defeat of Cyrus – at India

Cyrus The Great

The first inheritor of the Assyrian Empire, was the Persian Achaemenid dynasty (Hakhamanish in Persian) – of which Cyrus (Kurush in Persian) The Great, was the first ruler. He was victorious in battle after battle – and his armies defeated all others they came across. Building on the Assyrian Empire, he expanded his empire across most of Southwest Asia and much of Central Asia, from Egypt and the Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east.

His rule (ca 554-529) was the object of much study by Greeks and Romans. Xenophon, in Cyropaedia, thought that Cyrus was ‘the ideal of monarchy.’ Building on the Assyrian territories, his empire was the largest the world had yet seen. Dr.Abul Kalam Azad, the Indian political leader, also the first education Minister of the post-colonial Indian Republic, theorized that Cyrus The Great was the Koranic character of Dhul-Qarnayn – and not Alexander The Great.

Death of Cyrus – and India

After all these victories, Cyrus turned his attention India wards. Trying to conquer India, Cyrus The Great met his nemesis,  at the hands of an army with significant Indian component. The defeat of Cyrus The Great, reverberated in the Western world. A Greek writer, well travelled in Asia and Northern India, Herodotus,

judged it to be be the bloodiest battle he had witnessed. Not even a Persian messenger survived to carry the tale of the battle, and for years his people did not know what had become of Cyrus. (from Women Warriors By David E. Jones).

In the battle against the Massaga, resulting in the defeat and death of Cyrus, against Queen Tomyris, Indianelephants played a crucial role. After their defeat at the hands of Tomyris, the Persians (then Zoroastrians) did not use elephants (considered evil by Zoroastrians).

After their defeat at Indian borders, at the hands of the Massagetae, Persians foccussed their expansionary ambitions towards Europe – and Greece in particular, – and stopped looking India wards. Alexander the Great, renamed the site of the Cyrus-Tomyris battle as Alexandria Eschate – which was earlier known as Kurushkhatta (Kurukshetra?) /Kyreschata /Kuruškatha.

chaemenids did not learn their lessons from the death of Cyrus their Great. Possibly, the outcome against Alexander would have been different, had they used more elephants at Gaugamela – instead of 12-15. Similarly, a 1000 years later, the Sassanian army, had forgotten their lessons – and could not use their few elephants to full effect, against the Islamic Arabs.

But, the Sassanian dynasty was able to wrest back and defend the Persian dominions from the Greco-Romans, after setting up an elephants corps in their army – evidenced, for instance, by the carvings at Taq-i-Bustan. At one time, the Sassanian rulers had increased its elephant corps to 12,000 elephants.

In the character of their warfare, the Persians of the Sassanian period did not greatly differ from the same people under the Achaemenian kings. The principal changes which time had brought about were an almost entire disuse of the war chariot, [PLATE XLVI. Fig. 3.] and the advance of the elephant corps into a very prominent and important position. Four main arms of the service were recognized, each standing on a different level: viz. the elephants, the horse, the archers, and the ordinary footmen. The elephant corps held the first position. It was recruited from India, but was at no time very numerous. Great store was set by it; and in some of the earlier battles against the Arabs the victory was regarded as gained mainly by this arm of the service. … The elephant corps was under a special chief, known as the Zend-hapet, or “Commander of the Indians,” either because the beasts came from that country, or because they were managed by natives of Hindustan. (from The Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World By George Rawlinson).