Indian History Part 43 THE KHYBER PASS Section III: Greeks, Kushans, Sasanians and White Huns

Canberra, 2 October 2015 The regions around the Hindu Kush mountain ranges went through three hundred years of turmoil to create and consolidate kingdoms that rose and fell with the regularity and assurance of day following night. The Khyber Pass was at the centre of this upheaval and went through an era of volatility seldom […]

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Indian History Part 43 THE KHYBER PASS Section II Alexander of Macedonia

Canberra, 25 October 2015 Alexander of Macedonia, often called ‘Alexander the Great’, became the first confirmed outsider to have defeated an Indian king when he routed the army of King Porus on the banks of the River Hydaspes. How did he reach so far from his native Macedonia to the banks of the great Indus […]

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Indian History Part 43 THE KHYBER PASS: GATEWAY TO INDIA

Canberra, 14 September 2015 The English writer Rudyard Kipling’s 1890 poem The Ballad of the King’s Jest begins with this stanza: When spring-time flushes the desert grass, Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass. Lean are the camels but fat the frails, Light are the purses but heavy the bales, As the snowbound trade of the North […]

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