According to the Greeks, Alexander was not defeated militarily. He defeated King Porus at the Battle of Hydaspes, albeit with high casualties.
However, the King did not advance any further on India, because his army mutinied, and somewhat forced Alexander to retreat. The reasons that the army mutinied were
- Soldiers missed their families, and became tired of endless battles.
- Greek soldiers feared the might of Nanda army, which had 6,000 war elephants.
- Alexander himself was probably wounded. Indian arrow penetrated one of his lungs in the Mallian Campaign even though he won the siege.
At the Battle of Hydaspes and in the Mallian Campaign, Indian resistance was fierce. Unlike in Persia that most cities surrendered, Alexander had to siege each Indian city one by one to capture it. If he invaded the Nanda Empire, he then had to face this kind of fierce resistance, and probably ended up in defeat. Greek soldiers knew this, and lost their spirits to fight.
More importantly, Chanakya, the son of an important minster in the Nanda court, recognized the threat Alexander posed to India and decided to warn the king. However, the king did not heed his advice as there was bad blood between the two. Shortly afterwards, Chanakya trained his new disciple Chandragupta and his other students to drive out the Greek invaders as well as overthrow the many corrupt kingdoms at the time. To achieve this, he used
guerrilla warfare, asymmetric warfare and a network of spies to unify India for the first time politically under Chandragupta. Growing insurgency and discontent in the Greek army made it harder to administer the areas where Alexander had made gains. So, they left.
Chanakya was the first person to conceive of a politically not only culturally unified India possibly due to the fact that he travelled a lot and was very educated which made him aware of the many similarities between Princely states.
According to Plutarch,
the courage of the Macedonians evaporated when they came to know the Nandas “were awaiting them with 200,000 infantry, 80,000 cavalry, 8000 war chariots and 6000 fighting elephants”. Undoubtedly, Alexander’s army would have walked into a slaughterhouse.
To conclude, the might and fighting spirit of the Indian army defeated Alexander, and hindered his ambitions to be the Emperor of the World. Although, have to admit that the traditional forms of Chinese martial arts was inspired from the the ancient art form of Kalaripayattu. Elements from the
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, as well as finger movements in the
natadances, were incorporated into the fighting arts. A number of South Asian fighting styles remain closely connected to
yoga, dance and performing arts.
P.S: Disclaimer: History is like a Russian doll; or a mystery with many versions of the truth. Usually colored with people's perceptions; but still this is the most circulated narrative.
Sources :-
- Wiki,
- Quora,
-
https://www.rbth.com/blogs/2013/05/27/marshal_zhukov_on_alexanders_failed_india_invasion_25383,
-http://googleweblight.com/i?geid=1005&hl=en-IN&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpenelope.uchicago.edu%2FThayer%2FE%2FRoman%2FTexts%2FPlutarch%2FLives%2FAlexander*%2F9.html