Alexander’s Indus Folly: Bizarre Search for the Source of the Nile in India
When the Macedonian monarch Alexander III, popularly known as Alexander the Great, arrived in the northwest of the larger Indian subcontinent in 327 BC following his conquest of the massive Achaemenid Empire of the Persians, he was astonished by all that he beheld. The geography, peculiar peoples – their philosophy, culture, attire, music and manner of living – and immense wealth of the region was unlike anything he had witnessed before. The flora and fauna, too, were equally impressive. For instance, the parrot, a beautiful green-colored bird that they had never seen before, left the Greeks flummoxed because of its “mysterious ability” to mimic human speech. Sugarcane was flatteringly described as “reeds that produce honey without bees”.
Alexander depicted on a mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii, in an alleged imitation of a Philoxenus of Eretria or Apelles' painting, fourth century BC. (Public Domain)
Indian healers came in for high praise owing to their knowledge of medicine and ability to cure a wide variety of diseases and health issues – some beyond the capacity of Greek physicians – including administering a solution for snake bite, which Alexander himself became a benefactor of.
