Alexander the Great vs Nanda Dynasty

heavenlykaghan said:

You need to read this thread over to see who is making the claims here and who the burden of proof rests upon. Throughout this thread, I´ve only seen people who are trying to prove the superiority of the Macedonian army, not the Indian army. I am pointing out the lack of evidence for such a claim. The fact is, we do not know enough about the Indian army, certainly not to the degree of the western armies. So instead of making empty claims, why don´t you actually show these evidence you speak of here so we may put them to the light of evidence. Most of the military history books on ancient armies doesn´t talk about India at all, and one sided claims such as the `Macedonian army is the best in the world` is not evidence.
The Persians were not Macedonians, and they conquered a small part of India, and their hold over the eastern Sind was extremely brief, just like how they also conquered a small part of the Magna Graecia; Ionia and even Athens and Macedonia for a short time. In fact, the Persians penetrated Greece much deeper than they´ve penetrated India, and their hold over Ionia was also tighter than their hold over the Punjab. By your logic, the Persian army was certainly superior to the contemporary Greek armies. However, I don´t see this as evidence that the Persian army is decisively superior to the smaller Indian or Greek armies. On the other hand, the battle between Chandragupta Maurya and the Seleucid Empire is the only instance we have of a battle between large states on both sides.

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Persians in Magna Grecia? I don't know which planet's history you are reading....Athens? yes one winter...
Ionia? 22 years and Ionians revolted.Persians reoccupied until they were totally defeated in that very campaign.Stop these childish arguments...
...deeper? your sence of space and distance needs drastic improvement. Ionia was inhabited by Greeks but not as part of Greece although once it asked for help it was liberated.
That 'small' part of India you said the Persians conquered is at least five times Greece....this is a pitiful strain of argument,please learn your facts of geography a bit better.It is not a legal case to speak about burden of proof;
most Indian sympathisers try to minimize the importance and power of Porus and they speak about Persia like they do about a..bunch of nomads who found themselves symptomatically there...well Alexander confronted Porus(who was not an insignificant ruler) in the end of a road of some thousands of miles and defeated him with only a part of his army with a series of strategems that are studied in military academies throughout the world in countries that matter.that should be enough for you and don't talk about burden of proof;I haven't seen or heard of corresponding Indian organisation and strategems studied anywhere because they never manifested themselves in a world battlefield since they never existed.Please,the whole thing sounds like a sad joke;please discontinue this line of arguments.

There weren't many battles between Greek and Indian kings so the whole discussion is
pointless. It seems there were only 3 battles between Greek and Indian kings which were recorded.
Alexander the Great defeated Porus.
Chandragupta defeated Seleucus
Kharavela defeated Demetrius

cimon said:

Persians in Magna Grecia? I don't know which planet's history you are reading....

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I could not find another term refering to the territory including all of the Greek city states, so I used greater Greece for convenience´s sake, which included Ionia. I apologize for not explaning, so you can calm down with your science fiction.

Athens? yes one winter...
Ionia? 22 years and Ionians revolted.Persians reoccupied until they were totally defeated in that very campaign.

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Well, they do say that impudence is the bastard of ignorance, for your one sided rants, you completely ignored the brievity of Persian rule in eastern Sind. One winter is still occupation, and Athens was an important Greek city, while the fact is the Persians got nowhere near important Indian cities like Pataliputra. Despite an interval of independence, Ionia was under occupation for near a century, while India was in all likelyhood completely autonomous and paid no more than lip service(Eastern Sind didn´t even do that) to the Persians after Xerxes for we heard little about them afterwards and by the time of Alexander the Great, they were no longer described as Persian satraps while Ionia still was.

Stop these childish arguments...
...deeper? your sence of space and distance needs drastic improvement. Ionia was inhabited by Greeks but not as part of Greece although once it asked for help it was liberated.

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The only childish arguments I see is your ad hominum attacks despite the lack of evidence and your pretension that there are actually grounds for any comparisons to be even made when there are no sources to do this. Ionia was inhaibted by the Greeks, so the Persians conquered a part of the region inhabited by the Greeks as they did with India, whether it is Greece is simply irrelevant to this comparison. The point was that conquering a part of India does not show Persian superiority in military as you implied.

That 'small' part of India you said the Persians conquered is at least five times Greece....this is a pitiful strain of argument,please learn your facts of geography a bit better.

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If you áre not sure what I´m talking about, asking might be a more intellegent thing to do, but I´m not surprised at this as emotional ranting is a consistent behavioral pattern you´ve so far exhibited. The greater penetration I speak of is relative, the Persians conquered almost half of the Greeks, while only a small fraction of the Indians. Athens was one of the most important Greek cities, Punjab was not one of the most important Indian region, hence the greater penetration in Greece compared to India. Even in absolute terms, the amount of Greeks the Persians had to deal with probably numbered between 3 to 4 million, which is not that much less than the Indian populations Persia dealt with, not to mention, the Greeks were united against the Persians, while there are no evidence that the states of Punjab and Sind did this.

It is not a legal case to speak about burden of proof;
most Indian sympathisers try to minimize the importance and power of Porus and they speak about Persia like they do about a..bunch of nomads who found themselves symptomatically there...

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No, it is an academic one, which requires evidence nonetheless, and so far neither you nor any one sided supporters of the Macedonian army could provide it.

well Alexander confronted Porus(who was not an insignificant ruler) in the end of a road of some thousands of miles and defeated him with only a part of his army with a series of strategems that are studied in military academies throughout the world in countries that matter.

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Maybe objectivity isn´t your strong point. How many times do members here needs to point out that Porus was no more than a minor Indian king? Defeating Porus does not mean he can defeat the Nanda or the Maurya especially when Porus already inflicted fear upon his army.

that should be enough for you and don't talk about burden of proof;I haven't seen or heard of corresponding Indian organisation and strategems studied anywhere because they never manifested themselves in a world battlefield since they never existed.Please,the whole thing sounds like a sad joke;please discontinue this line of arguments.

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It becomes ever clearer now that you simply couldn´t provide the evidence that you claimed to be so obvious when asked for it. To put it in simple words, you were merely acting on your hunch. I´m sorry, but this kind of behavior does not impress a historian. Studying military tactics of the Macedonians by modern military academies is not a sign of superiority. Thats the logical fallacy of appealing to authority, but since logic isn´t your strong point, it isn´t surprising that you made such a frivolous remark. Indian organizations and strategems were not studied for the simple reason they were not recorded. The nomadic cavalry tactics are little recorded at this time as well, but they´ve beaten far larger sedentary armies which are. Sun Tzu is studied in just about all modern military academies, but Chinese armies of the times still had problems against the Di nomads of the north, whose tactics were largely unknown. If not being recorded or studied means it is not effective, then I´m afraid you have no idea how to construct a reasoned historical argument and the only joke here is your logic, or the total lack of.

That's not completely accurate though, since there were other military campaigns of the Greeks against the Indians much later than Seleucus' era.

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The other Greek campaigns by Demetrius of the early 2nd century BC was conducted not against any large polities of India. Furthermore, we have no idea what the Greco Bactrian army at this time is like. For all we know, it could have been a cavalry centered force and not the traditional Phalanx. This is the problem when we have of comparing Alexander´s army with those of Nanda as well. Just because Porus is an Indian doesn´t mean his army was organized or fought the same way as the Nanda army. Thats what few of our romantic believers of Alexander failed to catch. They couldn´t have forgotten that even Greek armies of the time did not fought exactly the same way and the quality between the armies of different city states also differed. The only similarity we know of these Indian armies is that both used lots of war elephants.

Pythagoras said:

Following the victorious battle of the Hydaspes River, Alexander's army marched until the Hyphasis river (modern day Beas river). It was at that point where his army mutinied unwilling to face the army of the vast Nanda Emire laying to the east and demanding from the king to finally take the long way home. Despite his initial disagreement, Alexander finally consented and later turned south against the Malli tribe. This event took place between July and September 326 B.C. and marked the eastern point of his Empire.

As Plutarch describes it, in his book Alexander - Chapter 62

Plutarch, Alexander, chapter 62, section 2

So, according to Plutarch, the army of the Nanda Empire consisted of 200,000 infantry, 80,000 cavalry, 8,000 chariots and 6,000 war elephants.

So, let us assume that the army did no revolt and kept on marching in the depths of India. Could Alexander ever conquer the vast Nanda Empire and defeat its army? If the numbers are accurate, then the odds seem definitely against him (assuming that Alexander's army consisted of less than 40,000 soldiers), but then again...we are talking about Alexander. What do you think? Any thoughts, opinions?

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Although the estimates are highly debated, Alexander did defeat Darius' army at Gaugemela. Which was estimated at somewhat even larger numbers. However, the terrain was different and the weaponry and military tactics of the Nandans might have presented a challenge. But without the morale of his troops at high readiness and enthusiasm, Alexander would have had serious difficulties ahead of him. He did have this incredible genius at locating and exploiting any enemy's weaknesses.
I think he faced the reality of his men's unwillingness to follow and came to the very wise conclusion not to push them any further. However, if they had enthusiastically chosen to support Alexander's dream of world conquest, the history of India might have been very different.

Belisarius said:

I'd take The imperial's advice, there is absolutely no need to call anyone a troll.

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Fair enough.I apologise to the slighted party.
Alcibiades

The Imperial said:

You got to calm down Alcibiades. I see your point. I am not arguing about the numbers. All am saying is, Alexander's army had just conquered the whole known world and had veteran soldiers fighting continuously for more than a decade. The Macedonian army was highly flexible by the time he reached Porus. This 'super-army' was commanded by one of the best generals in the world.

Porus was just some guy with a small city-state. One very important point, Porus and Nanda were Indians doesn't mean much actually. They were in quite different cultural spheres. These guys were different. Porus's kingdom was more than a thousand kilometres from Pataliputra.

My point is, battle of hydaspes is just one battle, with it's own exceptions, accurate conclusions cannot be derived from this battle.

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I was calm in that post I adressed to you,Imperial.Sorry if you got impression otherwise.I was merely pointing out the fallacy of America vs Belgium analogy,simply because Alexander did not had all of his empire on the banks of Hydaspes (of course) and he could work with only what he had there,which was not much,certainly less soldiers than he had at either Granicus,Issus or Gaugamela,believe it or not.
Alcibiades

heavenlykaghan said:

The other Greek campaigns by Demetrius of the early 2nd century BC was conducted not against any large polities of India. Furthermore, we have no idea what the Greco Bactrian army at this time is like. For all we know, it could have been a cavalry centered force and not the traditional Phalanx. This is the problem when we have of comparing Alexander´s army with those of Nanda as well. Just because Porus is an Indian doesn´t mean his army was organized or fought the same way as the Nanda army. Thats what few of our romantic believers of Alexander failed to catch. They couldn´t have forgotten that even Greek armies of the time did not fought exactly the same way and the quality between the armies of different city states also differed. The only similarity we know of these Indian armies is that both used lots of war elephants.

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Alexander fought so many different armies under entirely different conditions each time. From Greeks to the cities of Asia Minor, the Persian Gates etc. etc. etc. And he always won. Although some battles were not as "easy" as others. Alexander always came up with, in many cases, original solutions never considered prior to his existence.
The possibility does exist that he could have been defeated, but no one was ever able to accomplish this ... during his lifetime. So it is both logical and reasonable to assume that some Nandan king or general might have found himself up against this exceptional force of nature and suffered the same consequences everyone else had. The odds are in Alexander's favor because of the incredible statistics he had already acquired. It is sad that his men did not have the same faith in his abilities, but they were only men. And very exhausted ones at that.
Alexander was a one of a kind genius in a class by himself.

Alcibiades said:

Any evidence for your claim about Punjab being richest?And if so,do you really think EFFECTIVE revenue raising of so distance a province could match an incredible rich (and close) provinces of Egypt and Mesopotamia?

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The vast majority of Greek scholarship of the ancient period potrays the Achaemenid territorries of he Indus region to've been their richest province. And this too, with no confirmed rule of the Achaemenids over entire punjab. I see no reason how the situation could've drastically changed in 100 years, to Alexandrine era.

Infact, it is far more likey that the productivity of mesopotamia and Egypt declined through this period, due to repeated fighting, plunder of resources and interruptions to agriculture over vast swaths of land, due to infighitng amongst the Greeks& the Parthians.

Nope.

And nothing you have said there,however true or false it might be,does not actually negate (nor adress even) the fact that Macedonian army was BETTER IN QUALITY than Assyrian at its peak.

But nice try.Could have fooled someone less inteligent.

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That the macedonian army was superior to the Assyrian army is purely speculative. Like the macedonians, they too had the phalanx of closely crowded spearmen presenting a shield face.
They also had cavalry and unlike the macedonians, they had archer cavalry too.
There is no basis to the claim- physical, archaeological or literal, that demonstrates Alexander's army to've been a better destructive force than that of Ashurbanipal's.

But what is uncontested, is that the Neo-Assyrian empire fought far more wars, against powers that were far more comparable to itself, for a far longer period (950s BCE to 600 BCE, as opposed to 320 BCE to 150 BCE) than the Diadochi kingdoms.

Yes,because Alexander had hundreds of thousands at his disposal in this battle,right?

Troll.

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Does the fight between the taliban and Americans feature American numeric superiority over the taliban ? No. It festures material superiority. Same argument applies- Alexander vs Porus is akin to America vs Belgium- obviously, the former would enjoy a categoric advantage in resources to outfit their armies.
For alexander, it was not a major task to make sure 50,000 soldiers had the best armor, arsenal and sustainance. For Porus, it is a major task to make sure his 40-50,000 soldiers are equally well equipped, since he is drawing his supplies from a land less than a hundreth the size of Aexander's.

Pythagoras said:

That's not completely accurate though, since there were other military campaigns of the Greeks against the Indians much later than Seleucus' era.

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The only military campaign pitting the Indians against Greeks, since 315 BCE (roughly- give or take a couple of years), when Chandragupta Maurya trounced Selucus Nicator, was when Demetrius of Bactria invaded India circa 180/185 BCE.
Right after the Maurya Empire was dethroned by The Sungas. This makes strategic sense: the core of North Indian power throghout 1st miellania BCE and most of 1st millenia CE is eastern Gangetic plains, concentrated around Magdha-Vangala region. Obviously, Pushyamitra Sunga would be busy consolidating his rule in this region after the very moment of his power grab, than bother with the peripheries of the Mauryan Empire in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Demetrius, unexpectedly, advanced upon Patiluputra but all sources (indian and Greek) agree that he beat a hasty reretreat. Greek sources claim it was because of a rebellion in Bactria, while the Indian sources claim that it was because Kharavela, the prime military commander in the immediate aftermath of the Mauryas, had begun marching against him. IMO, it was a combination of both factors: rebellion back home and a massively superior army advancing on Demetrius would've made him clinically insane to give fight, instead of fleeing.

After this, from 180 BCE to 100 BCE, Greek power was restricted to western Punjab and the Khyber region, with Pushyamitra's son Agnimitra, recording an Ashwamedha Yajna (major rite of victory celebration in ancient India) on the banks of the Indus. Menander (Milinda) was briefly able to conquer eastern punjab and sindh, but after him, the Indo-Greeks fragmented into city-states around Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and western Punjab, to be subsequently overwhelmed by Maues ( Indo-Parthian king, who essentially ruled modern day Pakistan) and then, the Kushans.

So no, the track record of Greek military vs Indian military is not categoric. It relies on Alexander defeating a minor king and the Greeks mostly retreating to the peripheries of northern India in front of an advancing army from Eastern India.
There is no evidence- literary or archaeological- to suggest that the Greeks ever won a single battle against a major Indian power.

cimon said:

Persians in Magna Grecia? I don't know which planet's history you are reading....Athens? yes one winter...
Ionia? 22 years and Ionians revolted.Persians reoccupied until they were totally defeated in that very campaign.Stop these childish arguments...
...deeper? your sence of space and distance needs drastic improvement. Ionia was inhabited by Greeks but not as part of Greece although once it asked for help it was liberated.

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Fact remains that the Persians exerted control over almost all Greek lands north of Athens (inclusive of Macedonia) for better part of 200 years and represents a significant part of mainland Greece.

That 'small' part of India you said the Persians conquered is at least five times Greece....this is a pitiful strain of argument,please learn your facts of geography a bit better.It is not a legal case to speak about burden of proof;

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This is false. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Persians controlled India east of the Indus for any significant amount of time. Darius the Great did conquer Sindh(east of the Indus) and western Punjab (east of the Indus) but the very fact that there existed kings immediately east of the Indus when Alexander came around and not satraps, indicate that Persian power east of the Indus was nominal or non-existent.

The confusion stems from the definition of India- medeival and modern notion of India is either what is politically the Republic of India today, or lands east of the Indus. Historically, particularly from throughout 1st millenia BCE to the fall of the Kabul-Shahi kingdom at the hands of the Ghaznavids, India began from the Kabul-Qandahar region. These sparsely populated but strategically important territorries of India was what the Persians mostly controlled periodically.
Persians had little or no political influence east of the Indus for any significant periods of time- only the last 50 years of the Sassanid rule see them vassalize Sindh, under Khusrau Anushirvan.

most Indian sympathisers try to minimize the importance and power of Porus and they speak about Persia like they do about a..bunch of nomads who found themselves symptomatically there...well Alexander confronted Porus(who was not an insignificant ruler) in the end of a road of some thousands of miles and defeated him with only a part of his army with a series of strategems that are studied in military academies throughout the world in countries that matter.that should be enough for you and don't talk about burden of proof;

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1. Porus was a minor king. his territorries wasn't greater in size than that of modern day Belgium.

2. Persians didn't bother with India for almost all of history. They conquered or vassalized border lands when northern India was in a power vaccum and then bugged out of there when a great empire emerged in North India. The Guptas for example, have recorded their victories against the Persians- yet, there is no record whatsoever of any Persian empire of antiquity- Achaemenids, Parthians or the Sassanids- ever recording any victory east of the Indus, saving the solitary conquest of Sindh by Anushirvan, when (and this is of no coincidence) northern India was in a power vaccum.

This was probably because the Persians were in a good position (being neighbours and what not) to study the vast destructiveness of the war elephants when fielded in massive numbers (as large Indian empires were capable of doing). Since the fundamental backbone of the Persian military throughout the Achaemenid to the Sassanid period is their cavalry and war elephants utterly negate cavalry, it makes very good reason as to why the Persians never bothered to try and invade India when a major empire ruled in north India.

I haven't seen or heard of corresponding Indian organisation and strategems studied anywhere because they never manifested themselves in a world battlefield since they never existed.

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False. Indian epics, classics and scholarly works routinely talk about army formations- such as Chakravyuha, Matsyavyuha, etc. The precise context of these formations are lost, as India suffered the most cataclysmic and sudden destruction of intelligensia and data in all of recorded history circa 1200s CE.
But to say that they didn't fight in formations or such things didn't exist is clearly false, as they are referenced in a vast bulk of Indian classics.

Please,the whole thing sounds like a sad joke;please discontinue this line of arguments.

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No, what sounds as a sad joke, is that Porus, a minor king of a minor peripheral land of India, the size of belgium, can be considered a major litmus test of Indian power vs the Macedonians.
What sounds as a sad joke, is that the Indians, who throughout 1st miellnia BCE and 1st half of 1st millenia CE display the highest quality steel weaponry, enjoying a manpower advantage in their army, while having a nearly invincible segment of the army in mass quantities (war elephants), were no match for the macedonians, simply because they defeated a minor Indian king at the borderlands of India.

Double Post

Pythagoras said:

Nice point there, Zarin. Indeed, Alexander and his military ingenuity were exceptional. Anyone who has read books and sources about him, can easily understand how difficult it would have been for any kind of army to defeat him.

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The fact that Alexander's miltary ingenuity is irrelevant is demonstrated by a single fact: no military force without war elephants has ever defeated a military force fielding over a thousand war elephants in a single battle, pre cannonry.
Not in India, not in Thailand, Burma or Cambodia.

Unless one considers the absurd notion that the difference between Alexander's intellect in military matters and that of every other Asian commander in the last 3000 years is the same difference between an average man and a termite, Alexander's ingenuity is irrelevant.


IMO the very fact that Alexander's forces went everywhere Alexander commanded them to: from the unknown seas of grass into Central Asia, to the exceptionally hard terrain of eastern Afghanistan, including crossing the mightiest river in their path (the Indus) during rainy season, but balked at further forays east into what would've been the domain of the Magadha Empire, is indicative that they realized they faced a power where the macedonians couldn't win.Period.

Zarin said:

I think he faced the reality of his men's unwillingness to follow and came to the very wise conclusion not to push them any further. However, if they had enthusiastically chosen to support Alexander's dream of world conquest, the history of India might have been very different.

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I don't think that the history of India could have been that much different. It was to far away from the Mediterranean to become truly hellenized: the hellenistic period was characterized by hellenization around the eastern mediterranean basin. The deed Asia was not that much affected.

Had Alexander conquered the whole of India, assuming he died later as historically, there would be a diadochi there that would in fact become the alternative Mauryan. So we would end up with a different Mauryan empire with more hellenic influences, but nothing vastly different.

Alexander's army was tired in 325 BC. If he planned to invade the rest of India first he would have to refresh his army, await some time, perhaps 1-2 years, and assault India in 324-323 BC.

Guaporense said:

Alexander's army was tired in 325 BC. If he planned to invade the rest of India first he would have to refresh his army, await some time, perhaps 1-2 years, and assault India in 324-323 BC.

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That is a poor and false excuse. Alexander did wait a couple of seasons before invading the frontiers of India.Between his crushing of the rebellion in Sogdiana, in 329 BCE and invasion of the Indian subcontinent in 327 BCE, he spent almost two years coordinating his invasion, drawing fresh troops from the empire and sending the 'old ones' home.

Therefore, that his army wasn't fresh or that he wasn't prepared to invade India is quite false. Its just that his troops were far more realistic than their megalomanic God-complex hero-leader and knew there was no way the might of Macedonia could compete with the might of the Nandas, who featured over 50 times the elephants fielded by Porus in battle and which the Greeks knew were insurmountable odds, especially when their problems were compounded by an army that outnumbered them 5:1 and would've outnumbered any macedonian effort by atleast 2:1.

The fact that Alexander's soldiers turned away due to fear of annihilation at the hands of a far superior enemy is demonstrated by the fact that in over 3000 years of pre-cannonry warfare, there is not a single instance of a foreign power beating a North Indian empire that could field thousands of war elephants.

Lord_of_Gauda said:

The fact that Alexander's miltary ingenuity is irrelevant is demonstrated by a single fact: no military force without war elephants has ever defeated a military force fielding over a thousand war elephants in a single battle, pre cannonry.
Not in India, not in Thailand, Burma or Cambodia.

Unless one considers the absurd notion that the difference between Alexander's intellect in military matters and that of every other Asian commander in the last 3000 years is the same difference between an average man and a termite, Alexander's ingenuity is irrelevant.


IMO the very fact that Alexander's forces went everywhere Alexander commanded them to: from the unknown seas of grass into Central Asia, to the exceptionally hard terrain of eastern Afghanistan, including crossing the mightiest river in their path (the Indus) during rainy season, but balked at further forays east into what would've been the domain of the Magadha Empire, is indicative that they realized they faced a power where the macedonians couldn't win.Period.

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Alexander did defeat an army with elephants at Hydaspes. There may not have been 1000 of them but he did defeat Porus, who had and used war elephants. Alexander might have taken serious losses as he crossed the Ganges to meet the Nandans, but Alexander would not have taken long to find a way to defeat these 1000 elephants just as the war elephants of Hannibal were panicked and defeated by loud blowing horns.
No one really knows for sure why the forces of Alexander resisted him after Hydaspes. His men may have longed to go back home or quite possibly Alexander may have been showing signs of mental instability. That he, himself, choose to return to Babylon is telling. Alexander was not use to anyone refusing to obey his orders. So he may have realized that he needed to rest and recuperate and chose to return to Babylon because he knew it was necessary for himself as well. But Alexander was not afraid of any army. Moreover, Alexander's army was also in great terror the night before Gaugemela as the Persian forces' campfires stretched as far as the eye could see. Yet Alexander prevailed at Gaugemela. If he had crossed the Ganges, he most likely would have been the first conqueror in India's history to defeat an army with 1000 war elephants as Alexander was best known for breaking already established "rules."

Zarin said:

Alexander did defeat an army with elephants at Hydaspes. There may not have been 1000 of them but he did defeat Porus, who had and used war elephants. Alexander might have taken serious losses as he crossed the Ganges to meet the Nandans, but Alexander would not have taken long to find a way to defeat these 1000 elephants just as the war elephants of Hannibal were panicked and defeated by loud blowing horns.

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Again, i've said repeatedly: do not use European/mediterranean usage of elephants as any sort of benchmark. They did not have elephants native to their lands, didn't face potracted elephant warfare, nor is there any evidence of domestication of elephants in these lands. Whereas in Asia, the elephant was domesticated for thousands of years by the time Alexander came wandering by. That Asian elephants were extremely well trained for battle is demonstrated by their own usage of it. Clearly, if blowing horns and such hijinks tried by Europeans- both incompetent and unaware of elephant usage and training- had worked, then there is no conceivable reason why all the regions of Asia where elephants occur, maintained as large an elephant army as they possibly could.

Regarding Porus and Alexander, Porus had less than 200 war elephants in field of battle. That is 200 out of 80,000-100,000 that took the field. The scenario changes completely when you make it 5000-6000 taking the field where 150,000-250,000 are fighting. I've raised the tank example many times. Throw in 200 tanks in a major combat involving a quarter million soldiers, the tanks are not such a huge factor. They will always do more damage than they take (ie, always have greater than 1:1 parity) but they are largely a non-factor because their numbers are too small. Now, when the same quater million soldiers have to fight alongside 5000 tanks, the tanks become the main driving force of the battle, as there are way too many to simply 'focus, search and destroy' mission by the opposition.

No one really knows for sure why the forces of Alexander resisted him after Hydaspes. His men may have longed to go back home or quite possibly Alexander may have been showing signs of mental instability. That he, himself, choose to return to Babylon is telling. Alexander was not use to anyone refusing to obey his orders. So he may have realized that he needed to rest and recuperate and chose to return to Babylon because he knew it was necessary for himself as well. But Alexander was not afraid of any army. Moreover, Alexander's army was also in great terror the night before Gaugemela as the Persian forces' campfires stretched as far as the eye could see. Yet Alexander prevailed at Gaugemela. If he had crossed the Ganges, he most likely would have been the first conqueror in India's history to defeat an army with 1000 war elephants as Alexander was best known for breaking already established "rules."

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I'd admit that Alexander would've had a better shot than most commanders in history to do the unthinkable. But he is one of the many illustrious ones who'd tried and failed. Regardless, a confrontation of the Nandas, who's armies were bigger than the Persians,used their chariots in what would be a far more destructive role against the Phalanx along with 5000-6000 of the apex fighting unit of the ancient world (especially in its own terrain) would make Alexander very much the underdog with nearly unsurmountable odds.

I don't find it a coincidence that Alexander's army mutinied right at the borders of the most powerful empire of its time(atleast, on paper). I find it tough to accept the pro-Greek spin that his soldiers 'simply had enough'. They would've had enough fighting the Assakenoi and Aspasoi in the brutal struggles of Hindu Kush. These people were not part of the Achaemenid Empire, so conquering them and conquering the Indians is not significantly different in the optics. Yet, they mutined after having secured the headlands of India, only to trek back through the terror that was the Hindu Kush, years away from returning to Macedonia. They rebelled because they'd had enough, in a lush land of plenty (Punjab), right after conquering one of the harshest terrains for combat on the planet, only to want to return right through it. Sorry, that is propaganda in my books.