terrific storm was brewing. The superstitious lost themselves in prayer.
Lying sprawled out on the grass, along with the rest of his unit, was Private Philotas. His cuirass and helmet were undone and his sarissa, the huge twenty-one-foot spear of the M
acedonian Phalanx, lay unscrewed in two sections by his side. Philotas was chewing cud and fantasizing about the eggplant and chickpeas stew his mother used to make. He could almost taste it, smell it even.
Truth be told, he had grown heartily sick of the never-ending war, the strange Indian food, the relentless rains, and the stubborn, irrational bellicosity of the numerous Indian tribes. He was sick of it all, and was afflicted with a terrible bout of homesickness. Thoughts of cheese and fish, lamb cooked with quince and unwatered wine, now consumed him.
Saliva collected in his mouth and he swallowed. With a sigh, he turned over on his side and closed his eyes, trying to drown out the distressing memories of Greek dishes that seemed to have come to life.
He was just drifting off to sleep when he heard the lochagos, Karanos’s voice.
“Hey you, Philotas! Come on, you lump of lard! Get your gear—we’re going down to the shore.”
“Come on, up with you! Get your gear boys—get your gear and follow me,” hollered Karanos again and again, as he moved up and down the lines.
That ‘country bumpkin’ Karanos! He was so much younger than most of the men in the unit and yet, since having been promoted, he insisted on calling them all ‘boys’! Philotas sighed to himself. It was always the same old story for a private—get up, get your gear, march for miles on end, lie down, wait, march again, and then fight and die. He tightened his cuirass and rushed off after the others.