Indian Surprises

Alexander made a number of other truly astonishing discoveries.

The first was that there were Greek-speaking communities in India, (Imagine if Columbus had landed in America and found Native Americans speaking Spanish!)

It turns out these were descendants of Greek citizens from Turkey who had been repatriated to India by the Persians. Some of their ancestors had sold out to Persian rulers in the distant past. When Alexander found out about this, being the bighearted would conquer he was, he had them all slaughtered to the last man, woman, and Child.

Another surprise was that people this from home were worshipping the familiar Greek gods. Alexander found devotees of Hercules (probably the popular Hindu avatar Krishna) and Dinysus (most likely the Hindu god Shiva). Today we know the reason these deities seemed so familiar to Alexander was that, like his own gods and godesses, they were part of the ancient Indo- European pantheon.