[VadeRetro]

I shouldn't do anything from memory, but I keep trying. Another flub. Rechecking my map, I was remembering Alexander's turn-around point farther downriver than where it happened. The actual spot on the Beas, an Indus tributary, is up-country.

Alexander defeated a former Persian vassal named Porus, but stopped well short of Nanda, the plum prize on the subcontinent. Author Robin Lane Fox (The Search for Alexander) seems to think Nanda could have been overcome--it fell within a few years to the upstart Chandragupta--had Alexander not tried to cross the Punjab in the monsoon season.

[Cronos]

Author Robin Lane Fox (The Search for Alexander) seems to think Nanda could have been overcome--it fell within a few years to the upstart Chandragupta--had Alexander not tried to cross the Punjab in the monsoon season.

Well, Chandragupta (the founder of the Mauryan Empire) did lead a gigantic army -- and his grandson Ashoka did rule over an Empire that incorporates most of what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma (to some Extent) with vassalages in Central asia and the Tibetan plateau