History As Memory Alexander in South Asi

Asian Review of World Histories 9 (2021) 157–188
brill.com/arwh
History as Memory: Alexander in South Asian

Demotic Literature and Popular Media
Syed Ejaz Hussain

Department of History, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India
se_hussain@yahoo.co.in
Abstract
The diversity and range of existing archives on the history and romance of Alexander
have projected on him a multiplicity of images. Alexander’s conquests, military
achievements, romance, myths, and legends have fascinated writers, scholars, histo-
rians, poets, filmmakers, the media, and designers of websites around the world. His
invasion of India in 326 BCE left an indelible influence on Indian art, history, and lit-
erature. The present essay takes up a theme on which not much work has been done in
modern scholarship. It focuses on the nature and diversity of the historical memory of
Alexander in modern South Asia, particularly as reflected in modern Urdu and Hindi,
the two major languages of the subcontinent. It also examines how Alexander is por-
trayed in popular culture and India’s nationalist discourse.
Keywords
Alexander – India – literature – wisdom – freedom
Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) is one of the most exciting figures
human civilization has ever produced. His conquests, military achievements,
romance, myths, and legends have fascinated writers, scholars, historians,
poets, filmmakers, the media, and designers of websites. To average Greeks and
Europeans, he was not only a conqueror but also a civilizer – a torchbearer of
world brotherhood and the unity of mankind. To some he was a ruthless, cruel,
and evil monarch. Legends, stories, myths, and anecdotes woven around the
great hero have found their place in the plethora of literature on Alexander
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/22879811-12340092

158 Hussain
in major languages of the world including Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi, and
Bengali. He even appears to be mentioned in the sacred text of the Qurʾan, in
which he is said to have been referred to as Zulqarnain.
The history of Alexander begins with the classical work of Arrian, who wrote
on the great hero long after his death around 250 CE. His work is considered
the most reliable and dependable among the ancient sources. Arrian was fol-
lowed by Plutarch, Diodorus, Justin, and Curtius. These are five historians from
antiquity whose works on Alexander are still extant. All of these writers lived
and produced their works long after Alexander’s death. These classical works
have portrayed Alexander in three different colors. First, Alexander is charac-
terized as a terrible man or bloodthirsty megalomaniac. The second school of
thought asserts that Alexander was a good man and leader until he crossed
into the East, where he became power-mad and corrupt and plundered the
riches of that land. The third portrayal regards Alexander as a saint who only
conquered the known world so that he could unify it into a peacefully coexist-
ing brotherhood built on cultural tolerance. Peter Green and E. A. Wallis Budge
have depicted Alexander in a negative light. Green (1990) maintained that the
Greeks treated Alexander as an “ambitious tyrant” who had a “drift towards
oriental despotism” and desired “dazzling riches” (297, 299, 307). He caused
“unintentional comedy” on his accession to the throne of Darius: “Darius was a
tall man and Alexander somewhat under average height; when Alexander sat
down [on Darius’s throne], his feet dangled in space above the royal foot-stool.
One of the pages, with considerable presence of mind, snatched away the foot-
tool and substituted a table … [which was found to be] a dining table.” (307)
The tragic end of this “godless, violent, foreign usurper” (315) was in “spiritual
isolation.” Green postulates, “All absolute autocrats end in spiritual isolation,
creating their own world, their private version of the truth; to this depressing
rule Alexander was no exception.” (324) Alexander died at the young age of
thirty-two. He never claimed to be a spiritual leader but at the end of his life
he realized the mortality of the world and the transitory nature of human life.
Alexander’s wealth and empire did not give him any enduring or eternal bliss
and happiness in life. This is reflected in some of the Urdu couplets quoted
below. Budge (1896) believed that Alexander was defeated by Porus and had
to make a treaty with him to save himself and his soldiers’ lives. He was a bro-
ken man when he returned from his misadventures in India. Budge blames
Alexander for the murder of Kalasthenese, nephew of Aristotle, because he
criticized Alexander for foolishly imitating the Persian emperors. He also
accused Alexander of the murder of his friend Clytus in anger. Due to all of
this, Alexander is sometimes called Alexander the Ordinary or Alexander the
Fake instead of Alexander the Great.

History as Memory 159
Commenting on the “oriental imagination” of Alexander the Great, Budge

wrote:
The details of the fabulous history of such an one will be modified to

suit the country and ideas of the people among whom the writers live, and
eventually it will become the popular expression of the national views of
each country through which the history passes of what a hero should be.
This is exactly what has happened to the Alexander story in the hands of
Semitic and other writers. The Egyptians made Alexander the son of an
Egyptian king and a worshipper of Amen; the Greeks made him the type
of the victorious conqueror; the Persians made him a Persian; the Arabs
made him a servant of Allah; the Syrians made him a Christian; and the
Ethiopians depicted him as a believer in the Trinity and in the Christian
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. (1896, xliv).
But Budge failed to notice what Indians think of Alexander, who invaded
the country and defeated one of its prominent and powerful rulers. In fact,
Alexander’s romance remained unnoticed for centuries in Indian history and
literature. So far as popular or demotic literature is concerned, it is examined
here perhaps for the first time.
Alexander invaded India in 326 BCE. He occupied Taxila and defeated
Porus, the legendary hero of India. A large number of people were killed. Still
Alexander is remembered as a great hero and a positive figure. This is due to
the honorable way he is said to have treated the defeated Indian monarch,
whose crown and kingdom Alexander returned with all due reverence. This
image still appeals to average South Asians, and particularly Indians, irrespec-
tive of caste, religion, or language. The memory and legacy of Alexander the
Great is embedded in the Indian mind through art, sculpture, literature, and
films that recount various facets of his life, victories, virtues, stories, and myths.
The scholars and historians of the early nineteenth century who wrote on
Alexander’s Indian romance lamented that they did not find references to the
great hero in Buddhist, Jain, or classical Sanskrit literature. V. A. Smith dubbed
this a conspiracy of silence. He believed that India ignores and forgets. He
wrote, “India remained unchanged. The wounds of battle were quickly healed,
the ravaged fields smiled again…. India was not Hellenized. She continued to
live her life of splendid isolation, and soon forgot the passing of the Macedonian
storm. No Indian author, Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain makes even the faintest allu-
sion to Alexander or his deeds” (1999, 112–113). Later on, M. I. Rostovtzoff and
W. W. Tarn expressed similar views. Rostovtzoff (1930–1932) was surprised
to find no mention of Alexander in Indian literature. He concluded that his

160 Hussain
legacy in Indian civilization was insignificant. Tarn, a respected British scholar

who wrote extensively on the Hellenistic world and gave an idealistic inter-
pretation of Alexander’s conquests as being essentially driven by his vision of
the “unity of mankind,” in line with the interpretation of Plutarch, could not
disentangle himself from the web of Smith and Rostovtzoff. Tarn wrote three
scholarly works – Hellenistic Civilization (1927), The Greeks in Bactria and India
(1938) and Alexander the Great (1948) – and drew extensively on a variety of
materials, including the numismatic evidence. But he followed Rostovtzoff
and expressed the similar opinion.
In the past few decades, the climate of historical interpretation in the
context of Alexander and Indian romance has changed. A whole range of
painting and sculpture of the Gandhara school has captured the imagination
of scholars and historians, who have underlined the Hellenistic influence on
Gandharan art in both subject and expression (Fig. 1). N. Gopala Pillai was,
however, the first who challenged Smith’s theory of the “conspiracy of silence”
as early as 1937 when he wrote his research paper titled “Skanda: The Alexander
Romance in India” wherein, as the title suggests, he compared Skanda with
Alexander the Great on the basis of the close similarity between certain Greek
words and Sanskritic terms, for example, Ahura (Greek) and Asura (Sanskrit),
Mazda-Ahura (Greek) and Mahisasura (Sanskrit), and Alexander (Greek) and
Skanda (Sanskrit), as found in the Skand-Purana and some other Sanskrit
figure 1 The influence of Alexander the Great on ancient Indian art. A depiction
of Alexander (left) is echoed in a Ghandaran sculpture (right).
Photos courtesy of Jean-Pol Grandmont, CC BY-SA 3.0,
and Bharat Kala Bhavan Museum, Varanasi, collection
no. 3–767

classical works. But the theory of Gopala Pillai was challenged by many and not
accepted by the larger academic world. Recently the discourse on the Alexander
romance in India has spawned a new genre of writings that have attempted to
assign a new meaning and new connotations to the discourse, thereby chal-
lenging the theory of a “conspiracy of silence.” Scholars and historians such
as Frank L. Holt (1988), R. Stoneman (1992, 1994), and others have attempted
to reoutfit Alexander, his character, and his motivation in new attire. On the
other hand, some Indian scholars have made a bid to discover Alexander in
some popular literature, the best known of which is Mudrarakshasa, a popular
Sanskrit drama that is supposed to have had some indirect influence on the
Alexander romance in India.
The present paper attempts to study some modern literature – particularly
in Urdu and Hindi, the two major languages spoken in South Asia, especially in
India and Pakistan – in order to examine how Alexander and memories linked
to his life, character, and motivation have traveled down to modern South Asia,
and how the present-day people of India and Pakistan perceive the most fasci-
nating and enigmatic man history has ever produced. The paper examines how
Alexander is depicted in the modern literary climate of South Asia and how his
image has survived in public memory, crossing all geographical, linguistic,
and cultural boundaries. Even the least learned man in South Asia can recall
with ease some myth or legend ingrained with the image and character of this
transnational hero. It is a common practice in South Asia to impart a lesson on
Alexander at some point in history textbooks, and sometime even in a literature
course – particularly in native languages, for instance Hindi, Urdu, or Bengali – at
the primary or secondary level of schooling (Fig. 2). The material on Alexander
often takes the form of a drama, a short story, or even a poem. The legends and
legacy of Alexander are included in syllabi in Indian schools particularly to teach
and inspire the younger generation with the life, glorious achievements, and
character of the world hero (Sharma 2020; Bandopadhyay 1986).
figure 2 The legend of Alexander the Great as represented in schoolbooks in India. Alexander invades
India (left) and meets an Indian saint (right).
Sharma 2020, 85, 86

162 Hussain
The vast range of Urdu poetry by famous poets such as Sir Muhammad
Iqbal, Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, Nawab Mirza Khan Dagh Dehlavi, Khwaja
Mir Dard, Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda, and several others has portrayed
Alexander in varied colors and dimensions, displaying the tales, fables, facts,
and fictions attached to the great hero. Many of these poems form part of the
syllabus in schools and colleges in India and Pakistan. It may be noted here that
Urdu is spoken and understood by a vast proportion of the population of India,
and in some regions it is recognized as the second official language of the state;
in Pakistan, Urdu is the official national language. Poets writing in Hindi, such
as Jaishankar Prasad, Ram Kumar Verma, Rahul Sankirtayan, Uday Shankar
Bhutt, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, and Amritlal Nagar, as well as in English, such
as Jawaharlal Nehru, have painted Alexander in various textures. The depiction
of Alexander in modern South Asian languages, particularly Urdu and Hindi, is
studied in the following sections.
1 Alexander as a Prophet
Alexander is known as Sikandar or Askandar in Persian and Urdu. In Arabic

he is called Al-Askandar. Sikandar or Askandar is a compound term contain-
ing the words alaks, which means “helped,” and andras, which denotes “man.”
Hence the word Sikandar or Askandar means one who helps. In the Qurʾan
(18:83–98), Alexander is referred to as Zulqarnain, a compound of zu and
qarnain, which means “one with two horns.” The reason for calling Alexander
by the name Zulqarnain is said to be that he was the king of the East and West,
as he made military expeditions to both these extreme parts of the earth. This
tradition has become popular on the basis of the following Qurʾanic verse (18:86):
… till when he reached the place of the setting sun, he found it setting in
a murky spring, and there he found a people. We said, “O Dhu’l Qarnayn!
Thou mayest punish, or thou mayest treat them well.”
Nasr et al., 1350
The Qurʾan further says (18:90):
… till he reached the place of the rising sun. He found it rising over a
people for whom We had not made any shelter from it.
Nasr et al., 1350

It is also said that he had two curls of hair, like horns, on his forehead and
thus he was named Zulqarnain. Since the name of Alexander appears three
times in Sura 18 of the Qurʾan and he is called a great God-fearing king of noble
character, some scholars believed that he was a prophet. In a Persian verse it
is said:
garoh-i-az hokama dar hadīs-i-Askandar

ba-shak shudand-o-base-i-raft shān sukhan ba-zaban
ke-oo-az haman paighambarān-i-īzad būd
Khuda-i-danad ke-īn rāst būd ya bohtān
Farrukhi 1969, 134
In the story of Alexander, a group of learned men

were in doubt and often argued about
whether he was one of the prophets of God.
Only God knows whether it is true or untrue.
Alexander’s depiction in South Asian Persian and Urdu poetry appears to have
been inspired directly by the medieval Persian poetry of Iran. In Iran’s Persian
literature, Alexander’s life and romance, from birth to death, is vividly depicted
in a long poem of 10,500 couplets titled Iskandarnāma (1194), by Nizāmī Ganjvi
(1141–1209), the renowned Persian poet of the twelfth century. The entire poem
is divided into two parts: Sharafnāma, or the Book of Honor, and Iqbalnāma,
or the Book of Wisdom. Eclectic theory is well reflected throughout the long
narrative poem in the form of masnavi (rhyming couplets), wherein Nizāmī
planned and announced in his foreword to present Alexander as conqueror,
philosopher, and prophet. In this connection, J. Christoph Bürgel has remarked
that “the general plan of Nizāmī’s Iskandarnāma – its tripartite structure as
announced in the foreword – is almost beyond doubt inspired by Fārābī’s polit-
ical philosophy. Following his announcement, Nizāmī shows Alexander in the
three stages of conqueror, philosopher and prophet” (2010, 28).
Much more interesting is a serious conversation between Iskandar and seven
sages that is portrayed in a miniature painting preserved in the British Library
(f. 214r, Or 6810). Nizāmī’s Iskandarnāma was transcribed several times in Mughal
India. Hence its reflection in Indian Persian and Urdu poetry was natural.
2 A Symbol of Power, Glory, and Innate Fortune
Alexander was one of the most fascinating figures in history. He founded a

huge empire with vast territories in Greece, Europe, and Asia. He maintained

164 Hussain
a great army as well as a strong fleet. He amassed wealth and treasure and
thus became a symbol of power, glory, and innate fortune. No other ruler
could match him. The great Urdu poet Mir Taqi Mir (1724–1810) has portrayed
Alexander in one of his poems as a great king who had all kinds of power,
a high position, and prosperity, with a vast empire, huge wealth, and a large
army under his control. But that power and treasure were ultimately of no use,
because when Alexander died he left the world empty-handed. The poet says:
Be-zari ka na kar gila ghāfil

rah tasalli ke yun muqaddar tha
itne munʾam jahan se guzre hain
waqt rahlat ke kis kane zar tha
Sāhab-i-jāh-o-shaukat-o-iqbāl
ek az-ān jumla ab Sikandar tha
thi ye sab kaināt zer-i-nagin
sath mor-o-malakh sa lashkar tha
la’l-o-yaqut-ham zar-o-gauhar
chahiye jis qadar moyassar tha
ākhir-i-kār jab jahan se gaya
hāth khāli kafan se bāhar tha
Huque 1997, 57
O! unmindful one, don’t complain of poverty,

have consolation because it was in your fate.
So rich men happened to be in the world –
did they go with their wealth when they died?
Men of power, position, and prosperity –
one among them was Alexander.
The entire world was under his rule.
He had a large army like that of ants and locusts.
Rubies, garnets, gold, and pearls
were available, as much as he wished.
In the end, when he left the world,
his empty hands were outside of his coffin.
In fact, Mir Taqi Mir’s period (1724–1810) witnessed a great political upheaval,
when the power and glory of the Mughal empire declined after the death of
Aurangzeb (1707). Nadir Shah attacked Delhi in 1739 and pillaged, robbed,
and ruined the city. The wealth, jewels, and riches of Delhi were carried out
by the invaders. Mir Taqi Mir’s narration of Delhi’s sack and plunder is well
focused in his famous poem Shahr āshob (City disturber, written in the 1780s;

see Petievich 1990). But Mir Taqi Mir’s style of narrative vocabulary appears to
be the same as that of Shahr āshob. He desires to remind his audience that if
Alexander’s wealth, power, and glory did not have permanence and durability,
then how could the Mughal empire last? In this inanimate world, everything is
perishable; “death lays its icy hands on kings” also.
A modern popular Urdu work, Sikandar āʾzam se Kleopatra tak (From
Alexander the Great to Kleopatra), relates that before his death Alexander
made a will and said, “Keep both of my hands out of the coffin so that the
people may take a lesson from the fact that the conqueror of half of the world
departed this world empty-handed” (Mere donon hāth tabūt se bāhar rakhna
ta ke dekhne wāle ye dekhkar ʿibrat hāsil karen ke ādhi duniya ka fāteh duniy se
khāli hāth ja raha hai; Mukhtar 2005a, 7). When a king passes away, he leaves
the world without his wealth and treasures. His riches, assets, glory, and power
wane and vanish.
3 The Epitome of Ignition of Character and a Burning Spirit
Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1876–1938), the great Urdu poet and philosopher who
composed a large number of poems, including India’s national anthem (“Sāre
jahan se achha Hindostan hamāra”), used the name of Alexander the Great in
various contexts and meanings. In his famous poem titled “Napolean ki mazār
par” (At Napoleon’s tomb, written in the 1910s), he says that it is josh-i-kirdār
or ignition of character that refurbishes one’s fate and exhorts one to do some-
thing in life. Iqbal says:
rāz hai rāz hai taqdīr-i-jahān-i-tag-o-tāz

Josh-i-kirdār se khul jāte hain taqdīr ke sāz
Josh-i-kirdār se shamshīr-i-Sikandar ka tuluʾ
koh-i-alwand hua jis ki harārat se gudāz
Majid n.d., 424
The fate of the struggling world is a great secret/

Ignition of character begins the music of fortune;
ignition of character raises the sword of Alexander/
The mountain of Alwand [at Hamadan in Persia]
began melting due to its warmth.
Iqbal, a leading philosopher and Islamic modernist, is sometimes regarded as

an anti-traditionalist and pro-West. He visited several countries in the world
and felt a deep pain and discomfort for the degenerating condition of the

166 Hussain
Muslim ummah or community after the decline of the great Muslim empires
of the East, especially the Mughal, the Safavid, and the Ottoman. Since Iqbal
had come into contact with many English and European scholars and philoso-
phers in Cambridge, London, Munich, and other places, he was profoundly
influenced by the dynamism and vigor of Greek, Roman, and Western philoso-
phy. He also studied the works of Kant, Goethe, Fichte, Hegel, and Nietzsche.
The result was that Iqbal began to perceive the Muslim ummah as a universal
community. Now his pan-Islamist thought was nurtured and developed on the
ground of western philosophy. Western intellectuals, scientists, and heroes
deeply influenced Iqbal’s compositions. Iqbal used Alexander as a character
and hero to inspire the Muslim ummah of South Asia when the colonial ruling
class attempted to instill a kind of inferiority complex and moral abyss in the
Muslim mind by dubbing the entire Sultanate-Mughal period as the “dark age
of Islamic rule” (Popp 2019).
Iqbal stressed that Alexander’s military victories were only due to his ignit-
ing character and burning spirit and his endeavor. Here Alexander is referred
to as a positive character and spirit to inspire the youth. In a Persian rubaiʾ
(quatrain), Iqbal says:
Sikandar ba-Khizr khush nuqta ii guft

sharīk-i-soz-o-sāz-i-bahr-o-bar shao
tu īn jang az kunan ʿarsah bini
ba-meer andar naburd-o-zinda-tar shao
Farrukhi 1969, 167
Alexander said this wise point to Khizr [the Guide]:

“Be a part of the weal and woe, ocean and earth;
“where are you watching this battle from?
“Delve deep into the Sea, fight with the buffets of its storms,
and become immortal.”
Here Alexander is depicted as a man who did not choose a life of ease and
comfort. He was an embodiment of great struggle; he endured the buffets of
storms in life and became victorious and immortal. The dawām or eternity
that Alexander achieved was due to his khudi or self, that is, the nucleus of
human life in Iqbal’s view. Self is finite, yet it has an immense capacity for infi-
nite growth. It was this infinite growth in Alexander that made him dawām or
immortal. Iqbal calls Indians in general and Muslims in particular, both as an
ummah and as individuals, to fully realize their potential. Iqbal wrote:

pahle khuddār tu manind-i-Sikandar howe

phir jahan mein hawas-i-shaukat-i-dārai kar
Majid n.d., 223
First you become self-conscious like Sikandar,

then cherish the desire for kingly magnificence in the world.
4 Alexander as a Potential Creator
An interesting Persian anecdote about Alexander is that he invented a mirror

in which he could see the condition of any corner of his vast empire. Nizāmī
Ganjvi, in his long poem Sikandarnāma, composed thirty couplets on the mir-
ror that was supposed to have been invented by Alexander. Iqbal must have
taken the symbolism of the mirror from Nizāmī Ganjvi. Iqbal, in one of his cou-
plets, used this symbolism and gave Alexander the status of creator, an attribute
of God, and compared his mirror to God’s creation, i.e., the world. As an existen-
tialist thinker, Iqbal questioned the status of man in the scheme of existence, and
through the metaphoric use of Alexander and his mirror he expressed that man
is still puzzled over whether he is a potential creator and coworker with God,
or a noble creation (ashraf-ul-makhluqāt), or a hated and mean creation. In his
famous poem Tasweer-i-dard (The portrait of anguish, 1905), Iqbal states:
pareshan hūn main musht-i-khāk lekin kuch nahin khulta

Sikandar hūn ke aʾina hūn ya gard-i-kadurat hūn
Majid n.d., 63
I am a mere handful of scattered dust but I do not know:

Whether Alexander or a mirror or just dust and scum I am.
Iqbal has further elaborated his view on existentialism and the status of man
by comparing two merits of Alexander: one is his royal splendor and the other
is his status as an aʾina-sāz or a symbol of creators. Iqbal may have taken this
idea from Amir Khusrau. Centuries earlier, in 1302, Amir Khusrau (1253–1325),
the renowned Persian poet of medieval India, composed a long poem titled
Āʾin-e Iskandari or The Mirror of Alexander (1299), on the pattern of Nizāmī’s
Iskandarnāma. In this poem Khusrau presented Alexander more as an engi-
neer or inventor rather than a world conqueror. Prashant Keshavmurthy (2019)
argued that Khusrau’s Alexander understands machines as devices by which

168 Hussain
things can be brought forth from potentiality to actuality. So far as Iqbal is

concerned, he cites the example of Alexander in order to exhort man to be a
coworker with God in the scheme of creation, because every man, in his opin-
ion, appears to have been instilled with the essence and merit of creation. In
his famous poem Peyām-i-ʿishq (Message of love, 1908), the poet says:
nahin hai wābasta zer-i-gardun kamāl shān-i-Sikandari se

tamām sāmāṇ hain tere sine mein tu bhi aʾina-sāz ho ja
Majid n.d., 201
The perfection under sky is not by the splendor of Alexander.

You have every potentiality in your breast – you too, become a creator
[like Alexander].
5 An Explorer of the Nectar of Life and a Guide to Success
There is a popular myth of āb-i-hayāt (the nectar of eternity) in Perso-Islamic

mythology. In Indian mythology it is called amrit and in Greek ambrosia. It is
said that Alexander, who had developed a strong war fleet, sailed to the deep
sea in search of āb-i-hayāt or the nectar of eternity, but when he found that
those who had taken ambrosia were alive but reduced to a lifeless skeleton by
the vicissitudes of time, he dropped the idea of taking āb-i-hayāt and returned
empty-handed. Here, Iqbal has exhorted the youth of India not to surrender
until one has achieved one’s goal. The fitrat or nature of Alexander was not
to submit before the uneven circumstances of life but to fight with them and
achieve what one desires. Iqbal, through his philosophy of action rendered in
verse, desired to awaken the Muslim mind to action by employing the sym-
bolism of Alexander. This is expressed in Iqbal’s poem Khiẓr-i-rāh (Khiẓr, the
guide, written in the 1910s):
gar che Askandar raha mahrūm-i-āb-i-zindagi

fitrat-i-Askandari ab tak hai garm-i-nāʾo nosh
Majid n.d., 24
Though Alexander remained deprived of the nectar of eternity,

the Alexandrian nature [in man] is still striving for it.
Islamic mythological belief holds that the prophet Khiẓr or Khiḍr took the nec-
tar of eternity, became immortal, and is still alive, and now guides man on
water. Iqbal has effectively used the symbolism of Khiẓr to convey his message

against stagnation and taqlīd (unquestioned following of traditions) and in

support of regenerative, life-giving action (Omar 2004, 40).
The great Urdu poet Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1796–1869) also used the
name of Sikandar in this context. He wrote:
tu Sikandar hai mera fakhr hai milna tera

go sharaf Khiẓr ki bhi mujh ko mulaqāt ka hai
Naqvi 2009, 261
You are my Alexander; I am proud of meeting you,

though I have the honour of meeting Khiẓr too.
In another couplet Ghalib stated:
mumkin hai kare Khiẓr Sikandar se tera zikr

gar lab ko na de chashma-i-haiwan se tahārat
Naqvi 2009, 263
Khiẓr may possibly mention Alexander to you,

if you don’t wet your lips with the water of life.
Ghalib also said:
kya kaha Khiẓr ne Sikandar se

ab kise rahnuma kare koi
Naqvi 2009, 217
What did Khiẓr, after all, ask Sikandar?

“Whom should one select as guide?”
This couplet meant that Alexander could not be a guide or leader because he
did not take the water of life but returned empty-handed. Ghalib nurtured a
broader outlook and wider perspective of civilization through the metaphor of
the love and truth of life. His philosophical statements encompassed a wider
vision of life. In Islamic legend, the Prophet Khiẓr represented a figure of great
wisdom and mystic knowledge; Alexander is said to have met him, but he
could not reach the acme of wisdom and knowledge as Khiẓr had done. Ghalib
lived in a period when there was a crisis of leadership in the Muslim commu-
nity, which could be guided with a deeper insight into the prevailing situation
in the country. It is perhaps with this background in mind that Ghalib used the
metaphor of Khiẓr and Alexander here.

170 Hussain
6 Voluntary Poverty Is Better Than Alexandrian Desire
Faqr, synonymous with gadagiri or qalandari, signifies voluntary poverty in

Islamic mysticism. These terms frequently appear in Iqbal’s poetry. Iqbal con-
siders faqr not a source of weakness and dependence but a factor for achieving
spiritual power, strength, or fortitude. Rejection of luxuries and comforts and
voluntarily keeping away from the temptations of the world is considered a
sign of positivity and inner strength. As K. G. Saiyidain observed, “It is a kind
of intellectual and emotional asceticism which does not turn away from the
world as a source of evil and corruption but uses it for the pursuit of good and
worthy ends” (1938, 187–188). Iqbal’s concept of faqr never meant a complete
resignation from or renunciation of the world.
Alexander established a vast empire and amassed great wealth and treasure,
yet he was not content. On the other hand, a saint who prefers faqr or volun-
tary poverty is more content and has more peace of mind and heart. Iqbal said:
nigāh-i-faqr mein shān-i-Sikandari kya hai

kharāj ki jo gada ho woh qaisari kya hai
Majid n.d., 347
What is the status of Alexander’s royal magnificence in the eyes of a

saint who has chosen poverty?
The king who thrives on begging for public taxes should not boast of
royal munificence.
Iqbal used the name of Sikandar to teach people to limit their desire for wealth
and power so that they could taste the sweetness of contentment and satisfac-
tion. A saint who practices simplicity and contentment is better than kings like
Darius and Alexander. Amir Khusrau has also said, “Poverty is more pleasant
than majesty” (muflisi az pādshāhi khushtar ast).
Iqbal wrote:
Dāra-o-Sikandar se woh mard-i-faqir achha

ho jis ki faqiri mein bu-i-Asad-ul-lāhi
Majid n.d., 354
Better than Darius and Alexander is the saint

whose voluntary poverty knows the spirit of Ali, the lion of God.

The well-known Urdu poet Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda (1714–1781) main-
tained that he was not as fortunate as Alexander or Darius in prosperity, but
affirmed that he never begged a king for anything. He said:
mujh gada ne bhi kisi shāh se dala na sawāl

go mujhe bakht ne Askandar-o-Dāra na kiya
Rudolvi 1992, 66
I, a poor man, never begged a king,

though my fate did not make me an Alexander or Darius.
7 Alexander as a Ruthless Robber
Iqbal’s “A Sea Robber and Alexander” (Ek baḥri qazzāq aur Sikandar) is a very
interesting poem. It appears from the poem that in order to stop sea piracy,
Alexander attacked the sea robbers and arrested them. In the words of the
arrested sea robbers, Alexander too is depicted as a ruthless robber. The poem
is in the form of a dialogue:
Alexander:
sila tera teri zanjeer ya shamsheer hai meri
ke teri rahzani se tang hai darya ki pehnai
This destiny is due to your habit [of robbery] or my sword,

for your robbery has stormed the bed of rivers.
Qazzaq (the sea robber):

Sikandar haif tū isko jawan mardi samajhta hai
gawāra is tarah karte hain ham chashmon ki ruswāiʾ
tera pesha hai saffāki, mera pesha hai saffāki
ke ham qazzāq hain donon tu maidāni main daryāiʾ
Majid n.d., 210
Alexander! Alas! You consider it bravery,

we bear the insult in such a way.
My profession is ruthlessness; your profession is also ruthlessness.
We both are robbers: I rob on water, you rob on the land.

172 Hussain
Alexander is painted here in a negative light. The great ruler who created
a vast empire that spanned continents has been equated here with a robber
who robbed the people on land. This refers to the old system of monarchical
government which, if it becomes ruthless, plays the role of a robber who does
not exempt any one from his tyranny. Alexander’s image as an anti-hero is well
known from the literature of pre-Islamic Iran. In ancient Iran’s Zoroastrian
literature, one finds the image of Alexander as a usurper and a destroyer. In
this connection, Marina Gaillard says, “Thus Alexander could be an imperfect
man for an audience of Muslim combatants but nevertheless a hero for the
Islamic faith; and for a more hostile audience, possibly Zoroastrian, he would
be a laughable anti-hero who certainly destroyed their religion but who was
not even able to succeed in the religious mission which is supposed to be his
greatest claim to fame” (2009, 328–329).
8 Not a Symbol of Democracy and Human Rights
When democracy became a watchword in South Asia, particularly India, king-

ship was considered to be an old institution. Democracy was a new system of
government under which everyone would enjoy equal rights irrespective
of his caste, creed, or linguistic or other differences. Iqbal in one couplet used
Alexander as a symbol of the old institution of kingship. Earlier Iqbal had
treated him as a hero, but now he changed his stance and treated him as an
anti-hero. In his poem Sarmaya wa mehnat (written in the 1910s), he says:
naghma-i-bedāri-i-jamhūr hai samān-i-ʿaish

qissa khwāb-āwar-i-Askandar-o-Jam kab talak
Majid n.d., 297
The song of the rise of democracy is the symbol of enjoyment.

How long [will] the soporific stories of Alexander and Jamshid [go on]?
9 As a Symbol of Wisdom and Sagacity
But other Urdu poets still regarded Alexander as a symbol of wisdom and
sagacity. Syed Akbar Husain (1846–1921), who wrote under the name Akbar
Allahabadi, tried to bring about reform in society through his satirical poems
in Urdu. He depicted Alexander as a symbol of wisdom, sagacity, and prosper-
ity. Akbar never went abroad, but he said:

Punhche phānd sāt samundar

tahat mein unke bison bandar
hikmat-o-dānish unke andar
apni jagah har ek Sikandar
Rahman 1999, 79
Reached, crossing seven Seas,

under which lay scores of ports.
Wisdom and sagacity prevailed therein;
each [person] was an Alexander in his own right.
Alexander was a man of great fortune, for he achieved a permanent place in

history by his victories, whereby he established a vast empire and became
a great ruler. But not every person can become an Alexander, no matter how
great their effort. Nawab Mirza Khan (1831–1905), who wrote under the name
Dāgh Dehlavi, expressed this view. He said:
saiʾye bisyār se iqbal mayassar nahin hota

har aʾina-gar Dāgh Sikandar nahin hota
Zaidi 1972, 44
Good fortune is not got by endeavor.

O! Dāgh, every mirror-maker cannot become Alexander.
10 The Anecdote of Sadd-i-Sikandari or Alexander’s Wall
A popular anecdote that has traveled to Urdu poetry from Arabic-Persian tradi-
tion concerns the erection of a strong iron wall or barrier in order to checkmate
the advance of Gog and Magog, also known as the Magogites or Scythians.
Gog-Magog lore is well preserved in Arabic and Persian literature. Emeri van
Donzel and Andrea Schmidt remarked that
Alexander’s barrier with the apocalyptic peoples Gog and Magog led to
a story which became quite popular among Christians and Muslims. In a
great variety of texts, Alexander is seen as an adventurer or even a saviour
sent by God to protect humanity from Gog and Magog’s wild armies.
The origin of the narrative goes back to Late Jewish and Early Eastern
Christian tradition. Later, the motif became an essential part of Islamic
eschatology, as is evident from the relevant verses of the Koran, from
Islamic Tradition (hadith) and from Early Arabic literature. (2009, xvii)

174 Hussain
In Persian-Urdu literature, this wall is referred to as sadd-i-Sikandari or

Alexander’s barrier. In fact, the anecdote of sadd-i-Sikandari and the story of
Gog and Magog is told in the Qurʾan (18:89–97):
(89) Then he followed a means, (90) till he reached the place of the rising
sun. He found it rising over a people for whom We had not made any shel-
ter from it. (91) Thus [it was], and We encompassed that which lay before
him in awareness. (92) Then he followed a means, (93) till he reached
the place between the two mountain barriers. He found beyond them a
people who could scarcely comprehend speech. (94) They said, “O Dhu
’l-Qarnayn! Truly Gog and Magog are workers of corruption in the land.
Shall we assign thee a tribute, that thou mightest set a barrier between
them and us?” (95) He said, “That wherewith my Lord has established
me is better; so aid me with strength. I shall set a rampart between you
and them. (96) Bring me pieces of iron.” Then, when he had leveled the
two cliffs, he said, “Blow!” till when he had made it fire, he said, “Bring me
molten copper to pour over it.” (97) Thus they were not able to surmount
it, nor could they pierce it.
Nasr et al., 1350
Sadd-i-Sikandari or Alexander’s Wall entered Urdu poetry as a metaphor.

Khwaja Mir Dard (1721–1785), the first and foremost mystic poet of Urdu and a
prominent member of the Naqshbandi Sufi order, who regarded the phenom-
enal world as a veil of the eternal Reality and this life as a term of exile from
the real home, used the legend of Sadd-i-Sikandari to unravel his mystical phi-
losophy in his poem. He wrote:
tilism-i-hasti-i-mauhūm dil par sakht chambar hai

ba-rang-i-ʿaks mujh ko aʾina sadd-i-Sikandar hai
Khan 1997, 123
The illusion of imaginary life is greatly suffocating [my] heart;

the mirror (of life) that shows me like a shadow, is the wall
of Alexander (for me, which I cannot cross or scale over).
In a philosophical way, Dard asserted that no one can escape the bonds of life,
just as no one could scale over or penetrate the wall of Alexander. On the other
hand, Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda (1714–1781) used the wall of Alexander in
a romantic way. He declared:

hai sādah lauhi pa us dil ke aʾina hairan;

jo tere ʿohd ko sadd-i-Sikandari jane
Rahman 1999, 121
The mirror is perplexed at the simplicity of the heart

that takes your age as the wall of Alexander.
11 Reflections in Romantic Poetry
It is interesting to learn that Alexander’s name could not escape from the arena
of romantic poetry even in Urdu. Nawab Mirza Khan (Dāgh Dehlevi) basically
composed romantic ghazals (odes). In his romantic couplets he used the name
Alexander in some places. He said:
mujh sa na de zamane ko parwardigār dil

ashufta dil frefta dil be-qarār dil
mashhūr hain Sikandar-o-Jam ki nishaniyāṇ
aʾi Dāgh chhor jaiʾnge ham yadgār dil
Zaidi 1972, 62
May God not give the world a heart like that of mine –
a perplexed heart, a charmed heart, an impatient heart.
Alexander and Jamshid’s monuments are famous.
O! Dāgh, I will leave my memorable heart (as a relic of love).
The period in which Dāgh Dehlavi lived was the time of India’s struggle for
freedom, when life was not easy and peaceful as it had been earlier, but even
in this grim situation the poet says that he was not unconscious, even in the
pangs of a prevailing hard life, and could recall the old days. Dāgh says:
nahin hai hosh se khāli hamāri be-hoshi,

ke be-khudi mein gire bhi jo hum to sāghar mein;
falak kare bhi jo samān-i-ʿaish ko barbād,
to jām-i-jam pa gire aʾina Sikandar par
Zaidi 1972, 88
Stupefaction of mine is not sans sensibility;

it was only in the wine cup, even if I fell in drunkenness.

176 Hussain
If heaven destroys my luxurious belongings,

I then fall into the cup of Jamshid / mirror of Alexander.
12 Alexander in Modern Hindi Literature
In modern Hindi literature as well as some Sanskrit literature, Alexander is

known as Alakchendra, which is most likely a Sanskritized form of Alexander.
Rahul Sankirtayan (1893–1963) called him Aliksunder in his famous work Volga
se Ganga (Volga to Ganges, 1943). Alexander, however, is popularly known as
Sikandar in Hindi poems and dramas. But in Bengali literature the great hero
is called Alexander only. Tarasankar Bandopadhyay (1998–1971), a famous
Bengali story writer and novelist, has painted Alexander as a man of virtue
and sagacity in his well-known book entitled Chhotoder shrestha galpo (1956).
This work is popular as a storybook for school children in Bengali literature. As
in Urdu literature, Alexander is portrayed in Hindi literature also in different
tones and textures, as mentioned below.
13 An Invader with a Positive Character
In the arena of Hindi literature, Jaishankar Prasad (1890–1937), the famous

poet, novelist, dramatist, and storywriter, wrote an interesting historical
drama named Chandragupta (1931; Prasad 1997). In one scene of this drama,
Alexander meets an Indian saint whose name is Dandayan. When Alexander
meets him in his āshram (hospice), Dandayan gives him blessings for good
sense and advises him to stop the spree of bloodshed and victories and to
indulge in works to benefit the public welfare. Richard Stoneman noted that
“Alexander did indeed meet a group of naked philosophers in India … they
were the philosophers of Taxila.” Stoneman argues that “both Romance and
historians reflect a common source and that the Romance does preserve some
genuine information” (1995, 100, 102).
In one episode, the drama depicts how Ambhi, the king of Taxila, meets
Alexander and offers his support against Porus. Although Alexander utilizes
this support, he expresses his aversion against Ambhi at the end of his vic-
tory over Porus. On the contrary, Alexander appears to be greatly impressed by
Porus and Chandragupta. At last Alexander says:
Main talwār khinchte hue Bhārat mein āya, hriday dekar jāta hūn
Prasad 1997, 106

I came to India raising my sword but am leaving the country losing

my heart.
Ram Kumar Verma (1905–1990), another well-known Hindi dramatist, depicted

four important characters – Alexander (the Greek invader), Ambhi (the king
of Taxila), Bhairavi (a brave lady of Massa fort), and Paorav (the king who was
defeated by Alexander) – in his famous drama Desh ki maryada (Dignity of the
nation). Alexander has been portrayed here as a positive character who treated
Porus or Paorav with all of the respect due to a king. Alexander also regarded
India as a country of humanists (Verma 1992).
14 The War between Alexander and Porus: A War of Two Philosophies
Jaishankar Prasad’s drama Chandragupta portrays the war between Alexander

and Porus not as a fight between two brave warriors but as a war between two
philosophies: Greek and Indian. In one scene, Cornelia, the wife of Alexander’s
commander, says that India is a country of humanists. She also accepts that the
fight between the Greeks and the Indians is not a battle of arms; it is indeed
a battle of two great philosophies represented by Aristotle and Chanakya.
Alexander and Chandragupta were simply tools in the hands of these two great
philosophers (Prasad 1997, 70, 71, 74–77, 82, 83, 97,103–106).
Rahul Sankirtayayan, the famous Hindi scholar and writer, also referred
to Alexander in his drama titled Nāgadutta (1942), which is included in his
famous work Volga se Ganga (Volga to Ganges), and he too treated Alexander’s
invasion of India as an Aristotle-Chanakya duel (1945, 155–179).
Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (1908–1974) made a passing reference to Alexander
in his famous work Sanskriti ke char addhyay (Four phases of [Indian] culture)
(1977, 28, 81).
A couple of dramas based on Alexander’s invasion of India have been ren-
dered into Bengali and Urdu for schoolchildren. Alexander the Great (1957) by
Hemendra Kumar Roy and Alexanderer Barsha (1910) by Kinner Roy are worth
noting in Bengali literature.
15 Alexander’s Depiction in India’s Nationalist Literature
When the freedom movement in India gained momentum, a novel type of

Hindi nationalist literature was born. In this literature, native heroes have
been recast in nationalist and patriotic tones to instill a sense of nationalism

178 Hussain
in Indian youth. In nationalist Hindi literature, Alexander is portrayed as an

invader and Porus as a patriot who fought to free his country from the hands
of foreign invaders. The purpose of projecting such an image was to pump the
spirit of unity and nationalism into youth in order to incite them to actively
participate in the anti-colonialist and nationalist struggle for independence.
Taxila (1931), the well-known long poem of the distinguished Hindi poet Uday
Shankar Bhutt (1898–1966), laid out a complete picture of Taxila’s history. The
verse on Alexander’s invasion reads:
Digvijay ki kāmna se
Alaxandra swa-shakti se
Paurush nripti par chaḍh chala
nau darp ki anurakti le
With the desire to conquer the world,

Alexander with all his power
attacked the king Porus
with fresh arrogance and pride.
Uday Shankar wrote:
Acharya Shri Chanakya ke

anurodh se āye wahan
vishva-vijay nrip Sikandar
ka vibhav bikhra jahan
On Shri Chanakya’s
request, marched there
the world conqueror king Alexander,
whose glory was smashed there.
The poet also wrote:
Swatantray raksha ke liye

hi desh āpas mein laḍe
swatantray raksha dheye mein
hote sabhi milkar khaḍe
Mehta 1998, 43–45

For the protection of independence,

nations fought with each other;
in order to protect independence,
all could have fought together.
The understanding of Alexander changes in accordance with the sociopoliti-

cal scenario. Struggle against the colonial rule of the British created an entire
new genre of literature in India. Hindi literature was greatly influenced by
this changed scenario. In his popular Hindi novel Gadar ke phul (Flowers of
mutiny), Amritlal Nagar (1898–1990) referred to Alexander’s invasion in the
context of India’s struggle for freedom. He wrote:
Sikandar ke ākarman ke samay hamne apni veerata mein kami nahin pāi.
Jītne ke bawajūd Sikandar ke sipāhi Maharāj Puru ki Bhartiya sena ki mār
se itna saham gaye the ki āge baḍhne se inkār kar diya. Baharhāl veerata ki
kami ke kāran nahin waran phūt ke kāran Bharat ghārat hua.
Nagar 1991, 174
We did not find any lack of bravery at the time of Alexander’s invasion.
Even after becoming victorious, Alexander’s soldiers were so frightened
due to severe blows from the Indian army that they refused to advance.
India was, however, defeated due to its disunity, and not for any defi-
ciency in bravery.
Amritlal Nagar further stated:
Kewal 1857 mein hi nahin, balki jāne māne itihās ke prarambh se dekhen,
Sikandar ke ākarman ke samay, Mahayoddha Puru aur unke sāth laḍne
wale asankhkya Bhartiya-jan apni veerata ke liye tatkalin Unāniyon dwara
khūb sarahe gaye hain.
Nagar 1999, 209
Not only in 1857 but also from the well-known beginning of history,
from the time of the invasion of Alexander, the great warrior Porus and
the countless Indian people who fought along with him had been well
praised by the contemporary Greeks for their valor and bravery.
Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, traced the rise of national-
ism from the time of Alexander’s invasion of India in his monumental work
The Discovery of India. He argued:

180 Hussain
Alexander’s invasion of the north-west gave the final push to this devel-
opment [to build up a united centralized state], and two remarkable men
arose who could take advantage of the changing conditions and mould
them according to their will. These men were Chandragupta Maurya and
his friend and minister counselor, the Brahmin, Chanakya. This combina-
tion functioned well … both went to Taxila in the north-west and came
in contact with Greeks stationed there by Alexander. Chandragupta met
Alexander himself; he heard of his conquests and glory and was fired by
ambition to emulate him. Chandragupta and Chanakya watched and pre-
pared themselves; they hatched great and ambitious schemes and waited
for the opportunity to realize them. Soon news came of Alexander’s death
at Babylon in 323 BC, and immediately Chandragupta and Chanakya
raised the old and ever-new cry of nationalism and roused the people
against the invader. The Greek garrison was driven away and Taxila cap-
tured. The appeal to nationalism had brought allies to Chandragupta and
he marched with them across north India to Patliputra. Within two years
of Alexander’s death, he was in possession of that city and kingdom and
the Mauryan Empire had been established.
Nehru 1961, 122–123
It may be noted here that Nehru was deeply influenced by the philosophy and
political theory of Chanakya. This is reflected in some of the letters that he
wrote to his daughter Indira Gandhi from jail (Liebig 2013, 104). But Nehru was
also well aware of the discourse on Alexander’s invasion that originated after
James Mill published The History of British India (1818), wherein he presented
Alexander as the harbinger of Western civilization on the Indian subcontinent.
Mill wrote that “the Hindus, at the time of Alexander’s invasion, were in a state
of manners, society, and knowledge, exactly the same with that in which they
were discovered by the nations of modern Europe” (1818, 171). For the British
colonialists Alexander was a model, the first “westerner” and a precursor of
British colonial rule in India. According to Bram Fauconnier, “At the end of the
nineteenth century, Alexander was increasingly regarded as a ‘prototype of a
grand colonial hero,’ a discoverer who for the first time in history had opened
up Asia for Western progress and civilization” (2015, 141). It was against this
backdrop that Alexander was treated as an invader in nationalist discourse in
India. On the one hand, the British colonialists treated Alexander as a civilizer,
and they thought that it was now their moral duty “to complete the ‘civilizing
mission’ that Alexander had left unfinished” (Bhattacharjee 2015, 24).

16 Alexander in Popular Culture
Alexander is well represented in India’s popular culture. Not only do Hindus

and Muslims name their children after Sikandar or Alexander, but various
places like Sikandrabad, Sikandarpur, and Sikandarchak have names that
overtly or covertly recall and refresh the memory of Alexander the Great.
During the medieval period, some rulers such as Alauddin Khalji and oth-
ers adopted titles such as Sikandar al-sāni (the second Alexander) or Sikandar
al-zaman (the Alexander of his time). Alauddin Khalji (1296–1316), intoxi-
cated with his military power and unlimited ambition for territorial conquest,
called himself Sikandar al-sāni on his coins (Figs. 3, 4). Three strong provincial
rulers – Ilyas Shah (1342–1357) in Bengal (Fig. 5), Alauddin Bahman (1347–1359)
of the Bahmani kingdom in the Deccan, and Alauddin Mahmud (1436–1469) of
Malwa – also declared themselves Sikandar al-sāni on their coins. By adopting
such titles, these rulers indirectly revived the glory, power, military brilliance,
and achievements of Alexander and equated themselves with him. Some of
these coins in gold and silver are preserved in museums in India and abroad
as well as in some private collections. These coins still enthrall coin collectors,
students, and numismatists.
figure 3 A gold coin proclaiming Alauddin Muhammad Khalji (1296–1316), Sultan

of Delhi, to be Alexander the Second. The inscription on the obverse
(left) reads “The supreme king / glory of the world and religion / the
father of victorious / Muhammad Shah / the king” (Al-Sultan al-aʾzam /
Ala ud-duniya waddin / Abul Muzaffar Muhammad Shah / Al-Sultan).
The inscription within the circle on the reverse (right) reads “Alexander,
the second / righthand of the caliph, helper / of the commander of the
faithful” (Sikandar al-sāni / Yamin al-Khilafa Nāsir / Amir-ul-mominīn),
and around the margin is written “Struck this coin at capital Delhi [in]
year seven hundred and nine [hijri]” (Zarb haza al-sikka ba-hazrat Dehli
sanh tisaʾ wa sabamayah). Mint: Hazrat Dehli; date: tisaʾ wa sabʾamayah =
AH 709 (1309–1310 CE); metal: gold; weight: 10.99 g; provenance:
acc. no. CMIN 2658, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

182 Hussain
figure 4 A silver coin proclaiming Alauddin Muhammad Khalji, Sultan of Delhi, to

be Alexander the Second. The inscription on the obverse (left) reads “The
supreme king / glory of the world and religion / the father of victorious /
Muhammad Shah / the king” (Al-Sultan al-aʾzam / Ala ud-duniya waddin /
Abul Muzaffar Muhammad Shah / Al-Sultan). The inscription on the reverse
(right) reads “Alexander, the second / right hand of the caliph, helper / of
the commander of the faithful” (Sikandar al-sani / Yamin al-Khilafa Nāsir /
Amir-ul-mominīn). The margin reads “Struck this silver coin at capital Delhi …”
(Zarb haza al-fizza ba-hazrat Dehli …). Mint: Hazrat Dehli; date: out of flan;
metal: silver; weight: 11.01 g; provenance: acc. no. CMIN 2660, Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge
figure 5 A silver coin proclaiming Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah (1342–1357), Sultan of Bengal,
to be Alexander the Second. The obverse (left) reads “The just king / sun of the
world and religion / the father of victorious Ilyas / Shah, the king” (Al-Sultan
al-ʿādil / Shamsudduniya waddin / Abul Muzaffar Ilyas / Shah As-Sultan). On
the reverse (right), the inscription within the circle reads “Alexander, the
second / right hand of the caliph, helper / of the commander of the faithful”
(Sikandar al-sāni / Yamin al-Khilafa / Amir-ul-mominīn), while the inscription
on the margin reads “Struck this coin at the seat of majesty, Sunargaon [in]
year seven hundred and fifty-five [hijri]” (Zarb haza al-sikka ba-hazrat /
Jalal Sunargaon sanh khams wa khamsīn wa sabʾamaya). Mint: Hazrat Jalal
Sunargaon; date: [Khams] wa khamsīn wa sabʾamayah = AH 75[5] (1354 CE);
metal: silver; weight: 10.70 g [approx.]; size: 28 mm; provenance: acc. no.
CM13_2002 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

In modern times, some television serials and films have also been based
on the life of the great hero. The first Hindi film on the theme was titled
Sikandar (Alexander). It was released in 1941, when the national movement
for India’s independence was at its peak. Legendary film artists Prithviraj
Kapoor, Vanmala Devi, and Sohrab Modi played main roles in the film. The film
depicted Alexander as an invader in order to incite national unity among the
Indians against British colonial rule. The film featured a famous classical song
titled Jite desh hamara (May our country become victorious). Sikandar-i-aʾzam
(Alexander the Great, 1965) was another Hindi film based on the life and
achievements of Alexander, particularly in the context of his Indian invasion.
More recently, films such as Muqaddar ka Sikandar (As fortunate as Alexander,
1978) and Jo jita wahi Sikandar (The person who wins is Alexander, 1992) have
been produced. These two films became very popular among ordinary mov-
iegoers. In the former, Amitabh Bachhan, the great Indian film hero, played a
memorable role. A famous song in the film contains the following lines: rote
huei āte hain sab haṇsta hua tu jayega; who muqaddar ka Sikandar jān-i-man
kahlayega (All come into the [world] weeping but you will go from here while
laughing; he will be called the Alexander of [good] fortune). These recent films
have nothing to do with the life or career of Alexander, but their titles dem-
onstrate that the memory of Alexander has not yet faded from the minds of
Indians and that the great hero is still regarded as a symbol of good fortune
and victory. In 1991, a historical, nonfictional Hindi television serial named
Chanakya was produced by Chandra Prakash Dwivedi. Its forty-seven episodes
were broadcast in 1991–1992 on Doordarshan, the national television channel of
India. The script and dialogue of the serial, especially in those episodes dealing
with Alexander and his invasion of India, reflect a modern sense of national-
ism. For instance, in episode 10 of the serial, Chanakya says, “Will this nation
[be able to] save its culture, its tradition and life-values, from the invaders? Who
will explain to them that divided into districts India is [in fact] an unbroken
nation?” (Keya ākrantaon ke samakch ye rāshtra apni sanskriti apni prampar-
aon aur jivanmulyon ki raksha kar payega? Kaun unhe samjhayega ke janpadon
mein baṇta hua Bhārat ek akhand rāshtra hai?). The concept of akhand Bhārat
has been a vision of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), a politico-
cultural party, for a long time. But this concept has reemerged with the rise to
power of the present BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) government in India. In fact,
Chanakya’s relevance in modern India was first realized by Jawaharlal Nehru,
as indicated above in the quotation from The Discovery of India (1961, 122–123),
because, as Michael Liebig writes, “Kautilya [i.e., Chanakya] symbolizes the
first political unification of the Indian subcontinent” (2013, 101). Outside of

184 Hussain
figure 6 Advertisement for undergarments seen on television and on billboards.

A model smiles at a monkey who, by donning a certain brand of men’s
underwear, has become as civilized and fortunate as Alexander the Great was.
popular television serials and entertainment programs, some advertisements for

consumer goods in India invoke the name of Alexander as an emblem of victory
and good fortune (Fig. 6).
17 Conclusion
In sum, we find a large body of writings on Alexander in South Asia. All of

this literature on Alexander is deeply rooted in a strong oral tradition that
has persisted until modern times. One may be surprised that all of these writ-
ings directly or indirectly relating to Alexander belong to the modern period.
Alexander’s invasion, his victory over King Porus, and other related stories

are not mentioned in any contemporary or near-contemporary sources from

antiquity. One reason for this lacuna may be that there was no historiographic
tradition in India during the ancient period. The most authentic and direct
historical work is Kalhana’s Rajtarangini (1148), which is a history of Kashmir.
It was during the medieval period that the tradition of writing history began
in India. So this hiatus in the lore of Alexander should not be viewed as inten-
tional, nor should it be deemed a “conspiracy of silence.”
Urdu poetry has depicted Alexander in various contexts, but nowhere do we
find any reference to Alexander’s invasion of India and his war with King Porus.
Most of the Urdu poets, such as Iqbal, have used Alexander’s name in various
metaphoric ways. The rise of nationalism and the independence movement in
India spurred the growth of nationalist literature. Alexander’s portrayal as an
invader and the disunity in contemporary Indian society has been stressed by
scholars, poets, and literary personages in order to instill the fire of national-
ism in the younger generation. Some of Iqbal’s couplets also aimed to develop
a sense of self-confidence and national spirit in the youth of the country. Hindi
poets and drama writers like Jayshankar Prasad, Rahul Sankirtayayan, Udai
Shankar Bhutt, Ram Kumar Verma, Amritlal Nagar, and others have depicted
Alexander’s invasion in the context of the rise of nationalism in India. The
bravery, courage, and boldness with which Porus fought Alexander was to
some degree preserved in the oral tradition of India. Nationalist poets and lau-
reates put this tradition in writing in order to rediscover India’s glorious past
and cultivate the spirit of nationalism among youth in order to prepare them
to fight against British imperialism.
Alexander’s life, career, and achievement are still alive in India’s popular
culture. Sometimes the name Sikandar is used as a proverbial allusion, particu-
larly in contexts of good fortune, victory, and wealth. We may conclude with
an excerpt from a popular Urdu book on Alexander, Sikandar-i-aʾzam: ʿAzīm
fāteh Sikandar-i-aʾzam ki lamha ba lamha dastān-i-heyāt (Alexander the great:
A step by step life-story of the great conqueror). In the chapter on the demise
of Alexander, the author, Shahid Mukhtar, states:
Sikandar ek aisa shakhs tha jo ba-yak waqt insān bhi tha aur devta bhi, maot
ka sab se baḍa tājir bhi tha aur insāniat ka khidmatgār bhi, zālim bhi tha
aur zulm ko rokne wala bhi. Shahron ke shahr tabāh karne wala bhi aur
shahr ābād karne wala bhi. ʿIlm ka sab se baḍa matlāshi bhi aur khud
apne zamāne ka ek baḍa ʿālim bhi. Woh ek aisa insān tha jise Khuda ne
be-shumār salāhiyaton se nawaza tha lekin yeh koi aise achambhe ki bāt
nahin. Khuda-dād salāhiyaton ke lehāz se to har shakhs Sikandar hota hai
magar un ke istʾmāl ke lehāz se duniya mein sirf ek hi Sikandar paida hua

186 Hussain
hai aur ba-qaole Aflatūn ke har shakhs ʿaql-i-salīm rakhta hai magar har
shakhs usei istʾmāl nahin karta. Yahi farq sikandar aur dusre logon mein
tha. Sikandar insāniat se māʾwara koi shaiʾ nahin tha. Balke usne Khuda
ki ʿata kardah salāhiyaton ko bharpūr tariqe se istʾmāl kar ke yeh muqām
hāsil kiya tha.
Mukhtar 2005b, 143
Alexander was the sort of being who was a man and at the same time
a god, too; he was a slayer and also a servant to humanity, a tyrant who
also controlled tyranny. He destroyed city after city, but he also caused
cities to flourish. He was a great seeker of knowledge as well as a learned
scholar himself. He was a man who had been endowed with many quali-
ties by nature; but this is not curious. Every man is Alexander, so far
as the God-given merits are concerned. But so far as the utilization of
these merits is concerned, there was but one Alexander. And according
to Aristotle every man possesses a sound mind, but not everyone uses
it properly. This is the very difference between Alexander and others.
Alexander was not a being beyond the human domain, he merely fully
exploited his God-given merits and carved this position for himself.
It would not be too much to say that Alexander is still regarded as a world
hero – a hero without boundaries and borders. His memory and romance was
shaped and reshaped; his character and characteristics as depicted in demotic
literature and popular media still enthrall and inspire people.
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Asian Review of World Histories 9 (2021) 157–188