Ganga Ridai - Do we have any history expert who can shed light on it?
An supposedly ancient kingdom in eastern India which supposedly possessed larger & stronger army than of Alexander's army. The king of Ganga Ridai threatened to counter attack Alexander which is considered one reason why Alexander withdrew from India so soon. Only some greek & egyptian sources talk about this mighty kingdom however later history of Ganga Ridai is not clear & not available online. How did it rise or where did it gone? No one knows. Do we have any expert on Indian history here who can help me find out info on Ganga Ridai?
Well I am no expert in Indian history, and you are right in that there is no mention of Ganga Ridai or Gangaridae in any of the history books (at least the ones I have read). Much of the description is very fantastic - so one cant be sure how much is truth or otherwise.
As far as withdrawal or retreat of Alexander is concerned, the agreed view is that his army's strength and morale had significantly depleted, and after the victory over "Porus", he could not have faced the very significantly stronger Magadha (and probably Ganga Ridai) army. His army simply refused to march on, and his generals also advised him to retreat.The main reason why the Gangaridai was not mentioned in many of contemporary text is because it was a name given by the west, ie the likes of Megasthenes in Indica. It can be ascertained that the Alexander’s spies referred to the combined armies of Magadha and Pracii , the two massive empires based in modern day Bengal and Bihar.
Gangaridai wasn't just a name presented by Greek and Roman historians.It was an actual empire with the actual name when we look down in the history we can see that in the Greek mythology there are several accounts when the name Gangaridai came just like in the epic "Argonautica" there the greeks have mentioned of a chieftain named 'Datis' who fought in the army of Peres the third against Aeetes of the Colchis
"On the doors will I represent in gold and ivory the battle of the Gangaridae and the arms of our victorious Quirinius. "---Virgil, "Georgics" (III, 27)
It's clear that the Gangaridaians traded and fought alongside with the Greeks in many battle. Argonautica was an epic written by Apollonius Rhodius some three thousand years ago.So they can;t be just imaginary and therefore it was the declining period of Gangaridai who was ruling northern India with a coalition with
Nanda empire when Alexander invaded India
