4 ideas
Jhelum's residents commonly say that Alexander crossed the river and defeated Porus (326 BCE) right at their town. Rashid tests this against Arrian's account, which requires a wooded headland, an island in the stream and a concealed night crossing.
A provincial town tends to anchor its identity to the most celebrated figure who passed through the region, such as a conqueror, saint or emperor. Repetition then turns the loose association into a precise local fact. The invented past survives because it flatters civic pride, and the real history is often more modest, more layered and less documented.
To judge a local historical claim, check it against three independent witnesses: the ancient written sources, the physical landscape those sources describe, and the surviving material remains. A legend that fits none of the three is invented. One that fits the texts but not the ground, or the ground but not the artifacts, shows exactly where the story was grafted on.
Covering a landscape on foot shows distances, gradients, river crossings and sightlines that maps and texts flatten. These physical facts limit what could actually have happened: where an army could camp, where a ford was possible, what a garrison could see. The walker's body becomes a measuring instrument that can confirm or overturn an armchair reading of the past.