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Apracaraja Indravarman's Silver Reliquary
The Silver Reliquary of Indravarman is an inscribed silver Buddhist reliquary dedicated by Apracaraja king Indravarman in the 1st century BCE,The item belongs to the Shumei Culture Foundation in Otsu, Japan and was loaned to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, when it was studied by Richard Salomon of the University of Washington, who examined and studied the inscriptions and published his results in Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol 116, No 3, 1996, pp 1418-452. which has been found presumably in the Bajaur area of Gandhara.IMPORTANT: Kapisa formed the heart of ancient Kamboja. In fact, scholars assert that Kapisa is an alternative name for the Kamboja. See main article: Kapisa Province Believed to have been fabricated at Taxila, the silver reliquary consists of two parts—the base and the cover—both being fluted,Fluting is an Iranian motif (Richard Salomon). and the cover being topped by a figure of long horned Ibex. It has been dated to around the eighth or nint ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bajaur
Bajaur District ( ps, باجوړ ولسوالۍ, ur, ) is a district in Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. Until 2018, it was an agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, then during restructuring that merged FATA with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, it became a district. According to the 2017 census, the population of the district is 1,093,684. It borders Afghanistan's Kunar Province with a 52 km border. The headquarters of the agency administration is located in the town of Khar. Geography Bajaur is about long by broad. It lies at a high elevation to the east of the Kunar Valley of Afghanistan and Pakistan, from which it is separated by a continuous line of rugged frontier hills, forming a barrier that is easily passable at one or two points. The old road from Kabul to Pakistan ran through the barrier before the Khyber Pass was adopted as the main route. Nawagai is the chief town of Bajour; the Khan of Nawagai was previously under British prote ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kafiristan
Kāfiristān, or Kāfirstān ( ps, کاپیرستان, prs, کافرستان), is a historical region that covered present-day Nuristan Province in Afghanistan and Chitral District of Pakistan. This historic region lies on, and mainly comprises, the basins of the rivers Alingar, Pech (Kamah), Landai Sin and Kunar, and the intervening mountain ranges. It is bounded by the main range of the Hindu Kush on the north, Pakistan's Chitral District to the east, the Kunar Valley in the south and the Alishang River in the west. Kafiristan took its name from the enduring kafir (non-Muslim) Nuristani inhabitants who once followed a distinct form of ancient Hinduism mixed with locally developed accretions; they were thus known to the surrounding predominantly Sunni Muslim population as Kafirs, meaning "disbelievers" or "infidels". They are closely related to the Kalash people, a fiercely independent people with a distinctive culture, language and religion. The area extending from mode ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. According to late 2022 estimates, the population of Kabul was 13.5 million people. In contemporary times, the city has served as Afghanistan's political, cultural, and economical centre, and rapid urbanisation has made Kabul the 75th-largest city in the world and the country's primate city. The modern-day city of Kabul is located high up in a narrow valley between the Hindu Kush, and is bounded by the Kabul River. At an elevation of , it is one of the highest capital cities in the world. Kabul is said to be over 3,500 years old, mentioned since at least the time of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Located at a crossroads in Asia—roughly halfway between Istanbul, Turkey, in the west and Hanoi, Vietnam, in the east—it is situated in a stra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parama Kamboja
Parama Kamboja Kingdom was mentioned in the epic Mahabharata to be on the far north west along with the Bahlika, Uttara Madra and Uttara Kuru countries. It was located in parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Parama Kambojas in Kurukshetra War Drona Parva of Mahabharata refers to 6000 soldiers from the Parama Kamboja group who had sided with the Pandavas against the Kauravas in the Kurukshetra war. They have been described as ''"very fortunate Kambojas"'' (prabhadrakastu Kambojah),See: Ethnography of Ancient India, 1954, p 140, ROBERT SHAFER, Publishers: O. Harrassowitz, Ethnology. Also check up "Prabhadraka" in Monier-William Dictionar extremely fierce, 'Personification of Death' (''samanmrityo''), fearful like Yama, the god of death and rich like Kuber i.e. god of treasure (''Kambojah.... Yama. vaishravan.opamah'': 7.23.42-44). See also *Kingdoms of Ancient India *Kambojas References Books/References *Mahabharata of Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transoxiana
Transoxiana or Transoxania (Land beyond the Oxus) is the Latin name for a region and civilization located in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to modern-day eastern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, parts of southern Kazakhstan, parts of Turkmenistan and southern Kyrgyzstan. Geographically, it is the region between the rivers Amu Darya to its south and the Syr Darya to its north. Historically known in Persian as ( fa, فرارود, – 'beyond the muriver'), ( tg, Фарорӯд) and ( tg, Варазрӯд), the area had been known to the ancient Iranians as Turan, a term used in the Persian national epic ''Shahnameh''. The corresponding Chinese term for the region is ''Hezhong'' (). The Arabic term ( ar, ما وراء النهر, – 'what is beyond the ayhūnriver') passed into Persian literary usage and stayed on until post-Mongol times. The region was one of the satrapies (provinces) of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia under the name Sogdia. It was defined wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kambojas
Kamboja ( sa, कम्बोज) was a kingdom of Iron Age India that spanned parts of South and Central Asia, frequently mentioned in Sanskrit and Pali literature. Eponymous with the kingdom name, the Kambojas were an Indo-Iranian people of the Kshatriya caste inhabiting the Kamboja Mahajanapada region, forming one of the sixteen nations that made up ancient India from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE during the second urbanisation period. Earlier, during the late Vedic age, the Kambojas had emerged as an important part of the Indo Aryan Vedic people with a prominent place among the Kshatriya tribes of the Mahabharata. While historical boundaries of the Kambojas are varied, scholarly accounts altogether place the northern and western borders in present-day Tajikistan and eastern Uzbekistan, with eastern borders in present-day Jammu and Kashmir, and southern borders in present-day Iran and southern Afghanistan. Etymology The name ''Kamboja'' may derive from ''Kam' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pamirs
The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range between Central Asia and Pakistan. It is located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya mountain ranges. They are among the world's highest mountains. Much of the Pamir Mountains lie in the Gorno-Badakhshan Province of Tajikistan. To the south, they border the Hindu Kush mountains along Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in Badakhshan Province, Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan regions of Pakistan. To the north, they join the Tian Shan mountains along the Alay Valley of Kyrgyzstan. To the east, they extend to the range that includes China's Kongur Tagh, in the "Eastern Pamirs", separated by the Yarkand valley from the Kunlun Mountains. Name and etymology Since Victorian times, they have been known as the "Roof of the World", presumably a translation from Persian. Names In other languages they are called: ps, , ; ky, Памир тоолору, , ; fa, , Rešte Kuh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mt Meru
Mount Meru (Sanskrit/Pali: मेरु), also known as Sumeru, Sineru or Mahāmeru, is the sacred five-peaked mountain of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist cosmology and is considered to be the centre of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes. There is no clear identification of Mount Meru with a particular geophysical location. Many famous Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu temples have been built as symbolic representations of this mountain. The "Sumeru Throne" 須彌座 xūmízuò style base is a common feature of Chinese pagodas. The highest point (the finial bud) on the pyatthat, a Burmese-style multi-tiered roof, represents Mount Meru. Etymology Etymologically, the proper name of the mountain is Meru (Sanskrit: Meru), to which is added the approbatory prefix su-, resulting in the meaning "excellent Meru" or "wonderful Meru". ''Meru'' is also the name of the central bead in a mālā. In other languages In other languages, Mount Meru is pronounced: * Assamese: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kharaosta
Kharahostes or Kharaosta (Greek: , (epigraphic); Kharosthi: , , , ;) was an Indo-Scythian ruler (probably a satrap) in the northern Indian subcontinent around 10 BCE – 10 CE. He is known from his coins, often in the name of Azes II, and possibly from an inscription on the Mathura lion capital, although another satrap Kharaostes has been discovered in Mathura. He was probably a successor of Azes II. Epigraphical evidence from inscribed reliquaries show for certain that he was already "''Yabgu''-King", when the Indravarman Silver Reliquary was dedicated, which is itself positioned with certainty before the 5-6 CE Bajaur casket. There is some dispute however about the exact meaning of ''Yabgu''-King. For Richard Salomon, ''Yabgu'' means "tribal chief", in the manner of the Kushans, suggesting that Kharahostes was already fully king by the end of the 1st century BCE, supporting a 10 BCE- 10 CE date for his reign. For Joe Cribb, this is a misspelling by a careless scribe, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indo-Iranians
Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Indo-Iranic peoples by scholars, and sometimes as Arya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, to major parts of Eurasia in the second part of the 3rd millennium BCE. They eventually branched out into Iranian peoples and Indo-Aryan peoples, predominantly in the geographical subregion of Southern Asia. Nomenclature The term '' Aryan'' has long been used to denote the ''Indo-Iranians'', because ''Arya'' is indeed the self-designation of the ancient speakers of the Indo-Iranian languages, specifically the Iranian and the Indo-Aryan peoples, collectively known as the Indo-Iranians. Despite this, some scholars use the term Indo-Iranian to refer to this group, though the term "Aryan" remains widely used by most scholars, such as Josef Wiesehofer, Will Durant, and Jaakko Häkkinen. Population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuristanis
The Nuristanis, formerly known as Kafiristanis, are an ethnic group native to the Nuristan Province of northeastern Afghanistan and Chitral District of northwestern Pakistan. Their languages comprise the Nuristani branch of Indo-Iranian languages. The Nuristanis reside mainly in the northeast of Afghanistan and northwest of Pakistan; between the Pashtun tribes of Kunar, Kalash in Pakistan's Chitral, and Tajiks of Badakhshan in the north. In the mid-1890s, after the establishment of the Durand Line when Afghanistan reached an agreement on various frontier areas to the British Empire for period of time, Emir Abdur Rahman Khan conducted a military campaign in Kafiristan and followed up his conquest with forced conversion of the Kafirs to Islam; the region thenceforth being known as ''Nuristan'', the "Land of Light". Before their conversion, the Nuristanis practiced a form of ancient Hinduism. Non-Muslim religious practices endure in Nuristan today to some degree as folk customs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hindukush
The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and western Afghanistan, Quote: "The Hindu Kush mountains run along the Afghan border with the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan". into northwestern Pakistan and far southeastern Tajikistan. The range forms the western section of the ''Hindu Kush Himalayan Region'' (''HKH''); to the north, near its northeastern end, the Hindu Kush buttresses the Pamir Mountains near the point where the borders of China, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet, after which it runs southwest through Pakistan and into Afghanistan near their border. The eastern end of the Hindu Kush in the north merges with the Karakoram Range.Karakoram Range: MOUNTAINS, ASIA Encyclopædia Britannica Towards its s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
