JELUM, n.p. The most westerly of the "Five Rivers" that give their name to the [Punjab] (q.v.), (among which the Indus itself is not usually included). Properly Jailam or Jīlam, now apparently written Jhīlam, and taking this name from a town on the right bank. The Jhilam is the Ὑδάσπης of Alexander's historians, a name corrupted from the Skt. Vitastā, which is more nearly represented by Ptolemy's Βιδάσπης. A still further (Prakritic) corruption of the same is Behat (see [BEHUT]).
1037.—"Here he (Mahmūd) fell ill, and remained sick for fourteen days, and got no better. So in a fit of repentance he forswore wine, and ordered his servants to throw all his supply ... into the Jailam. ..."—Baihaḳī, in Elliot, ii. 139.
c. 1204.—"... in the height of the conflict, Shams-ud-dîn, in all his panoply, rode right into the water of the river Jīlam ... and his warlike feats while in that water reached such a pitch that he was despatching those infidels from the height of the waters to the lowest depths of Hell ..."—Ṭabaḳāṭ, by Raverty, 604-5.
1856.—
"Hydaspes! often have thy waves run tuned
To battle music, since the soldier King,
The Macedonian, dipped his golden casque
And swam thy swollen flood, until the time
When Night the peace-maker, with pious hand,
Unclasping her dark mantle, smoothed it soft