The territory of the Malloi was of great extent, comprehending a part of the Doâb formed by the Akesinês and the Hydraôtês, and extending, according to Arrian (Indika, c. iv.), to the confluence of the Akesinês and the Indus. In the Mahâbhârata they figure as a great people, being there distinguished into the Eastern, Southern, and Western Mâlavas (Mahâbh. vi. 107). They are mentioned also in the inscription of Samudragupta (of the first half of the third century A.D.) among other peoples of the Panjâb who were subject to the King of Madhya-desha (v. V. de Saint-Martin, Étude, pp. 116-120). “These two races,” says Thirlwall (History of Greece, vii. 40), “were composed of widely different elements; for the name of one appears to have been derived from that of the Sudra caste; and it is certain that the Brahmins were predominant in the other. We can easily understand why they did not intermarry and were seldom at peace with each other.” The feud, however, may have been one of race rather than of caste, though no doubt the distinctions of caste originated in difference of race.

Note Q.—The Capital of the Malloi

Diodôros and Curtius assign this city to the Oxydrakai, but erroneously. General Cunningham identifies it with Multân and takes it to be also the capital of the Malloi “to which many men from other cities had fled for safety.” Arrian seems, however, to indicate that the two places were distinct. V. de Saint-Martin inclines to identify the Mallian capital with Harrâpa (the Harapa which Cunningham takes to be the city captured by Perdikkas). Multân is at present the capital of the province of the same name, which comprises pretty nearly the same territories as those occupied by the Malloi of the Greek historians. Multân is not situated on the Râvi now, but on the Chenâb, and at a distance of more than thirty miles below the junction of that river with the Râvi. This circumstance would be quite fatal to Cunningham’s view if the junction had not shifted. But it has shifted, for in Alexander’s time the rivers met about fifteen miles below Multân. “The old channel (Cunningham says) still exists and is duly entered in the large maps of the Multân division. It leaves the present bed at Sarai Siddhû and follows a winding course for thirty miles to the south-south-west, when it suddenly turns to the west for eighteen miles as far as Multân, and, after completely encircling the fortress, continues its westerly course for five miles below Multân. It then suddenly turns to the south-south-west for ten miles, and is finally lost in the low-lying lands of the bed of the Chenâb. Even to this day the Râvi clings to its ancient channel, and at all high floods the waters of the river still find their way to Multân by the old bed, as I myself have witnessed on two occasions. The date of the change is unknown, but was certainly subsequent to A.D. 713.” From Arrian’s narrative it would appear that Alexander occupied three days, one of which was spent in rest, in advancing from the city of the Brachmans to the city of the Malloi. The distance traversed would be thirty-four miles, if Cunningham’s identification of the former city with Atâri and of the latter with Multân be correct. The city where Alexander was wounded appears from Arrian’s account to have been at some distance from the Hydraôtês, and if so could not have been Multân.

Note R.—Alexander in Sindh

Arrian and the other historians of Alexander have treated very briefly and vaguely his campaign in the valley of the Indus. Hence it is difficult to trace the course of his operations as he descended from the great confluence at Uchh to Patala where the Indus bifurcates to form the Delta. The distance between these two points, if measured by the course of the river, may be estimated at nearly four hundred miles, yet we find, as Saint-Martin observes, that in the descent not a single distance is indicated, nor a single peculiar feature of the country described which might serve as a sign-post for the direction and guidance of our inquiries. It is at the same time difficult to reconcile the discrepancies found to exist in the accounts transmitted to us, and altogether the search for identities must here mainly concern itself with the names of tribes. In determining how these tribes were collocated it is necessary to take cognisance of the changes which have taken place in the course of the Indus since Alexander’s time. Captain M’Murdo was the first to call attention (in 1834) to these changes, which were not confined to the terminal course of the river, but extended more than two hundred miles above the Delta. He proved that up to the seventh century of our aera the main stream of the Indus, instead of following its present channel, pursued a more direct course to the sea some sixty or seventy miles farther east than it now flows. The old channel, which leaves the present stream at some distance above Bhakar, passes the ruins of Alôr, and then proceeds directly towards the south nearly as far as Brâhmanâbâd, above which it divides into two channels, one rejoining the present course above Haidarâbâd, while the other pursues a south-easterly course towards the Ran of Kachh. The voyage down the lower part of the course took place during the season of the inundation when the plains were laid far and wide under water, and the current was rapid and violent. As the march followed mainly the line of the river the country would appear to the Macedonians extremely rich, fertile, and populous, while the sterility of the regions that lay beyond the reach of the inundations would seldom be brought under their cognisance. In descending the river they could not fail to notice the contrast presented by the plains on its opposite banks, those on the east exhibiting a uniform expanse without any visible boundary, while those on the west were hemmed in by a great mountain rampart which in running southwards gradually approached the Indus till the roots of the hills were laved by its waters. The inhabitants would strike them as being more swarthy in their complexion than the men of the Panjâb, from whom they differed also in their political predilections, as they preferred kingly government to republican independence, and allowed the Brahman to exercise a decisive influence over public life. The descent of the Indus by Alexander, as Bunbury remarks, may be considered as constituting a kind of aera in the geographical knowledge of the Greeks. It does not appear, he adds, that it was ever repeated; and while subsequent researches added materially to the knowledge possessed by the Greeks of the valley of the Ganges and the more easterly provinces of India, their information concerning the great river Indus and the regions through which it flows continued to be derived almost exclusively from the voyage of Alexander and the accounts transmitted by the contemporary historians.

After leaving the great confluence the first tribe Alexander reached were the Sogdoi, who appear as the Sodrai in Diodôros, who states that Alexander founded among them on the banks of the river a city called Alexandreia in which he placed 10,000 inhabitants. The Sogdoi have been identified with the Sohda Rajputs who now occupy the south-east district of Sindh about Amarkot, but who in former times held large possessions on the banks of the Indus to the northward of Alôr. This place, though now only a scene of ruins, was formerly, before it was deserted by the river, one of the largest and most flourishing cities in all Sindh. Saint-Martin takes it to have been the Sogdian capital, and thinks that the city which Alexander founded lay in its vicinity at Rôri, since right opposite to this place there rose in the middle of the river the rocky island of Bhakar, which presented every natural advantage for the site of a great fortress. Cunningham, however, would place the capital higher up stream, about midway between Alôr and Uchh, at a village which appears in old maps under the name of Sirwahi, and which may possibly represent the Seori of Sindh history and the Sodrai of Diodôros. In this neighbourhood lies the most frequented ghât for the crossing of the Indus towards the west viâ Gandâva and the Bolan Pass; and as the ghâts always determine the roads, it was probably at this point of passage Krateros recrossed the Indus when he was despatched with the main body of the army and the elephants to return home through the countries in which that Pass lay. The name Sodrai, some think, represents the Sanskrit Śûdra which designates the servile or lowest of the four castes. If this be so, the Sodrai may be regarded as a remnant of the primitive stock which peopled the country before the advent of the Aryans (v. Lassen, Ind. Alt. ii. p. 174; Saint-Martin, Étude, pp. 150-161; Cunningham, Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 249-256).

Note S.—Sindimana

Sambus is called Sabus by Curtius, who, without giving the name of his capital, informs us that Alexander captured it by mining and then marched to rejoin his fleet on the Indus. The Greek name of this capital, Sindimana, has led to its identification with Sehwân, a site of very high antiquity. The great mound which was once its citadel has been formed chiefly of ruined buildings accumulated in the course of ages on a scarped rock at the end of the Lakki range of hills. Its water supply is at present entirely derived from the Indus, which not only flows under the eastern front of the town, but also along the northern by a channel from the great Manchur Lake, which perhaps formerly extended up even to the city walls. The objection to this identification, that Sehwân’s position on the Indus conflicts with the statement that Alexander had to march from Sindomana to reach that river, is removed by the fact that the Indus has changed its course since Alexander’s time. Wilson derives the Greek Sindomana from what he calls a very allowable Sanskrit compound, Sindu-mân, “the possessor of Sindh.” Cunningham, however, would refer the name to Saindava-vanam or Sainduwân, “the abode of the Saindavas.” v. his Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 263-266, and also Saint-Martin’s Étude, p. 166, where it is stated that the name of Sambus is probably connected with that of the tribe called Sammah, whose chiefs have at different epochs played a distinguished part in the valley of the Indus. In Hindu mythology Samba is the son of Krishna. According to Plutarch, it was somewhere in the dominions of Sabbas that Alexander had his interview with the ten Indian gymnosophists. Sehwân is the Sewistan of the Arabs. According to Burton (writing in 1857), it is a hot, filthy, and most unwholesome place, with a rascally population (of 6000) which includes many beggars and devotees. v. his Sindh, p. 8. The population has since increased to upwards of 160,000.

Note T.—City of the Brachmans—Harmatelia

This city of the Brachmans Cunningham takes to have been Brâhmana, or Brâhmanâbâd, which was ninety miles distant by water from Marija Dand, the point where he supposes Alexander rejoined his fleet after the capture of Sindimana. Brâhmanâbâd was situated on the old channel of the Indus forty-seven miles to the north-east of Haidarâbâd or Nirankot, the Patala of ancient times. Shortly after the Mohammedan conquest it was supplanted by Mansûra, which either occupied its site or lay very near it, as, according to Ibn Haukal, the place was called in the Sindh language Bâmiwân. It was destroyed by an earthquake sometime before the beginning of the eleventh century. Its ruins were discovered at Bambhra-ka-thûl by Mr. Bellasis, whose excavations have shown conclusively the truth of the popular tradition which ascribed its downfall to an earthquake. Cunningham further thinks that Brâhmanâbâd was the Harmatelia of Diodôros—the place where Ptolemy was wounded by the poisoned arrow. Harmatelia (he says) is only a softer pronunciation of Brâhma-thala or Brahmana-sthala, just as Hermes, the phallic god of the Greeks, is the same as Brahmâ, the original phallic god of the Indians. He thinks that the king whom Justin (xii. 10) calls Ambiger was no other than Mousikanos, whose dominions extended as far south as the Delta, Ambiger being his family name and Mousikanos his dynastic title (Geog. pp. 267-269). Saint-Martin, on the other hand, recognises Harmatelia in a place variously designated by Arab writers Armael, Armaïl, Armâbil, and Armatel, but of which the position is unknown (Étude, pp. 167, 168). In his ancient map of India Colonel Yule, who takes the same view as Saint-Martin, identifies Harmatelia with Bela.