Alexander erected twelve altars on the banks of the Hyphasis

Arrian explicitly tells us that after the mutiny of his army at the Hyphasis River (modern Beas), Alexander ordered the construction of twelve altars to thank the gods for having led him this far as conqueror and to be a memorial for his own accomplishments. These altars must have been truly out of proportion, being “as high as the loftiest siege towers and even broader in proportion”. Each altar was dedicated to one of the Olympian gods: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Dionysus.

[Ashoka  Pillar at Firoze Shah Kotla,Delhi]

King Chandragupta, who reigned from 321 to 297 BC and founded the first Indian Empire, has reportedly worshiped at these altars in memory of Alexander the Great. Plutarch tells us that in his time, nearly four centuries after Alexander, the local kings would still stop at these altars to sacrifice on them in the Greek fashion. Philostratus, in turn, mentions that Apollonius of Tyana (15-100 AD) visited India and saw the altars still intact and still could read the inscriptions. Pliny also knew of their existence, writing that “the Hyphasis was the limit of the marches of Alexander, who, however, crossed it, and dedicated altars on the further bank”. This statement is quite remarkable since this places the altars on the eastern bank of the Hyphasis, while Arrian seems to imply that they stood on the western bank.

The location of these altars triggers the discussion of whether Alexander and his men crossed the river or not. Was the Hyphasis River the exact cut-off point and were the altars erected at the exact point where Alexander’s troops mutinied? The early history in this part of the world is not too well-documented, yet we know that in 1616, the first pillars of Asoka were noticed by a traveling Englishman. He witnessed a superbly polished forty-foot-high monolithic pillar with an undeciphered inscription and assumed it was erected by nobody less than Alexander to celebrate his victory over Porus. Since then, we know that the inscription was made by King Asoka. 

New studies have indicated that the altars left by Alexander must have stood at the confluence of the Sutlej and the Beas (Hyphasis) rivers, taking into account that in ancient times their confluence was situated 40 miles below the present river junction. This point seems to coincide with the place where Feroz Shah, who was Sultan of Delhi in the 14^th century, found a pillar which he moved to his city. Now it seems that there are at least three such pillars standing in Delhi today. Pending a serious archaeological investigation, it is impossible to clarify the origin of these pillars. It seems, however, that based on Asoka’s own inscriptions, some of his pillars were not erected by him. This means that it is not impossible that Alexander the Great did, in fact, erect such grand pillars as part of the famous twelve altars.