—Dr. Devaraju Maharaju First recipient of the Kaviraju Tripuraneni Ramaswamy National Award As children, we read in our history lessons about the war between Alexander and Purushottam (Porus). We learned that the war took place between the Jhelum and Chenab rivers. That is as far as it went — nobody told us the background of that war. Those events, which held great importance for compassion, human values, and morality, have indeed been recorded in history. Historians noted them in the texts they wrote. But those details never reached ordinary people. No attempt was made to bring them into school textbooks and use them to shape children into better citizens. We have often discussed among ourselves how Buddhism was destroyed while the Vedic religion grew stronger. Raksha Bandhan, too, is an important event that entered public life from Buddhism! How so? For that, we must go back to the time of the war between Alexander and Porus, which took place in June, 326 BCE. Alexander, a discip...