Pauravas
| Pauravas | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unknown–322 BC | |||||||||
| Status |
Ally of the Mauryan Empire image_map=Indian tribes between the Indus and the Ganges.jpg | ||||||||
| Capital | Sthal | ||||||||
| Religion | Hinduism | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | Unknown | ||||||||
• Disestablished | 322 BC | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of |
  | ||||||||
Pauravas was an ancient Indian kingdom in the northwest Indian subcontinent (present-day Pakistan and India). Modern scholars have conjectured that Porus, who fought Alexander the Great according to the Greek sources, may have a ruler of the Pauravas.[1]
Conquest by foreign powers
At the time of Alexander's invasion, the Pauravas were situated on or near the Jhelum River,[2] until the Chenab River. This was not only the extant of Porus' Kingdom, but was also the eastern limit of the Macedonian Empire.
The Persian king Darius III had attacked Pauravas but was sent back by Porus.The Nanda king Dhanananda also tried to conquer Pauravas but failed.
As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having had all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at-arms and horsemen and elephants. For they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand fighting elephants.
Alexander would succumb to malaria and die on this returned from India.[2] The instability that ensued after Alexanders death resulted in a power struggle and dramatic changes in governance. Porus was soon assassinated by the Macedonia general Eudemus. By 315 BC, the Macedonian entity was conquered by Chandragupta Maurya, a young adventurer, who later conquered the Nanda Empire and founded the Indian Maurya Empire. After engaging and winning the Seleucid–Mauryan war for supremacy over the Indus Valley, Chandragupta gained controlled of modern-day Punjab and Afghanistan. This set the foundations of the Mauryan Empire, which would become the largest empire in the Indian subcontinent.[3]
In Popular Culture
- Sony Entertainment Television has launched a TV show on the life of King Porus titled Porus in which his kingdom Pauravas named as Paurav Rashtra has been portrayed.
See also
References
- ↑ Nonica Datta, ed. (2003). Indian History: Ancient and medieval. Encyclopaedia Britannica / Popular Prakashan. p. 222. ISBN 978-81-7991-067-2.
Not known in Indian sources, the name Porus has been conjecturally interpreted as standing for Paurava, that is, the ruler of the Purus, a tribe known in that region from ancient Vedic times.
- 1 2 Graham Phillips (31 March 2012). Alexander The Great. Ebury Publishing. pp. 129–131. ISBN 978-0-7535-3582-0.
- ↑ Arthur A. MacDonell (28 March 2014). A History of Sanskrit Literature (Illustrated). Lulu.com. p. 331. ISBN 978-1-304-98862-1.