Porus or Poros was an ancient Indian king whose territory spanned the region between the Jhelum River (Hydaspes) and Chenab River (Acesines), in the Punjab region of what is now India and Pakistan. He is only mentioned in Greek sources. Said to be a warrior with exceptional skills, Porus unsuccessfully fought against Alexander the Great in the Battle of the Hydaspes. In the aftermath, an impressed Alexander not only reinstated him as his satrap but also granted him dominion over lands to the south-east extending as far as the Hyphasis (Beas). Porus reportedly died sometime between 321 and 315 BC.
The wars of Alexander the Great were a series of conquests carried out by Alexander the Great of Macedon from 336 to 323 BC. They began with battles against the Achaemenid Empire, then under the rule of Darius III. After Alexander's chain of victories, he began a campaign against local chieftains and warlords that stretched from Greece to as far as the region of Punjab in South Asia. By the time he died, Alexander ruled over most regions of Greece and the conquered Achaemenid Empire, including much of Achaemenid Egypt; he did not, however, manage to conquer the Indian subcontinent in its entirety according to his initial plan.
The Battle of the Hydaspes also known as Battle of Jhelum, or First Battle of Jhelum, was fought between Alexander the Great and Porus in May of 326 BCE. It took place on the banks of the Hydaspes River in what is now the Punjab province of Pakistan, as part of Alexander's Indian campaign. In what was possibly their most costly engagement, the Macedonian army secured a decisive victory over the Pauravas and captured Porus. Large areas of Punjab were subsequently absorbed into the Macedonian Empire; Porus was reinstated as the region's ruler after Alexander, having developed a newfound respect for the fierce resistance put up by Porus and his army, appointed him as a satrap.
The Rishikas was an ancient Kingdom of Central Asia and South Asia, who are mentioned in Hindu and Sanskrit literary texts, including the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Brhat-Samhita, the Markendeya Purana and Patanjali's Mahabhashya.
Asvakas (Sanskrit: Aśvaka) were an ancient people from Gandhara in the present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan. The region in which they lived was also called Aśvaka.
Arta was the elder brother of the well known Gandhara ruler Maues or Moga.
Taxiles or Taxilas was the Greek chroniclers' name for the ruler who reigned over the tract between the Indus and the Jhelum (Hydaspes) Rivers in the Punjab region at the time of Alexander the Great's expedition. His real name was Ambhi, and the Greeks appear to have called him Taxiles or Taxilas, after the name of his capital city of Taxila, near the modern city of Attock, Pakistan.
Abisares, called Embisarus (Ἐμβίσαρος,) by Diodorus, was a Kasmira king of Abhira descent whose territory lay in the river Hydaspes beyond the mountains. On his death in 325 BC, Alexander the Great appointed Abisares' son as his successor.
Gangaridai is a term used by the ancient Greco-Roman writers to describe people or a geographical region of the ancient Indian subcontinent. Some of these writers state that Alexander the Great withdrew from the Indian subcontinent because of the strong war elephant force of the Gangaridai.
Shivi is mentioned as a kingdom and as the name of a king in the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata. There was a king named Shivi who became famous as Shivi or the kingdom itself may be named after him. Shivi king was famous for his truthfulness. The legend about his truthfulness and compassion goes as follows: King Shivi protected a dove who was chased by a hawk, and gave flesh from his thigh, as a substitute meal to the hawk.
The ethnonym Afghan has been used historically to refer to the Pashtuns. Since the second half of the twentieth century, the term "Afghan" evolved into a demonym for all residents of Afghanistan, including those outside of the Pashtun ethnicity.
The Kamboja-Pala dynasty ruled parts of Bengal in the 10th to 11th centuries CE, after invading the Palas during the reign of Gopala II. The last Kamboja ruler of the Kamboja-Pala Dynasty Dharmapala was defeated by the south Indian Emperor Rajendra Chola I of the Chola dynasty in the 11th century.
Indika is an account of Mauryan India by the Greek writer Megasthenes. The original work is now lost, but its fragments have survived in later Greek and Latin works. The earliest of these works are those by Diodorus Siculus, Strabo (Geographica), Pliny, and Arrian (Indica).
Shashigupta IAST: Śaśigupta was a ruler of Paropamisadae, between the Hindu Kush mountains and Indus Valley during the 4th century BCE. The name Shashigupta is a reconstruction of a hypothetical Indo-Aryan name, based on a figure named in ancient Greek and Roman sources as Sisikottos (Arrian), and Sisocostus (Curtius).
The Silver Reliquary of Indravarman is an inscribed silver Buddhist reliquary dedicated by Apracaraja king Indravarman in the 1st century BCE, which has been found presumably in the Bajaur area of Gandhara. Believed to have been fabricated at Taxila, the silver reliquary consists of two parts—the base and the cover—both being fluted, and the cover being topped by a figure of long horned Ibex. It has been dated to around the eighth or ninth decades of the 1st century BCE and bears six inscriptions written in pointillē style, in Kharoshthi script and Gandhari/north-western Prakrit. In form, the silver vessel is wholly atypical of Buddhist reliquaries and is said to have been a wine goblet, similar to others found in Gandhara and Kapisa regions. The vessel was later reused by Apraca king Indravarman as a Reliquary to enshrine Buddhist relics in a stüpa raised by Indravarman. The inscriptions on the silver reliquary provide important new information not only about the history of the kings of Apraca dynasty themselves but also about their relationships with other rulers of the far north-western region of traditional India i.e. modern northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan around the beginning of Christian era.
Mahākapphina (Pali) or Mahākapphiṇa (Sanskrit), also called Mahā Kapphina Thera, was an eminent Arhat from Uttarapatha and is considered foremost among those who taught the monks. Mahākapphina was his monastic name. He became disciple of the Buddha and is one of the five hundred Arhats who will be reborn and attain Buddhahood, according to Mahāyāna tradition. References to Kapphina can be found in the Jātakas, Buddhaghoṣa's Manorathapūranī, the Dhammapada Aṭṭhakathā, the Visuddhimagga, the Sāratthappakāsinī, the Saṃyutta Nikāya, the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the Vinaya Piṭaka, the Theragāthā, etc.; as well as in the Sanskrit Avadānaśatika.
The Yashkun People or Yashkuns are a sub-group of the Shina, a Dardic-speaking ethnic group, most of whom reside in the Gilgit division of Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral and Kohistan districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. They speak a Dardic language called Shina and are scattered throughout northern Pakistan. Most researchers assert that the Yashkun were immigrants to northern Pakistan from Central Asia. However, other authorities maintain that the Yashkuns were indigenous to northern Pakistan.
The Indian campaign of Alexander the Great began in 327 BC and lasted until 325 BC. After conquering the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the Macedonian army undertook an expedition into the northwestern Indian subcontinent. Within two years, Alexander expanded the Macedonian Empire to include present-day Punjab and Sindh in what is modern-day Pakistan, surpassing the earlier frontiers that had been established by the Persian conquest of the Indus Valley.
The Kingdom of Kapisa, appearing in contemporary Chinese sources as Caoguo and Jibin, was a state located in what is now Afghanistan during the late 1st millennium. Its capital was the city of Kapisa. The kingdom stretched from the Hindu Kush in the north to Bamiyan and Kandahar in the south and west, out as far as the modern Jalalabad District in the east.
Gandāra, or Gadāra in Achaemenid inscriptions was one of the easternmost provinces of the Achaemenid Empire in South Asia, following the Achaemenid invasion of the Indus Valley. It appears in various Achaemenid inscriptions such as the Behistun Inscription, or the DNa inscription of Darius the Great.
