Searching for the Historical Jesus

To find if there was a historical Jesus, scholars who study the gospels apply a number of techniques to sift through theology and miracles to find if there is a kernel of truth. Thomas Sheehan’s Historical Jesus is an excellent introduction to the methodology.
Since searching for this Historical Jesus a popular topic, a large number of books are still published each month. Adam Gopnik at New Yorker has a wonderful article which summarizes the current state of affairs in this field.

Malcolm X was the very model of a modern apocalyptic prophet-politician, unambiguously preaching violence and a doctrine of millennial revenge, all fuelled by a set of cult beliefs—a hovering U.F.O., a strange racial myth. But Malcolm was also a community builder, a moral reformer (genuinely distraught over the sexual sins of his leader), who refused to carry weapons, and who ended, within the constraints of his faith, as some kind of universalist. When he was martyred, he was called a prophet of hate; within three decades of his death—about the time that separates the Gospels from Jesus—he could be the cover subject of a liberal humanist magazine like this one. One can even see how martyrdom and “beatification” draws out more personal detail, almost perfectly on schedule: Alex Haley, Malcolm’s Paul, is long on doctrine and short on details; thirty years on, Spike Lee, his Mark, has a full role for a wife and children, and a universalist message that manages to blend Malcolm into Mandela. [WHAT DID JESUS DO?]

One of the points Gopnik makes is that the four canonical gospels were written after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E. If you go to the church in Niranam, a small village in Southern Kerala, there is a board which tells you that the church was found by St. Thomas in 52 C.E. If Thomas came to Kerala at that time, he would not have known about the four canonical gospels. Even if he had known about Mark or the source Q, he would have known a different Yeshua. For example, in Mark there is no virgin birth or resurrection; those came in later gospels.

The Gandharans in Thermopylae and Plataea

In August or September of 480 BCE, the 38 year old Xerxes, the Zoroastrian king of the Achaemenid Empire, set off to wage a war against the Greeks.There were two famous battles, The Battle of Thermopylae — immortalized by movies like 300 and novels like Gates of Fire — and The Battle of Plataea where the Greeks took revenge. Less known is the fact that people from the Indian subcontinent participated in both the battles.

Cyrus (576 – 530 BCE) expanded the Achaemenid Empire from Egypt to the Indus. The region called Paropamisadae (Hindu-Kush, Kabul, Bagram) was under Achaemenid control since the time of Darius I (522 – 486 BCE). The Persians called this region India. Darius built a palace in Susa in Elam and according to a text he got sisoo-timber and ivory from Gandhara. Also the ivory came from India. 

The 20th satrapy was India and it paid the largest tribute — 360 talents of gold dust — even more than Babylon. The primary source regarding Indians of this era is Herodotus; according to Herodotus, the Indians spoke many languages and some of them were nomads. Also some Indians were cannibals, had black semen and had gold-digging ants. So the “first” historian’s statements have to be taken with a pinch of sodium chloride. This 20th satrapy was located at the junction of a road network connecting Central Asia, West Asia and Kashmir. While invaders, art, and languages came into India via this route, Indian soldiers also went West as mercenaries.

In 490 BCE, Darius I tried to subdue Greece in the Battle of Marathon, but was routed. Following Darius’ death in 486 BCE, his son Xerxes decided to take revenge. The line of defence was the pass of Thermopylae. Sparta sent only a token elite force under the leadership of one of its two kings – Leonidas. Their allies too stayed back, citing various reasons. It was like the scene in India when Alexander arrived around 200 years later.

According to Herodotus, 1,700,000 Persian troops and 1200 warships arrived for the war against the Greek Coalition of the Willing. The Indians wore clothes made of cotton and carried reed bows and arrows of reed with iron heads. They were under the command of Pharnazathres who was the son of Artabates. There were Indian cavalrymen as well as those who rode horses and chariots pulled by horses and asses. 

Following the famous Spartan defeat at Thermopylae, there were naval battles at Artemisium and Salamis which was followed by the decisive Battle of Plataea. In this battle, the Spartans were not alone: Athens, Corinth, and Megara joined the alliance of states. Herodotus mentions that around 110,000 Persian troops from various countries were deployed near the Asopus River. There is a brief mention of where the Indians stood relative to the other troops and nothing more.

In this battle fought near Thebes, the Persian infantry was defeated and expelled from the Greece. The leading Persian commander Mardonius was killed. We mostly read the Western interpretation of these wars. For these historians, the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans were killed, represents patriotism while the Battle of Plataea shows how a defeated force can come together and rout a superpower. Unfortunately we don’t have any Indian accounts of these battles.

References:

  1. Paul Cartledge, Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World (Vintage, 2007). 
  2. Robert B. Strassler,The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories Reprint. (Anchor, 2009). 

Indian History Carnival – 29

  1. As a response to the 2004 paper by  Farmer, Sproat & Witzel which argues that the Harappans were illiterate, Sukumar, Priya Raju and NK Sreedhar  have published a paper which refutes that theory.
  2. With all due respect to FSW, we reached the conclusion that most of their arguments can be refuted. The paper can be downloaded at Response_to_FSW2_Paper_v3.1-Final .  If you are really interested in the IVC research, i strongly recommend that you read the FSW paper as well as our response to it. Please chime in with your comments.

  3. Takshashila was a cosmopolitan town from where great scholarship, new styles of art form, and future emperors would emerge. It was a historic meeting place of the East and the West
  4. .

    After a 30 day rest, Alexander crossed the Indus into “the country of Indians” and on the other side he was met by an army in battle formation. This was highly unexpected. The king of Takshashila, Ambhi or Oomphis, had sent word that he would not oppose Alexander and would fight on his side. When it looked as if Ambhi had reneged on his promise, Alexander ordered his army to get ready.

  5. The Hamilton bridge in Chennai: How did that name come about? Maddy explains
  6. So is Gauri right? Was there a lord Hamilton in Madras? According to Muthiah, none. He opines however, that Madras had no Governor named Hamilton to justify the story that the bridge was named after a Governor of Madras. He adds … The only other Hamilton of any significance I’ve come across during this period is William Hamilton, a Civilian. When Major-General Archibald Campbell became Governor of Madras in 1785, he divided the administration into four Boards: Military, Hospital, Revenue and Trade. One of the four civil servants who constituted the Board of Trade was William Hamilton. That would have made him an eminent enough person to have something named after him. And why not a bridge, if he lived close-by?

  7. The first train in South India ran on July 1, 1856 from Arcot for a distance of 100 KM. It reached Beypore in 1861 and till the Calicut station was opened, Beypore served as the main station for Malabar.
  8. The Asylum for 1888, describes Beypore thus: The terminus of the line on the western coast. There is an hotel on the station premises for the accommodation of travellers. Calicut, the principal town of Malabar is 9 miles distant and the population is 57,085. The Beypore river is crossed in boats, and bullock bandies (‘vandi ‘in Malayalam!)can be obtained on the other side. Traveller to Cannanore and other places would find it most convenient to take passages in the B.I.S.N Company’s Steamers which call weekly at Beypore except during the South West Monsoon, though it is possible to make the journey by land through Calicut and Tellicherry, travelling partly by bullock cart and partly by boat on the backwaters. 

  9. In 1937, Ursula Graham Bower came to India to find a husband. Instead she became a guerilla leader with a price on her head.
  10. 1942, Malaya, Singapore, and Burma had fallen to the Japanese. Guerrilla troop V Force came into being; British officers who led local tribesmen in patrolling the border. Ursula was an early recruit to the force but only ad interim until an officer could be found to replace her. She formed a band of 150 Naga warriors patrolling with her the dense jungle hills between Burma and India. Nothing came to pass in 1942 or 1943, and Ursula was still not replaced.

  11. In 1942, the British discovered a lake in Roopkund filled with skeletons. It seemed as if they all died in the same manner.
  12. However, the short deep cracks in the skulls appeared to be the result not of weapons but of something rounded. The bodies also only had wounds on their heads, and shoulders as if the blows had all come from directly above…

If you find any posts related to Indian history published in the past one month, please send it to jk AT varnam DOT org or send a tweet to @varnam_blog. The next carnival will be up on June 15th.

Stone inscription with Indus signs


(Indus Signs from a earlier find in Dholavira)

An inscription on stone, with three big Indus signs and possibly a fourth, has been found on the Harappan site of Dholavira in Gujarat.
The discovery is significant because this is the first time that the Indus script has been found engraved on a natural stone in the Indus Valley. The Indus script has so far been found on seals made of steatite, terracotta tablets, ceramics and so on. Dholavira also enjoys the distinction of yielding a spectacularly large Indus script with 10 big signs on wood. This inscription was three-metre long. [Stone inscription with Indus signs found in Gujarat]

Dholavira, located on the island of Khadir in the Rann of Kutch, is among the top five Harappan cities in terms of size. Previously an inscription with ten large size signs of Indus script was found here. This sign board was hung on a wooden plank in front of a large stadium.
It is usually mentioned that if the Indus script indeed did represent something, it must have been for the elite. The sign board at Dholavira refuted that claim. It has also been mentioned quite often that the Harappans never wrote anything on stone. This discovery refutes that claim too.
This new find — the stone with three or four inscriptions — is not really a new find. It was discovered in 1999 and was even mentioned in the 2007 ASI report. Finally in 2010, someone decided to take a look which makes you wonder how many such Indus script pieces must be lying in the basement of various Government institutions.

Faking Noah's Ark

A major breaking news few days back was the “discovery” of “Noah’s Ark.” Yes, that Noah’s Ark. It was discovered by Turkish and Chinese Evangelicals on top of Mount Ararat in Turkey. For years many explorers, who literally believe in the Bible, have searched for it in Turkey and it was even featured on PBS.
Finally the lucky ones were the Noah’s Ark Ministries from Hong Kong and their partner The Media Evangelism.

The team said it had recovered wooden specimens from a structure on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey that carbon dating proved was 4800 years old, around the same time the ark is said to have been afloat.
“It’s not 100 per cent that it is Noah’s Ark but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it,” said Yeung Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong documentary filmmaker and member of the 15-strong team from Noah’s Ark Ministries International.
The structure had several compartments, some with wooden beams, which were believed to house animals, he said. [Noah’s Ark ‘found’ in Turkey]

An artifact from a story, recycled from a Sumerian epic, discovered by a group of people who want to “advance the Kingdom of God.”; What could go wrong? Especially when the same group runs a theme park by the same name.
It is bad when one of your team members think that a group of local Kurdish men hauled the wood from the Black Sea area to Mt. Ararat to stage a hoax. It is a disaster when members of Creation Institute want to stay away from you. So it is not surprising when scholars dismiss the story, here and here and here and here. And now the Turkish authorities are investigating
Adam Rutherford at The Guardian writes about these artificial relics.

It seems to me that the physical aspects of Christianity are so much less interesting than the intellectual. Did Jesus exist? No one knows. And while I understand the import of his actual existence and more significantly his gory death, what’s far more fascinating is that billions of people believe in him. Did Noah’s ark exist? No. But there are diluvian myths in many cultures and religion, and that’s interesting. The problem with relics is that they are fundamentally silly, and that limits discourse to the absurd. [A pain in the ark]

In Pragati – Takshashila: The lighthouse of a civilization

(Ancient Buddhist Monastery at Jaulian, Takshashila)

Between 576 – 530 BCE, the Achaemenid emperor Cyrus established an empire which extended from Egypt to the Indus — the largest empire the world had seen so far. His successor Darius incorporated Gandhara with Takshashila as its capital, on the Eastern border, as a satrapy. Over the next millennia Takshashila was invaded many times and it became a cosmopolitan town from where great scholarship, new styles of art form, and future emperors would emerge. It was a historic meeting place of the East and the West.
The University Town
Takshashila was primarily a center for learning; an inscribed ladle from the Achaemenid period indicates that this place was a retreat for monks and scholars.  We don’t know exactly from when Takshashila was a university town. What we know is that it is mentioned as a place of learning in the pre-Buddhist Jataka tales. In fact Takshashila was a well known place even before Buddha’s period. According to Ramayana, the city was founded by Bharata who named it after his son Taksha. As per Mahabharata, Janamejaya held his court in Takshashila and it was here that Vaisampayana first narrated the story of the conflict between the Pandavas and Kauravas. The Vayu Purana mentions that Takshashila in Gandhara district is well known for the consecration of Taksha, the serpent prince.
During Buddha’s time it was a well known place of Hindu and Buddhist learning along the Uttarapatha or Northern Route. Students — Brahmin youth, princes, sons of rich merchants — trekked from the cities of the Gangetic plain to complete their advanced education: Jotipala, the son of a Brahmin priest in the court of the King of Benares returned after graduating in archery and military science and was appointed the commander-in-chief. Jivika, Bimbisara’s physician who cured Buddha, learned medicine in Takshashila. Prasenajit, the king of Kosala, who too was associated with Buddha was educated in Takshashila.
It was in this city that Panini produced one of the greatest achievement in grammar and Chanakya composed the treatise on statecraft. Students, who were admitted at the age of 16, learned the Vedas and arts (archery, hunting, elephant lore, political economy). There were schools for Law, Medicine and Military Science educating future emperors like Chandragupta Maurya.
There was no single Takshashila University in the modern sense. Each teacher formed his own institution, teaching as many students as he liked and teaching subjects he liked without conforming to any centralized syllabus. If a teacher had a large number of students, he assigned one of his advanced students to teach them. Teachers did not deny education if the student was poor; those students had to do manual work in the household. Paying students like princes were lodged in the teacher’s house and were taught during the day; non-paying ones, at night.
Trade & Art
Greek historians accompanying Alexander described the place as “wealthy, prosperous and well governed”. According to Strabo, Takshashila was a large city governed by good laws. The country was heavily populated and extremely fertile. Apollonius of Tyana who visited Takshashila in 46 CE observed that the people wore cotton and had sandals made of papyrus with a leather cap. The layout of the streets and houses reminded him of Athens.
Takshashila was also strategically located; it was the junction of a road network connecting Central Asia, West Asia and Kashmir. The “Royal Highway” connecting Takshashila to Pataliputra was precursor to the Grand Trunk Road. Horses, gold, luxury textiles, precious stones – all passed through Takshashila from the Gangetic plains to the Achaemenid world.  The Aramaic script came into India through this path and influenced the Kharoshthi script which was used for trade and administration. According to John Marshall, Kharoshthi was derived at Takshashila.
The imports were all not one way: During the time of Xerxes, the successor of Darius, Indian soldiers served in the Achaemenid forces and some of them fought in the Battle of Thermopylae against King Leonidas of Sparta. The Indian soldiers also participated in the Battle of Plataea, a year later, in which the Greek city states defeated the Persians. Through these contacts, historians like Herodotus got exotic ideas of India.
Takshashila, an important place in the east-west trade,  was also the melting pot of various cultures — Hindu, Buddhist, Persian, Greek. The interaction between Greek and Buddhist cultures influenced Buddhist art and it was here that Buddha was represented in human form for the first time by artists who were not restricted by the strict Buddhist rules in India. This Gandharan style, which combined Greco-Roman style from Alexandria, Hellenistic and Indian styles, influenced not just the Indians, but also the Central Asians and the South East Asians. The rock inscriptions of Asoka were influenced by the rock edicts of Darius in Gandhara. This melting pot culture affected the education with Greek dramas and philosophy being taught along with Indian texts.
The Invaders
Following the rule of Artaxerxes II (404 – 359 BCE), the Achaemenid rule declined and local chiefs became independent. After a period of quiescence for three decades, the trade routes brought a new invader and Takshashila surrendered without a fight. In early 327 BCE, half of Alexander’s army marched through the Khyber Pass and reached the shores of Indus. After subduing the hill tribes, Alexander and rest of the army joined them in 326 BCE at Ohind at the border of Takshashila.
After a 30 day rest, Alexander crossed the Indus into “the country of Indians” and on the other side he was met by an army in battle formation. This was highly unexpected. The king of Takshashila, Ambhi or Oomphis, had sent word that he would not oppose Alexander and would fight on his side. When it looked as if Ambhi had reneged on his promise, Alexander ordered his army to get ready.
Ambhi rode up alone towards the Greeks and he was met by Alexander who too rode up alone. Realizing that what came from Alexander’s mouth was all Greek, interpreters were summoned. Ambhi explained that he had come to put both his army and the kingdom at Alexander’s disposal. He also gifted elephants, large sheep and 3000 bulls to Alexander prompting the Greek to ask Ambhi if he as into husbandry. While Ambhi surrendered meekly, his neighbor Porus gave Alexander a good fight and lost. But Porus was praised; This battle, Battle of the Hydaspes, was immortalized by Western painters like André Castaigne ,Charles Le Brun and artists in Russia. It also made Ambhi a traitor, for aligning with a foreigner.
Alexander left in 325 BCE and the Greek power declined. Takshashila then became part of the Mauryan empire, under the leadership of Chandragupta Maurya, who apparently was present in Takshashila during Alexander’s invasion. We hear of Takshashila later when Chandragupta Maurya’s grandson Asoka arrived to quell a rebellion which did successfully without creating resentment among people. In 232 BCE, after Asoka’s death, Takshashila became independent; new coins were issued by a non-Mauryan authority. It fell under the Bactrian Greek influence till 50 BCE, Parthian and Saka influence till 60 CE and Kushans till the end of the second century. The Kushan emeror Kanishka had a regional capital in Takshashila.
When the Chinese pilgrim Sung-Yun visited Takshashila in 520 CE, it was already under the Huns who had been ruling for two generations. Sung-Yun noted that the Huns did not believe in the law of Buddha and were cruel and vindictive. According to him, the people of Takshashila were Brahmins who respected the law of Buddha. When Fa Hian visited in the fifth century there were numerous monasteries and stupas. When Xuanzang visited in the 7th century, Takshashila’s monasteries had become ruins and the royal family had become extinct. With the loss of royal patronage and with the ascendency of Saivite and Vaishnavite traditions, Buddhism disappeared from Takshashila.
Soon the city also declined. The political and administrative support perished. The population migrated and the city, after a millennium, became a set of rural settlements. But the memory of the old city did not die; When Alberuni visited in the eleventh century CE, he identified the new name Marikala with the old name Takshashila.
Notes:

  1. This article appeared in the May 2010 edition of Pragati
  2. Images from Wikipedia

References:

  1. Abraham Eraly, Gem in the Lotus: The Seeding of Indian Civilisation, 2005.
  2. A. Dani, Historic City of Taxila (Bernan Press(PA), 1986).
  3. Radhakumud Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya and his times, 3rd ed. (Motilal Banarsidass, 1960).
  4. John Keay, India: A History (Grove Press, 2001).
  5. Upinder Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, 1st ed. (Prentice Hall, 2009).

A Passage to Infinity

After Kim Plofker’s Mathematics in India and a glowing review by Prof. David Mumford there is news of a new book on the Kerala School of Mathematics. The Economic Times has an interview with George Gheevarghese Joseph, the author of A Passage to Infinity

The other strand, the social context of the Kerala School’s achievements, is found in the history of Kerala between the 7th and 14th centuries AD. Around that period, groups of Brahmins began to migrate from the North (mainly from Maharashtra and the Konkan coast of Goa). This continued for the next three or four centuries, bringing with them not only their rituals but their Sanskritic learning.
The impact of this wholesale importation of knowledge and skills cannot be over-estimated. Not only astronomy and mathematics, but architecture, literature and even the very language, Malayalam, were affected beyond recognition. From this group emerged the Nambuthiri Brahmins, wealthy and highly influential in the courts of the rulers in Kerala. Almost all the members of the Kerala School (with two notable exceptions) were from this group.
It is quite likely that these members of the Kerala School constituted a leisured class as the younger sons, who because of the peculiar primogeniture system prevalent, had little or no family responsibilities and could concentrate on scholarship and study, including mathematics and astronomy, if they were so inclined. [‘Indian mathematics loved numbers’]

Rigging Elections in 472 BCE

Sudan’s President Omar al Bashir was declared the winner of the recent elections — elections in which there were widespread allegations of fraud. One of the videos which surfaced on the Internet appeared to show election officials stuffing ballot boxes. In 472 BCE, there was no YouTube, but we have evidence of possible vote rigging in Athens.

A cache of almost 200 ostraka has been found down a well in Athens, each with the name “Themistocles” written on them (in a limited number of hands; they’re pictured at the top of this post). It’s a clear hint that the system was manipulable. “Get your Themistocles ostrakon here” someone must have been shouting — or, given the illiteracy of much of the Athenian people, “Get your Cimon ostrakon here” — and you actually got a Themistocles ostrakon, without realising it.[WBLG: A three-cornered election: the ancient Athenian solution]

Looking for Punt

Some time in the 15th century BCE, the female Pharoah Hatshepsut sent ships to a place called Punt. But we don’t know where that place is, even now.

So elusive is the answer that, since the mid-19th century, a procession of scholars have, like erudite dart-throwers, stippled the map of the Red Sea area with their often strongly argued proposals for where Punt lay. (Refer to map at right throughout this article.) Syria. Sinai. Southern Arabia. Eastern Sudan. Northern Ethiopia. Somalia. Kenya. Each was Punt, insists this or that Egyptologist. New papers continue to appear regularly that try to put this question to bed once and for all. So far, all have failed.[NOVA | Building Pharaoh’s Ship | Where Is Punt? | PBS]

To resolve this issue, scientists are turning to two people who may know the answer: two mummified baboons in the British Museum

The team is conducting oxygen isotope tests on the preserved hairs of the baboons. Oxygen isotopes act as a ‘signal’ that can tell scientists where an animal is from.
To aid in narrowing down the location of Punt the team is also performing oxygen isotope tests on samples of modern day baboons from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, Uganda and Mozambique. If the oxygen isotope signatures of these baboons match their ancient counterparts the team will know where Punt was.[Mummified Baboons in British Museum May Reveal Location of the Land of Punt | Heritage Key]

Update (April 26): The Baboons have spoken. They say Punt was the land between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Takshashila: 2 Kings & a King Maker


(The glorious battle of Alexander, King of Macedon, and Porus, King of India. Russian lubok via Wikipedia)
In early 327 BCE, half of Alexander’s army marched through the Khyber Pass and reached the shores of Indus. After subduing the hill tribes, Alexander and rest of the army joined them in 326 BCE at Ohind at the border of Takshashila — a large and prosperous city between Indus and Jhelum. Alexander’s activities, mostly invasion, produced different reactions from three people — two kings (Ambhi & Porus) and a king maker (Chanakya).
After a 30 day rest, Alexander crossed the Indus into “the country of Indians” and on the other side he was met by an army in battle formation. This was highly unexpected. The king of Takshashila, Ambhi or Oomphis, had sent word that he would not oppose Alexander and would fight on his side. When it looked as if Ambhi had reneged on his promise, Alexander ordered his army to get ready.
Ambhi rode up alone towards the Greeks and he was met by Alexander who too rode up alone. Realizing that what came from Alexander’s mouth was all Greek, interpreters were summoned. Ambhi explained that he had come to put both his army and the kingdom at Alexander’s disposal. He also gifted elephants, large sheep and 3000 bulls to Alexander prompting the Greek to ask Ambhi if he as into husbandry. A satrap — Philip of Machatas — was appointed to govern.
Enjoying Ambhi’s hospitality, Alexander sent word to the neighboring kings to meet him and pay tribute. While few did, one king stayed away: Porus, who was not going to follow Ambhi’s foot steps. When Alexander’s envoy met Porus and asked him to meet the emperor and pay tribute, Porus replied that he would definitely come to meet the emperor, but with an army. Thus in the spring of 326 BCE the two armies met on the banks of Jhelum.
We only have the Greek account of the battle and hence the exaggeration has to be discounted. 20,000 infantry and 3000 cavalry of Porus was killed. All his chariots were destroyed, his generals were killed, so were two of his sons. According to the Greek historians — Diodorus, Arrian, Plutarch — the Greek losses were not so high. But still Porus was praised: “his courage matched his body vigor”, “he exhibited great talent in battle performing deeds not only of a general but also of a valiant soldier.” This battle, Battle of the Hydaspes, was immortalized by Western painters like André Castaigne ,Charles Le Brun and artists in Russia.
Finally the two met. In the meeting Alexander asked Porus how he wished to be treated and Porus replied, “As befits a king”. This reply under adverse conditions impressed Alexander and he returned Porus back to the throne and turned him into an ally.
So was Ambhi a traitor for aligning with a foreigner? In his book India: A History John Keay mentions that though Porus surrendered only after giving Alexander a good fight, calling Ambhi  who surrendered without a fight a traitor is  harsh judgement. An argument is that there was no concept of India as a nation and if a king like Ambhi took help from Alexander to be safe against attacks by Porus, can he be blamed?
That argument would have held, if not for the efforts of Chanakya, who saw the cultural unity among the various kingdoms. As a teacher in Takshashila, he saw students — brahmin youth, princes, sons of rich merchants — come from far away places along the uttarapatha to learn the Vedas, arts (archery, hunting, elephant lore, political economy) law, medicine, and military science. This tradition went back to Buddha’s time. Jotipala, the son of a Brahmin priest in the court of the King of Benares returned after graduating in archery and military science and was appointed the commander-in-chief. Jivika, Bimbisara’s physician who cured Buddha, learned medicine in Takshashila. Prasenajit, the king of Kosala, who too was associated with Buddha was educated in Takshashila.
Chanakya wanted to convert this cultural unity into political unity against the invader. For him, kingdoms of Ambhi and Porus, had to unite against the foreigner. He condemned foreign rule as exploitation; for the foreigner the conquered country was not his own, but a place to tax and extract wealth. He also realized that the reason Alexander was able to advance was because there was no united front: there was no leadership or pooling of resources. Alexander was able to exploit this division and was stopped only by a mutiny in his camp.
One of the first activities of Chanakya and his protegé Chandragupta was to organize resistance against the Greeks satrapies. We know this because of the writings of Justin, who was describing the return of Seleucus Nicator, an officer of Alexander  to India to expand the Greek kingdom.

Justin identified the leader of the rebellion as  Sandrocottus or Chandragupta Maurya.
There were six satrapies: three on the West of Indus and three on the East. Following Alexander’s departure, the satrapies he established started collapsing. At the same time, under the leadership of Chandragupta, a war was declared. The satraps Philip and Nicanor were assassinated and by 323 BCE, India was free of Greeks.
References:

  1. Abraham Eraly, Gem in the Lotus: The Seeding of Indian Civilisation, 2005.
  2. A. Dani, Historic City of Taxila (Bernan Press(PA), 1986).
  3. Radhakumud Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya and his times, 3rd ed. (Motilal Banarsidass, 1960).
  4. John Keay, India: A History (Grove Press, 2001).