Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan
Encyclopedia
Archaeological
exploration of the pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan began in Afghanistan
in earnest after World War II
and proceeded until the late 1970s when the nation was invaded by the Soviet Union
. Archaeologists and historians suggest that humans were living in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the region were among the earliest in the world. Urbanized culture has existed in the land between 3000 and 2000 BC. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic
, Mesolithic
, Neolithic
, Bronze
, and Iron
ages have been found inside Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was inhabited by the Aryan
tribes and controlled by the Medes
until about 500 BC when Darius the Great (Darius I) marched with his Persian
army to make it part of the Zoroastrian
Achaemenid Empire
. In 330 BC, Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon) invaded the land after defeating Darius III of Persia
in the Battle of Gaugamela
and Afghanistan became part of the new Greco-Bactrian kingdom
. Some eastern parts of the country were controlled by the Indian Maurya Empire
whose main religion was Hinduism
. In the 1st century, the land became part of the Kushan Empire
whose official religion was Buddhism
.
, the University of Pennsylvania
, the Smithsonian Institution
and others suggest that humans were living in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the region were among the earliest in the world.
Afghanistan seems in prehistory, as well as in ancient and modern times, to have been closely connected by culture and trade with the neighbouring regions to the east, west, and north. Urban civilization, which includes modern-day Iran
, Afghanistan, and Pakistan
, may have begun as early as 3000 to 2000 BC. Archaeological finds indicate the possible beginnings of the Bronze Age, which would ultimately spread throughout the ancient world from Afghanistan. It is also believed that the region had early trade contacts with Mesopotamia
.
Between 2000–1200 BC, a branch of Indo-European
-speaking tribes known as the Aryan
s began migrating into the region. This is part of a dispute in regards to the Aryan invasion theory
. They appear to have split into old Persian peoples, Nuristani
, and Indian
groups at an early stage, possibly between 1500 and 1000 BC in what is today Afghanistan or much earlier as eastern remnants of the Indo-Aryans
drifted much further west as with the Mitanni
. The Aryans dominated the modern day plateau, while the Indo-Aryans ultimately headed towards the Indian subcontinent
. The Avesta
is believed to have been composed possibly as early as 1800 BC and written in ancient Ariana
(Aryana), the earliest name of Afghanistan which indicates an early link with today's Iranian tribes to the west, or adjacent regions in Central Asia or northeastern Iran in the 6th century BC. Due to the similarity between early Avestan and Sanskrit
(and other related early Indo-European languages such as Latin
and Ancient Greek
), it is believed that the split between the old Persians and Indo-Aryan tribes had taken place at least by 1000 BC. There are striking similarities between the Old Afghan language of Avestan and Sanskrit
, which may support the notion that the split was contemporary with the Indo-Aryans living in Afghanistan at a very early stage. Also, the Avesta itself divides into Old and New sections and neither mention the Medes
who are known to have ruled Afghanistan starting around 700 BC. This suggests an early time-frame for the Avesta that has yet to be exactly determined as most academics believe it was written over the course of centuries if not millennia. Much of the archaeological data comes from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex
(BMAC and Indus Valley Civilization
) that probably played a key role in early Aryanic civilization in Afghanistan.
It has also been surmised by many researchers that the Aryan prophet Zoroaster
was born somewhere in ancient Aryana, possibly in the ancient northern persia, and the timeframe of his life literally spans millennia from as early 2000 BC to as late as 600 BC. Zoroastrianism spread throughout the region alongside early pagan beliefs and centuries later Buddhism.
The Medes, a Western Persian people, arrived from what is today Kurdistan sometime around the 700s BC and came to dominate most of ancient Afghanistan. They were an early tribe that forged the first empire on the present Iranian plateau and were rivals of the Persians whom they initially dominated in the province of Fars to the south. Median domination of Afghanistan would last until the Persians
challenged and ultimately replaced them from their original base in Fars in southern Iran near ancient Elam
.
(which later became Balkh
), is believed to have been the home of Zarathustra
, who founded the Zoroastrian
religion. The Avesta
refers to eastern Bactria as being the home of the Zoroastrian faith, but this can be a reference to either a region in modern Afghanistan or Border line of Afghan-Pakistan. Regardless of the debate as to where Zoroaster was from, Zoroastrianism spread to become one of the world's most influential religions and became the main faith of the old Aryan people for centuries. It also remained the official religion of Persia until the defeat of the Sassanian ruler Yazdegerd III—over a thousand years after its founding—by Muslim Arabs. In what is today southern Iran, the Persians emerged to challenge Median supremacy on the Iranian plateau. By 550 BC, the Persians had replaced Median rule with their own dominion and even began to expand past previous Median imperial borders. Both Gandhara
and Kamboja Mahajanapadas of the Buddhist texts soon fell a prey to the Achaemenian Dynasty during the reign of Achaemenid, Cyrus the Great
(558–530 BC), or in the first year of Darius I. According to Pliny
's evidence, Cyrus the Great (Cyrus II) had destroyed Kapisa in Capiscene which was a Kamboja city. The former region of Gandhara and Kamboja (upper Indus) had constituted seventh satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire and annually contributed 170 talents of gold dust as a tribute to the Achaemenids.
Bactria
had a special position in old Afghanistan, being the capital of a vice-kingdom. By the 4th century BC, Persian control of outlying areas and the internal cohesion of the empire had become somewhat tenuous. Although distant provinces like Bactriana had often been restless under Achaemenid rule, Bactrian troops nevertheless fought in the decisive Battle of Gaugamela
in 330 BC against the advancing armies of Alexander the Great. The Achaemenids were decisively defeated by Alexander and retreated from his advancing army of Greco-Macedonians and their allies. Darius III, the last Achaemenid ruler, tried to flee to Bactria but was assassinated by a subordinate lord, the Bactrian-born Bessus
, who proclaimed himself the new ruler of Persia as Artaxerxes
. Bessus was unable to mount a successful resistance to the growing military might of Alexander's army so he fled to his native Bactria, where he attempted to rally local tribes to his side but was instead turned over to Alexander who proceeded to have him tortured and executed for having committed regicide
.
It had taken Alexander only six months to conquer Persia (Iran), but it took him nearly three years (from about 330 BC–327 BC) to subdue Afghanistan
. Moving eastward from Persia, the Macedonian leader encountered fierce resistance from the local tribes of Aria (satrapy)
, Drangiana (now part of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Eastern Iran), Arachosia
(South and Central Afghanistan) and Bactria (North and Central Afghanistan).
Upon Alexander's death in 323 BC, his empire, which had never been politically consolidated, broke apart as his companions began to divide it amongst themselves. Alexander's cavalry commander, Seleucus
, took nominal control of the eastern lands and founded the Seleucid
dynasty. Under the Seleucids, as under Alexander, Greek colonists and soldiers colonized Bactria, roughly corresponding to modern Afghanistan's borders. However, the majority of Macedonian soldiers of Alexander the Great wanted to leave the east and return home to Greece. Later, Seleucus sought to guard his eastern frontier and moved Ionia
n Greeks (also known as Yavanas to many local groups) to Bactria in the 3rd century BC.
While the Diadochi
were warring amongst themselves, the Mauryan Empire was developing in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent
. The founder of the empire, Chandragupta Maurya
, confronted a Macedonian invasion force led by Seleucus I
in 305 BC and following a brief conflict, an agreement was reached as Seleucus ceded Gandhara
and Arachosia
(centered around ancient Kandahar
) and areas south of Bagram
(corresponding to the extreme south-east of modern Afghanistan) to the Mauryans. During the 120 years of the Mauryans in southern Afghanistan, Buddhism was introduced and eventually become a major religion alongside Zoroastrianism and local pagan beliefs. The ancient Grand Trunk Road was built linking what is now Kabul to various cities in the Punjab and the Gangetic Plain. Commerce, art, and architecture (seen especially in the construction of stupa
s) developed during this period. It reach its high point under Emperor Ashoka whose edicts, roads, and rest stops were found throughout the subcontinent. Although the vast majority of them throughout the subcontinent were written in Prakrit, Afghanistan is notable for the inclusion of 2 Greek and Aramaic ones alongside the court language of the Mauryans.
Inscriptions made by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, a fragment of Edict 13
in Greek, as well as a full Edict, written in both Greek and Aramaic has been discovered in Kandahar
. It is said to be written in excellent Classical Greek, using sophisticated philosophical terms. In this Edict, Ashoka uses the word Eusebeia
("Piety
") as the Greek translation for the ubiquitous "Dharma
" of his other Edicts written in Prakrit
:
The last ruler in the region was probably Subhagasena (Sophagasenus
of Polybius
), who, in all probability, belonged to the Ashvaka (q.v.) background.
In the middle of the 3rd century BC, an independent, Hellenistic state was declared in Bactria
and eventually the control of the Seleucids and Mauryans was overthrown in western and southern Afghanistan. Graeco-Bactrian rule spread until it included a large territory which stretched from northeastern Iran in the west to the Punjab in India in the east by about 170 BC. Graeco-Bactrian rule was eventually defeated by a combination of internecine disputes that plagued Greek and Hellenized rulers to the west, continual conflict with Indian kingdoms, as well as the pressure of two groups of nomadic invaders from Central Asia—the Parthia
ns and Sakas.
In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, the Parthians, a nomadic Iranian peoples
, arrived in ancient Afghanistan. The Parthians established control in most of what is now Iran as early as the middle of the 3rd century BC; about 100 years later another Indo-European group from the north—the Tocharian
Kushans (a subgroup of the tribe called the Yuezhi
by the Chinese
)—entered the region Afghanistan and established an empire lasting almost four centuries.
The Kushan Empire
spread from the Kabul River
valley to defeat other Central Asia
n tribes that had previously conquered parts of the northern central Iranian Plateau once ruled by the Parthians. By the middle of the 1st century BC, the Kushans' base of control became Afghanistan and their empire spanned from the north of the Pamir mountains to the Ganges river valley in India. Early in the 2nd century under Kanishka
, the most powerful of the Kushan rulers, the empire reached its greatest geographic and cultural breadth to become a center of literature and art. Kanishka extended Kushan control to the mouth of the Indus River on the Arabian Sea
, into Kashmir
, and into what is today the Chinese-controlled area north of Tibet
. Kanishka was a patron of religion and the arts. It was during his reign that Mahayana
Buddhism , imported to northern India
earlier by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (c. 260 BC–232 BC), reached its zenith in Central Asia. Though the Kushanas supported local Buddhists and Hindus as well as the worship of various local deities.
In the 3rd century, Kushan control fragmented into semi-independent kingdoms that became easy targets for conquest by the rising Iranian dynasty, the Sassanians
(c. 224–561) which annexed Afghanistan by 300 AD. Sassanian control was tenuous at times as numerous challenges from Central Asian tribes led to instability and constant warfare in the region.
The disunited Kushan and Sassanian kingdoms were in a poor position to meet the threat of a new wave of nomadic, Indo-European invaders from the north. The Hephthalite
s (or White Huns) swept out of Central Asia around the 4th century into Bactria
and to the south, overwhelming the last of the Kushan and Sassanian kingdoms. Some have speculated that the name Afghanistan land of the Afghans derives from which could be an adjective such as brave, chivlarious, valour, which was to use for the people in today's Afghanistan. Historians believe that Hepthalite control continued for a century and was marked by constant warfare with the Sassanians to the west who exerted nominal control over the region.
By the middle of the 6th century the Hephthalites were defeated in the territories north of the Amu Darya
(the Oxus River of antiquity) by another group of Central Asian nomads, the Göktürks
, and by the resurgent Sassanians in the lands south of the Amu Darya. It was the ruler of western Göktürks, Sijin (aka Sinjibu, Silzibul and Yandu Muchu Khan) who led the forces against the Hepthalites who were defeated at the Battle of Chach (Tashkent
) and at the Battle of Bukhara.
The Shahi dynasties ruled portions of the Kabul Valley (in eastern Afghanistan) and the old province of Gandhara
(northern Pakistan and Kashmir
) from the decline of the Kushan Empire in the 3rd century to the early 9th century. They are split into two eras the Buddhist-Shahis (also known as the Kushano-Hephthalites and the later Hindu
-Shahis with the change-over occurring around 870, and ruled up until the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan
.
When Xuanzang visited the region early in the 7th century, the Kabul valley region was ruled by a Kshatriya
king, who is identified as the Shahi Khingal, and whose name has been found in an inscription found in Gardez. The Turk Shahi regency was overthrown and replaced by a Mohyal
Shahi dynasty of Brahmins who began the first phase of the Hindu
Shahi dynasty.
These Hindu Shahi kings of Kabul and Gandhara may have had links to some ruling families in neighboring Kashmir
and other areas to the east. The Shahis, though Hindu, were rulers of predominantly Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Hindu
and Muslim
populations and were thus patrons of numerous faiths, and various artifacts and coins from their rule have been found that display their multicultural domain. In 964 AD, the last Mohyal Hindu Shahi was succeeded by the Janjua overlord, Jayapala, of the Panduvanshi dynasty. The last Shahi emperors Jayapala
, Anandapala
and Tirlochanpala fought invading Muslim Turks from Central Asia and were gradually defeated and eventually exiled from their domains into northern India.
, thirty-five and fifty-three meters high overlooked the ancient route through Bamyan to Balkh
and dated from the 3rd and 5th centuries. They survived until 2001, when they were destroyed by the Taliban. In this and other key places in Afghanistan, archaeologists have located fresco
es, stucco
decorations, statuary, and rare objects from as far away as China
, Phoenicia
, and Rome
, which were crafted as early as the 2nd century and bear witness to the influence of these ancient civilizations upon Afghanistan.
In 2010, reports showed up in the media that about 42 Buddhist relics have been discovered in the Logar Province of Afghanistan, which is south of Kabul. Some of these items date back to the 2nd century according to Archaeologists. The items included two Buddhist temples (Stupa
s), Buddha statues, frescos, silver and gold coins and precious beads.
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
exploration of the pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan began in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
in earnest after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and proceeded until the late 1970s when the nation was invaded by the Soviet Union
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
. Archaeologists and historians suggest that humans were living in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the region were among the earliest in the world. Urbanized culture has existed in the land between 3000 and 2000 BC. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
, Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
, Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
, Bronze
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
, and Iron
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
ages have been found inside Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was inhabited by the Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
tribes and controlled by the Medes
Medes
The MedesThe Medes...
until about 500 BC when Darius the Great (Darius I) marched with his Persian
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
army to make it part of the Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...
Achaemenid Empire
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
. In 330 BC, Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon) invaded the land after defeating Darius III of Persia
Greater Iran
Greater Iran refers to the regions that have significant Iranian cultural influence. It roughly corresponds to the territory on the Iranian plateau and its bordering plains, stretching from Iraq, the Caucasus, and Turkey in the west to the Indus River in the east...
in the Battle of Gaugamela
Battle of Gaugamela
The Battle of Gaugamela took place in 331 BC between Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. The battle, which is also called the Battle of Arbela, resulted in a massive victory for the ancient Macedonians and led to the fall of the Achaemenid Empire.-Location:Darius chose a flat, open plain...
and Afghanistan became part of the new Greco-Bactrian kingdom
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BC...
. Some eastern parts of the country were controlled by the Indian Maurya Empire
Maurya Empire
The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in ancient India, ruled by the Mauryan dynasty from 321 to 185 BC...
whose main religion was Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
. In the 1st century, the land became part of the Kushan Empire
Kushan Empire
The Kushan Empire originally formed in the early 1st century AD under Kujula Kadphises in the territories of ancient Bactria on either side of the middle course of the Oxus in what is now northern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.During the 1st and early 2nd centuries...
whose official religion was Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
.
Prehistoric era
Louis DupreeLouis Dupree (professor)
Professor Louis Duprée was an American archaeologist, anthropologist, and scholar of Afghan culture and history. He was the husband of Nancy Hatch Duprée, who is the Board Director of the Afghanistan Center at Kabul University in Afghanistan and author of five books about Afghanistan...
, the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
and others suggest that humans were living in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the region were among the earliest in the world.
Afghanistan seems in prehistory, as well as in ancient and modern times, to have been closely connected by culture and trade with the neighbouring regions to the east, west, and north. Urban civilization, which includes modern-day Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, Afghanistan, and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, may have begun as early as 3000 to 2000 BC. Archaeological finds indicate the possible beginnings of the Bronze Age, which would ultimately spread throughout the ancient world from Afghanistan. It is also believed that the region had early trade contacts with Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
.
Aryans and the Medes rule (1500 BC–551 BC)
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
-speaking tribes known as the Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
s began migrating into the region. This is part of a dispute in regards to the Aryan invasion theory
Aryan invasion theory
The term Aryan invasion theory may refer to*migrational scenarios of prehistorical Indo-Aryan migrations*in 19th and early 20th century racialism:** Historical definitions of races in India** Aryan race*in late 20th century:**Out of India theory...
. They appear to have split into old Persian peoples, Nuristani
Nuristani
The Nuristani people are an ethnic group Aryan-Iranian to the Nuristan region of northeastern Iran and Afghanistan. The Nuristanis are a people whose ancestors practiced what was apparently an ancient Indo-Iranian polytheistic religion until they were conquered and converted to Islam in the late...
, and Indian
Indo-Aryans
Indo-Aryan is an ethno-linguistic term referring to the wide collection of peoples united as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-Iranian family of Indo-European languages...
groups at an early stage, possibly between 1500 and 1000 BC in what is today Afghanistan or much earlier as eastern remnants of the Indo-Aryans
Indo-Aryans
Indo-Aryan is an ethno-linguistic term referring to the wide collection of peoples united as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-Iranian family of Indo-European languages...
drifted much further west as with the Mitanni
Mitanni
Mitanni or Hanigalbat was a loosely organized Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and south-east Anatolia from ca. 1500 BC–1300 BC...
. The Aryans dominated the modern day plateau, while the Indo-Aryans ultimately headed towards the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
. The Avesta
Avesta
The Avesta is the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language.-Early transmission:The texts of the Avesta — which are all in the Avestan language — were composed over the course of several hundred years. The most important portion, the Gathas,...
is believed to have been composed possibly as early as 1800 BC and written in ancient Ariana
Ariana
Ariana was a region of the eastern countries of ancient Iran, next to India.Ariana may also refer to:* Ariana In places:*Ariana Governorate, a governorate in Tunisia*Ariana, Tunisia*Lake Ariana, a lake in Sofia, Bulgaria...
(Aryana), the earliest name of Afghanistan which indicates an early link with today's Iranian tribes to the west, or adjacent regions in Central Asia or northeastern Iran in the 6th century BC. Due to the similarity between early Avestan and Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
(and other related early Indo-European languages such as Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
), it is believed that the split between the old Persians and Indo-Aryan tribes had taken place at least by 1000 BC. There are striking similarities between the Old Afghan language of Avestan and Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, which may support the notion that the split was contemporary with the Indo-Aryans living in Afghanistan at a very early stage. Also, the Avesta itself divides into Old and New sections and neither mention the Medes
Medes
The MedesThe Medes...
who are known to have ruled Afghanistan starting around 700 BC. This suggests an early time-frame for the Avesta that has yet to be exactly determined as most academics believe it was written over the course of centuries if not millennia. Much of the archaeological data comes from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex
Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex
The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex is the modern archaeological designation for a Bronze Age culture of Central Asia, dated to ca. 2300–1700 BC, located in present day Turkmenistan, northern Afghanistan and northeastern Iran, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan, centered on...
(BMAC and Indus Valley Civilization
Indus Valley Civilization
The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that was located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, consisting of what is now mainly modern-day Pakistan and northwest India...
) that probably played a key role in early Aryanic civilization in Afghanistan.
It has also been surmised by many researchers that the Aryan prophet Zoroaster
Zoroaster
Zoroaster , also known as Zarathustra , was a prophet and the founder of Zoroastrianism who was either born in North Western or Eastern Iran. He is credited with the authorship of the Yasna Haptanghaiti as well as the Gathas, hymns which are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrianism...
was born somewhere in ancient Aryana, possibly in the ancient northern persia, and the timeframe of his life literally spans millennia from as early 2000 BC to as late as 600 BC. Zoroastrianism spread throughout the region alongside early pagan beliefs and centuries later Buddhism.
The Medes, a Western Persian people, arrived from what is today Kurdistan sometime around the 700s BC and came to dominate most of ancient Afghanistan. They were an early tribe that forged the first empire on the present Iranian plateau and were rivals of the Persians whom they initially dominated in the province of Fars to the south. Median domination of Afghanistan would last until the Persians
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
challenged and ultimately replaced them from their original base in Fars in southern Iran near ancient Elam
Elam
Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Elam was centered in the far west and the southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province, as well as a small part of southern Iraq...
.
Achaemenid invasion and Zoroastrianism (550 BC–331 BC)
The city of BactriaBactria
Bactria and also appears in the Zend Avesta as Bukhdi. It is the ancient name of a historical region located between south of the Amu Darya and west of the Indus River...
(which later became Balkh
Balkh
Balkh , was an ancient city and centre of Zoroastrianism in what is now northern Afghanistan. Today it is a small town in the province of Balkh, about 20 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif, and some south of the Amu Darya. It was one of the major cities of Khorasan...
), is believed to have been the home of Zarathustra
Zoroaster
Zoroaster , also known as Zarathustra , was a prophet and the founder of Zoroastrianism who was either born in North Western or Eastern Iran. He is credited with the authorship of the Yasna Haptanghaiti as well as the Gathas, hymns which are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrianism...
, who founded the Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...
religion. The Avesta
Avesta
The Avesta is the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language.-Early transmission:The texts of the Avesta — which are all in the Avestan language — were composed over the course of several hundred years. The most important portion, the Gathas,...
refers to eastern Bactria as being the home of the Zoroastrian faith, but this can be a reference to either a region in modern Afghanistan or Border line of Afghan-Pakistan. Regardless of the debate as to where Zoroaster was from, Zoroastrianism spread to become one of the world's most influential religions and became the main faith of the old Aryan people for centuries. It also remained the official religion of Persia until the defeat of the Sassanian ruler Yazdegerd III—over a thousand years after its founding—by Muslim Arabs. In what is today southern Iran, the Persians emerged to challenge Median supremacy on the Iranian plateau. By 550 BC, the Persians had replaced Median rule with their own dominion and even began to expand past previous Median imperial borders. Both Gandhara
Gandhara
Gandhāra , is the name of an ancient kingdom , located in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Gandhara was located mainly in the vale of Peshawar, the Potohar plateau and on the Kabul River...
and Kamboja Mahajanapadas of the Buddhist texts soon fell a prey to the Achaemenian Dynasty during the reign of Achaemenid, Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia , commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much...
(558–530 BC), or in the first year of Darius I. According to Pliny
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
's evidence, Cyrus the Great (Cyrus II) had destroyed Kapisa in Capiscene which was a Kamboja city. The former region of Gandhara and Kamboja (upper Indus) had constituted seventh satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire and annually contributed 170 talents of gold dust as a tribute to the Achaemenids.
Bactria
Bactria
Bactria and also appears in the Zend Avesta as Bukhdi. It is the ancient name of a historical region located between south of the Amu Darya and west of the Indus River...
had a special position in old Afghanistan, being the capital of a vice-kingdom. By the 4th century BC, Persian control of outlying areas and the internal cohesion of the empire had become somewhat tenuous. Although distant provinces like Bactriana had often been restless under Achaemenid rule, Bactrian troops nevertheless fought in the decisive Battle of Gaugamela
Battle of Gaugamela
The Battle of Gaugamela took place in 331 BC between Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. The battle, which is also called the Battle of Arbela, resulted in a massive victory for the ancient Macedonians and led to the fall of the Achaemenid Empire.-Location:Darius chose a flat, open plain...
in 330 BC against the advancing armies of Alexander the Great. The Achaemenids were decisively defeated by Alexander and retreated from his advancing army of Greco-Macedonians and their allies. Darius III, the last Achaemenid ruler, tried to flee to Bactria but was assassinated by a subordinate lord, the Bactrian-born Bessus
Bessus
Artaxerxes V, also known as Bessus was a prominent Persian nobleman and satrap of Bactria, and later self-proclaimed king of Persia...
, who proclaimed himself the new ruler of Persia as Artaxerxes
Artaxerxes
Artaxerxes may refer to:The throne name of several Achaemenid rulers of the 1st Persian Empire:* Artaxerxes I of Persia, Artaxerxes I Longimanus, r. 465–424 BC, son and successor of Xerxes I...
. Bessus was unable to mount a successful resistance to the growing military might of Alexander's army so he fled to his native Bactria, where he attempted to rally local tribes to his side but was instead turned over to Alexander who proceeded to have him tortured and executed for having committed regicide
Regicide
The broad definition of regicide is the deliberate killing of a monarch, or the person responsible for the killing of a monarch. In a narrower sense, in the British tradition, it refers to the judicial execution of a king after a trial...
.
Alexander the Great to Greco-Bactrian rule (330 BC–ca. 150 BC)
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
. Moving eastward from Persia, the Macedonian leader encountered fierce resistance from the local tribes of Aria (satrapy)
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
, Drangiana (now part of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Eastern Iran), Arachosia
Arachosia
Arachosia is the Latinized form of the Greek name of an Achaemenid and Seleucid governorate in the eastern part of their respective empires, around modern-day southern Afghanistan. The Greek term "Arachosia" corresponds to the Iranian land of Harauti which was between Kandahar in Afghanistan and...
(South and Central Afghanistan) and Bactria (North and Central Afghanistan).
Upon Alexander's death in 323 BC, his empire, which had never been politically consolidated, broke apart as his companions began to divide it amongst themselves. Alexander's cavalry commander, Seleucus
Seleucus
-Monarchs and relations of the Seleucid Empire:* Seleucus I Nicator , son of Antiochus and founder of the Seleucid Empire* Seleucus II Callinicus * Seleucus III Ceraunus...
, took nominal control of the eastern lands and founded the Seleucid
Seleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire was a Greek-Macedonian state that was created out of the eastern conquests of Alexander the Great. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan.The Seleucid Empire was a major centre...
dynasty. Under the Seleucids, as under Alexander, Greek colonists and soldiers colonized Bactria, roughly corresponding to modern Afghanistan's borders. However, the majority of Macedonian soldiers of Alexander the Great wanted to leave the east and return home to Greece. Later, Seleucus sought to guard his eastern frontier and moved Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
n Greeks (also known as Yavanas to many local groups) to Bactria in the 3rd century BC.
Maurya Empire
Diadochi
The Diadochi were the rival generals, family and friends of Alexander the Great who fought for the control of Alexander's empire after his death in 323 BC...
were warring amongst themselves, the Mauryan Empire was developing in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
. The founder of the empire, Chandragupta Maurya
Chandragupta Maurya
Chandragupta Maurya , was the founder of the Maurya Empire. Chandragupta succeeded in conquering most of the Indian subcontinent. Chandragupta is considered the first unifier of India and its first genuine emperor...
, confronted a Macedonian invasion force led by Seleucus I
Seleucus I Nicator
Seleucus I was a Macedonian officer of Alexander the Great and one of the Diadochi. In the Wars of the Diadochi that took place after Alexander's death, Seleucus established the Seleucid dynasty and the Seleucid Empire...
in 305 BC and following a brief conflict, an agreement was reached as Seleucus ceded Gandhara
Gandhara
Gandhāra , is the name of an ancient kingdom , located in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Gandhara was located mainly in the vale of Peshawar, the Potohar plateau and on the Kabul River...
and Arachosia
Arachosia
Arachosia is the Latinized form of the Greek name of an Achaemenid and Seleucid governorate in the eastern part of their respective empires, around modern-day southern Afghanistan. The Greek term "Arachosia" corresponds to the Iranian land of Harauti which was between Kandahar in Afghanistan and...
(centered around ancient Kandahar
Kandahar
Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...
) and areas south of Bagram
Bagram
Bagram , founded as Alexandria on the Caucasus and known in medieval times as Kapisa, is a small town and seat in Bagram District in Parwan Province of Afghanistan, about 60 kilometers north of the capital Kabul. It is the site of an ancient city located at the junction of the Ghorband and Panjshir...
(corresponding to the extreme south-east of modern Afghanistan) to the Mauryans. During the 120 years of the Mauryans in southern Afghanistan, Buddhism was introduced and eventually become a major religion alongside Zoroastrianism and local pagan beliefs. The ancient Grand Trunk Road was built linking what is now Kabul to various cities in the Punjab and the Gangetic Plain. Commerce, art, and architecture (seen especially in the construction of stupa
Stupa
A stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, typically the remains of Buddha, used by Buddhists as a place of worship....
s) developed during this period. It reach its high point under Emperor Ashoka whose edicts, roads, and rest stops were found throughout the subcontinent. Although the vast majority of them throughout the subcontinent were written in Prakrit, Afghanistan is notable for the inclusion of 2 Greek and Aramaic ones alongside the court language of the Mauryans.
Inscriptions made by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, a fragment of Edict 13
Edicts of Ashoka
The Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of 33 inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders and cave walls, made by the Emperor Ashoka of the Mauryan dynasty during his reign from 269 BCE to 231 BCE. These inscriptions are dispersed throughout the areas of modern-day Bangladesh, India,...
in Greek, as well as a full Edict, written in both Greek and Aramaic has been discovered in Kandahar
Kandahar
Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...
. It is said to be written in excellent Classical Greek, using sophisticated philosophical terms. In this Edict, Ashoka uses the word Eusebeia
Eusebeia
Eusebeia is a Greek word abundantly used in Greek philosophy as well as in the New Testament, meaning inner piety, spiritual maturity, or godliness...
("Piety
Piety
In spiritual terminology, piety is a virtue that can mean religious devotion, spirituality, or a combination of both. A common element in most conceptions of piety is humility.- Etymology :...
") as the Greek translation for the ubiquitous "Dharma
Dharma
Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...
" of his other Edicts written in Prakrit
Prakrit
Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...
:
- "Ten years (of reign) having been completed, King Piodasses (Ashoka) made known (the doctrine of) Piety (εὐσέβεια, EusebeiaEusebeiaEusebeia is a Greek word abundantly used in Greek philosophy as well as in the New Testament, meaning inner piety, spiritual maturity, or godliness...
) to men; and from this moment he has made men more pious, and everything thrives throughout the whole world. And the king abstains from (killing) living beings, and other men and those who (are) huntsmen and fishermen of the king have desisted from hunting. And if some (were) intemperate, they have ceased from their intemperance as was in their power; and obedient to their father and mother and to the elders, in opposition to the past also in the future, by so acting on every occasion, they will live better and more happily." (Trans. by G.P. Carratelli)
The last ruler in the region was probably Subhagasena (Sophagasenus
Sophagasenus
Sophagasenos also spelt Sophagasenus or Sophagasenas was a local Indian king ruling in Kabul and Kapisa valley during the last decade of 3rd century BC. Sophagasnus finds reference only in "The Histories" of Polybius. The identity of Sophagasenus is not clear...
of Polybius
Polybius
Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...
), who, in all probability, belonged to the Ashvaka (q.v.) background.
Greco-Bactrians
Bactria
Bactria and also appears in the Zend Avesta as Bukhdi. It is the ancient name of a historical region located between south of the Amu Darya and west of the Indus River...
and eventually the control of the Seleucids and Mauryans was overthrown in western and southern Afghanistan. Graeco-Bactrian rule spread until it included a large territory which stretched from northeastern Iran in the west to the Punjab in India in the east by about 170 BC. Graeco-Bactrian rule was eventually defeated by a combination of internecine disputes that plagued Greek and Hellenized rulers to the west, continual conflict with Indian kingdoms, as well as the pressure of two groups of nomadic invaders from Central Asia—the Parthia
Parthia
Parthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasty, rulers of the Parthian Empire....
ns and Sakas.
Kushan Empire (150 BC–300 AD)
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
, arrived in ancient Afghanistan. The Parthians established control in most of what is now Iran as early as the middle of the 3rd century BC; about 100 years later another Indo-European group from the north—the Tocharian
Tocharian
Tocharian may refer to:* Tocharians, an ancient people who inhabited the Tarim Basin in Central Asia* Tocharian languages, two Indo-European languages spoken by those people...
Kushans (a subgroup of the tribe called the Yuezhi
Yuezhi
The Yuezhi, or Rouzhi , also known as the Da Yuezhi or Da Rouzhi , were an ancient Central Asian people....
by the Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
)—entered the region Afghanistan and established an empire lasting almost four centuries.
The Kushan Empire
Kushan Empire
The Kushan Empire originally formed in the early 1st century AD under Kujula Kadphises in the territories of ancient Bactria on either side of the middle course of the Oxus in what is now northern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.During the 1st and early 2nd centuries...
spread from the Kabul River
Kabul River
Kabul River , the classical Cophes , is a 700 km long river that starts in the Sanglakh Range of the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan and ends in the Indus River near Attock, Pakistan. It is the main river in eastern Afghanistan and is separated from the watershed of the Helmand by the Unai Pass...
valley to defeat other Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
n tribes that had previously conquered parts of the northern central Iranian Plateau once ruled by the Parthians. By the middle of the 1st century BC, the Kushans' base of control became Afghanistan and their empire spanned from the north of the Pamir mountains to the Ganges river valley in India. Early in the 2nd century under Kanishka
Kanishka
Kanishka ) was an emperor of the Kushan Empire, ruling an empire extending from Bactria to large parts of northern India in the 2nd century of the common era, and famous for his military, political, and spiritual achievements...
, the most powerful of the Kushan rulers, the empire reached its greatest geographic and cultural breadth to become a center of literature and art. Kanishka extended Kushan control to the mouth of the Indus River on the Arabian Sea
Arabian Sea
The Arabian Sea is a region of the Indian Ocean bounded on the east by India, on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, on the south, approximately, by a line between Cape Guardafui in northeastern Somalia and Kanyakumari in India...
, into Kashmir
Kashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...
, and into what is today the Chinese-controlled area north of Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
. Kanishka was a patron of religion and the arts. It was during his reign that Mahayana
Mahayana
Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice...
Buddhism , imported to northern India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
earlier by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (c. 260 BC–232 BC), reached its zenith in Central Asia. Though the Kushanas supported local Buddhists and Hindus as well as the worship of various local deities.
Sassanian invasion (300–650)
Sassanid Empire
The Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...
(c. 224–561) which annexed Afghanistan by 300 AD. Sassanian control was tenuous at times as numerous challenges from Central Asian tribes led to instability and constant warfare in the region.
The disunited Kushan and Sassanian kingdoms were in a poor position to meet the threat of a new wave of nomadic, Indo-European invaders from the north. The Hephthalite
Hephthalite
The Hephthalites or Hephthalite is a pre-Islamic Greek term for local Abdali Afghans, who's famous ruler was Nazak Abdali . Hephthalites were a Central Asian nomadic confederation of the AD 5th-6th centuries whose precise origins and composition remain obscure...
s (or White Huns) swept out of Central Asia around the 4th century into Bactria
Bactria
Bactria and also appears in the Zend Avesta as Bukhdi. It is the ancient name of a historical region located between south of the Amu Darya and west of the Indus River...
and to the south, overwhelming the last of the Kushan and Sassanian kingdoms. Some have speculated that the name Afghanistan land of the Afghans derives from which could be an adjective such as brave, chivlarious, valour, which was to use for the people in today's Afghanistan. Historians believe that Hepthalite control continued for a century and was marked by constant warfare with the Sassanians to the west who exerted nominal control over the region.
By the middle of the 6th century the Hephthalites were defeated in the territories north of the Amu Darya
Amu Darya
The Amu Darya , also called Oxus and Amu River, is a major river in Central Asia. It is formed by the junction of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers...
(the Oxus River of antiquity) by another group of Central Asian nomads, the Göktürks
Göktürks
The Göktürks or Kök Türks, were a nomadic confederation of peoples in medieval Inner Asia. Known in Chinese sources as 突厥 , the Göktürks under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan The Göktürks or Kök Türks, (Old Turkic: Türük or Kök Türük or Türük; Celestial Turks) were a nomadic confederation of...
, and by the resurgent Sassanians in the lands south of the Amu Darya. It was the ruler of western Göktürks, Sijin (aka Sinjibu, Silzibul and Yandu Muchu Khan) who led the forces against the Hepthalites who were defeated at the Battle of Chach (Tashkent
Tashkent
Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...
) and at the Battle of Bukhara.
Kabul Shahi
Gandhara
Gandhāra , is the name of an ancient kingdom , located in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Gandhara was located mainly in the vale of Peshawar, the Potohar plateau and on the Kabul River...
(northern Pakistan and Kashmir
Kashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...
) from the decline of the Kushan Empire in the 3rd century to the early 9th century. They are split into two eras the Buddhist-Shahis (also known as the Kushano-Hephthalites and the later Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
-Shahis with the change-over occurring around 870, and ruled up until the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan
Islamic conquest of Afghanistan
The Islamic conquest of Afghanistan began in the middle of the 7th century after the Islamic conquest of Persia was completed, when Arab Muslims defeated the Sassanid Empire at the battles of Walaja, al-Qādisiyyah and Nahavand. The Muslim Arabs then began to move towards the lands east of Persia...
.
Kshatriya
*For the Bollywood film of the same name see Kshatriya Kshatriya or Kashtriya, meaning warrior, is one of the four varnas in Hinduism...
king, who is identified as the Shahi Khingal, and whose name has been found in an inscription found in Gardez. The Turk Shahi regency was overthrown and replaced by a Mohyal
Mohyal
Mohyal is the name of an endogamous ethnic group that originates from the Gandhara region and consists of seven Brahmin lineages of that area that left the usual priestly occupation of Brahmins long ago to serve as soldiers and in government services.The...
Shahi dynasty of Brahmins who began the first phase of the Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
Shahi dynasty.
These Hindu Shahi kings of Kabul and Gandhara may have had links to some ruling families in neighboring Kashmir
Kashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...
and other areas to the east. The Shahis, though Hindu, were rulers of predominantly Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
and Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
populations and were thus patrons of numerous faiths, and various artifacts and coins from their rule have been found that display their multicultural domain. In 964 AD, the last Mohyal Hindu Shahi was succeeded by the Janjua overlord, Jayapala, of the Panduvanshi dynasty. The last Shahi emperors Jayapala
Jayapala
Jayapala Janjua Shahi, the son of Asatapala and father of Anandapal, was the first king and founder of the Hindushahi dynasty of Afghanistan and Northwest Pakistan. He succeeded the last Brahman Shahi king Bhimadeva in about 964 CE, and thus began the Janjua Rajput phase of Shahiya Dynasties...
, Anandapala
Anandapala
Anandapala/Anantpala was a Hindu Shahi King and the son of Indian ruler Jayapala.-References:...
and Tirlochanpala fought invading Muslim Turks from Central Asia and were gradually defeated and eventually exiled from their domains into northern India.
Archaeological remnants from Afghanistan's pre-Islamic period
Most of the Zoroastrian, Greek, Hellenistic, Buddhist, Hindu and other indigenous cultures were replaced by the coming of Islam and little influence remains in Afghanistan today. Along ancient trade routes, however, stone monuments of the once flourishing Buddhist culture did exist as reminders of the past. The two massive sandstone Buddhas of BamyanBuddhas of Bamyan
The Buddhas of Bamiyan were two 6th century monumental statues of standing buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan, situated northwest of Kabul at an altitude of 2,500 meters...
, thirty-five and fifty-three meters high overlooked the ancient route through Bamyan to Balkh
Balkh
Balkh , was an ancient city and centre of Zoroastrianism in what is now northern Afghanistan. Today it is a small town in the province of Balkh, about 20 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif, and some south of the Amu Darya. It was one of the major cities of Khorasan...
and dated from the 3rd and 5th centuries. They survived until 2001, when they were destroyed by the Taliban. In this and other key places in Afghanistan, archaeologists have located fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
es, stucco
Stucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
decorations, statuary, and rare objects from as far away as China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
, and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, which were crafted as early as the 2nd century and bear witness to the influence of these ancient civilizations upon Afghanistan.
In 2010, reports showed up in the media that about 42 Buddhist relics have been discovered in the Logar Province of Afghanistan, which is south of Kabul. Some of these items date back to the 2nd century according to Archaeologists. The items included two Buddhist temples (Stupa
Stupa
A stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, typically the remains of Buddha, used by Buddhists as a place of worship....
s), Buddha statues, frescos, silver and gold coins and precious beads.
See also
- HephthaliteHephthaliteThe Hephthalites or Hephthalite is a pre-Islamic Greek term for local Abdali Afghans, who's famous ruler was Nazak Abdali . Hephthalites were a Central Asian nomadic confederation of the AD 5th-6th centuries whose precise origins and composition remain obscure...
- BalkhBalkhBalkh , was an ancient city and centre of Zoroastrianism in what is now northern Afghanistan. Today it is a small town in the province of Balkh, about 20 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif, and some south of the Amu Darya. It was one of the major cities of Khorasan...
- BactriaBactriaBactria and also appears in the Zend Avesta as Bukhdi. It is the ancient name of a historical region located between south of the Amu Darya and west of the Indus River...
- Buddhas of BamiyanBuddhas of BamiyanThe Buddhas of Bamiyan were two 6th century monumental statues of standing buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan, situated northwest of Kabul at an altitude of 2,500 meters...
- Kushan EmpireKushan EmpireThe Kushan Empire originally formed in the early 1st century AD under Kujula Kadphises in the territories of ancient Bactria on either side of the middle course of the Oxus in what is now northern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.During the 1st and early 2nd centuries...
- Pre Islamic Hindu and Buddhist heritage of AfghanistanPre Islamic Hindu and Buddhist heritage of AfghanistanUp until the advent of Islam, some eastern portions of Afghanistan was ruled by the Hindu Kabul Shahi kings. When Xuanzang visited the region early in the 7th century CE, the Kabul valley region was ruled by a Kshatriya king who is identified as the Shahi Khingal and whose name has been found in an...
- Pre-Islamic scripts in AfghanistanPre-Islamic scripts in AfghanistanAfghanistan possesses a rich linguistic legacy of pre-Islamic scripts, which existed before being displaced by the Arabic alphabet, after the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan.Among these scripts are Sanskrit, Sharda, Gandhari, Kharosthi, Bactrian and Brāhmī ....
- ZunbilsZunbilsZunbils were a dynasty in what is now eastern Afghanistan, related to their contemporaries, the Shahis.-History:-Saffarid and Zunbil Struggles:...
- ZabulistanZabulistanZabulistan , also spelled Zabolestan, is a historical region in the border area of today's Iran and Afghanistan.-History of Zabulistan:...
- Ghōr Province
- Ghazni ProvinceGhazni ProvinceGhazni is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. Babur records in his Babur-Nama that Ghazni is also known as Zabulistan It is in the east of the country. Its capital is Ghazni City...
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