PAKISTAN'S HISTORY AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Gupta Empire
                                Much of northern and central India was united in the forth to sixth centuries AD and remained so for two centuries, under the Gupta Empire. This period, witnessing a Hindu religious and intellectual resurgence, is known among its admirers as the classical age or even "Golden Age" of Hindu civilization. Sanskrit literature was of a high standard; extensive knowledge in astronomy, mathematics, and medicine was gained; and
flowered. Society became more settled and more hierarchical and rigid social codes emerged that separated castes and occupations. The Guptas maintained loose control over the upper Indus Valley.

PAKISTAN'S HISTORY AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Mauryan Empire

There are remarkable similarities between the organizations of that great empire and the Mauryan empire of the third century BC, while Kautilya's Arthshastra also shows a strong Persian influence, Alexander of Macedonia after defeating Darius III in 330 BC had also marched through the South-Asian subcontinent up to the river Beas but Greek influence on the region appears to have been limited to contributing a little to the establishment of the Mauryan empire. Greek rule did not survive in northwestern India, although a school of art known as Indo-Greek developed and influenced art as far as Central Asia.
The expansion of two kingdoms in the northeast laid the groundwork for the emergence of India's first empire, ruled by the Mauryan dynasty (ca. 321-185 BC).15 The region of Gandhara was conquered by Chandragupta (ca. 321-ca. 297 BC), the founder of the Mauryan Empire, the first universal state of northern India, with its capital at present-day Patna in Bihar. By 303 BC, Chandragupta Maurya had gained control of an immense area ranging from Bengal in the east to Afghanistan in the west and as far south as the Narmada River. Much of his success is attributed to his prime minister and mentor, Kautilya (also known as Chanakya), author of the Arthashastra, a cool calculating realpolitik treatise on the acquisition and maintenance of power.
His son, Bindusara extended the empire into central and parts of southern India. His grandson, Ashoka, the third Mauryan emperor (ca. 273-232 BC) is one of the most famous rulers in Indian history. Ashoka's rule extended over much of what is todays Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India. After his conversion to Buddhism, Taxila became a leading centre of Buddhist learning. The great empire that Asoka built in the subcontinent included only that part of the Indus basin which is now known as the northern Punjab. The rest of the areas astride the Indus were not subjugated by him These areas, which now form a substantial part of Pakistan, were
virtually independent from the time of the Guptas in the fourth century AD until the rise of the Delhi Sultanate in the thirteenth century.

PAKISTAN'S HISTORY AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Kushan Empire
                        Following the rise of the Central Asian Kushan Empire in later centuries, the Buddhist culture of Afghanistan and Pakistan, centre on the city of Taxila just west of Islamabad, experienced a cultural renaissance known as the Gandhara period. The northern regions of Pakistan came under the rule of Central Asian nomadic tribes called Sakas who at the start of the first century BC, had founded a kingdom in Gandhara (modern Kandahar in Afghanistan and northern areas of Pakistan) displacing the ailing Indo-Greek kings but were later were driven eastward by Pahlavis (Parthians related to the Scythians) who in turn were displaced by the Kushans (also
known as the Yueh-Chih in Chinese chronicles).
The Kushans had earlier moved into territory in the northern part of present-day Afghanistan and had taken control of Bactria. Along with the Indo-Parthians (Pahlavas), the Sakas dominated India from present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan right over to parts of Maharashtra and Kathiawar (modern Gujarat). Kanishka, the
greatest of the Kushan rulers (ca AD 120-60), extended his empire from Patna in the east to Bukhara in the west and from the Pamirs in the north to central India, with the capital at Peshawar (then Purushapura). Kushan territories were eventually overrun by the Huns in the north and taken over by the Guptas in the east and the Sassanians of Persia in the west.

PAKISTAN'S HISTORY AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

kingdom of Gandhara
                            
                                  Kingdom of Gandhara about the same time, the semi-independent Kingdom of Gandhara, roughly located in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan centred in the region of Peshawar, stood between the
expanding kingdoms of the Ganges Valley to the east and the Achaemenid Empire of Persia to the west. Its main cities were Purushapura (modern Peshawar) and Takshashila (modern Taxila).

The Kingdom of Gandhara lasted from the early first millennium BC to the 11th century AD. Gandhara probably came under the influence of Persia during the reign of Cyrus the Great (559-530 BC). The Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great in 330 BC, and he continued his march eastward through Afghanistan and into India. Alexander defeated Porus, the Gandharan ruler of Taxila in 326 BC and marched on to the Ravi River before turning back. The return march through Sindh and Balochistan ended with Alexander's death at Babylon in 323 BC.

Greek rule did not survive in northwestern India, although a school of art known as Indo-Greek developed and influenced art as far as Central Asia. With the fall of Greek rule in northwestern India Alexander's successors founded the Indo-Greek kingdom of Bactria based in what is today's Afghanistan and extending to Peshawar. At times they controlled the northwestern of region present-day Pakistan and even Punjab after Maurya power waned in the region.

The region of Gandhara was conquered by Chandragupta (rca. 321-ca. 297 BC), the founder of the Mauryan Empire, the first universal state of northern India, with its capital at present-day

Patna in Bihar. His grandson, Ashoka (r. ca. 274-ca. 236 BC), became a Buddhist. Taxila became a leading centre of Buddhist learning. Successors to Alexander at times controlled the northwestern of region present-day Pakistan and even Punjab after Maurya power waned in the region.

The discovery of the Gandhara grave culture in Dir and Swat will go a long way in throwing light on the period of Pakistans cultural history between the end of the Indus culture in 1500 BC and the beginning of the historic period under the Achaemenians in the sixth century BC Hindu mythology and Sanskrit literary traditions seem to attribute the destruction of the Indus civilization to the Aryans, but what really happened, remains a mystery.

The Gandhara grave culture has opened up two periods in the cultural heritage of Pakistan: one of the Bronze Age and the other o the Iron Age. It is so named because it presents a peculiar pattern of living in hilly zones of the Gandhara region as evidenced in the graves. This culture is different from the Indus culture and has little relations with the village culture of Balochistan. Stratigraphy as well as the artifacts discovered from this area suggests that the Aryans moved into this part of the world between 1,500 and 600 BC.

Gandhara Art, one of the most prized possessions of Pakistan, flourished for a period of 500 years (from the first to the fifth century AD) in the present valley of Peshawar and the adjacent hilly regions of Swat, Buner and Bajaur. This art represents a separate phase of the cultural renaissance of the region. It was the product of a blending of Indian, Buddhist and Greco-Roman sculpture. Gandhara Art in its early stages received the patronage of Kanishka, the great Kushan ruler, during whose reign the Silk Route ran through Peshawar and the Indus Valley, bringing great prosperity to the whole area. 14 After it was conquered by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1021 CE, the name Gandhara disappeared. During the Muslim period, the area was administered from Lahore or from Kabul. During Mughal times the area was part of Kabul province.

PAKISTAN'S HISTORY AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Buddhist Civilization
                                                                                                                          
                                The iron age civilization extand over much indo ganatic plain and which      withnessed the rise of major polities known as the mahajanapadas . by the sixth century bc' knowledge of indian history become more focused because of the available buddhist and jain sources of a pried .the system callad Jainism and Buddhism had their roots in prehistoric philosophies but they were founded respectively by Vardhamana Mahavira and Gotama Buddha, both of whom were preaching in Magadha durin the reign of Bimbisara (c.520 BC).
Northern India was at that time populated by a number of small princely states that rose and fell in the sixth century BC. In one of these kingdoms, Magadha, Mahavira and Gautama Buddha were born in the sixth or fifth century BC and propagated their śramani philosophies. Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha was born in 623 BO in the Kapilvastu (Lumbini) area located in the Terai plains of south- east of modern Nepal as testified by the inscription on the pillar erected by the Mauryan Emperor Asoka in 249 BC.
In sixth century BC, the people of the region were getting increasingly dissatisfied with the Hindu caste system. When Buddha, son of a Kshatriya king preached equality in men, his teachings were quickly accepted throughout the northern part of the subcontinent. In this milieu the rise of Buddhism became phenomenon that affected the history of the region for several centuries. Buddha's teachings proved enormously popular when
considered against the more obscure and highly complicated rituals and philosophy of Vedic Hinduism.

The original doctrines of the Buddha also constituted a protestagainst the existing inequities of the caste system, attracting large numbers of followers. Around the same time Gandhara, being the easternmost province of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, became a major power in the region. Its two cities - Pushkalavati, or present- day Charsadda near Peshawar, and the capital Taxila, were the centre of civilization and culture.12 For a time, Gandhara also was a jewel' of Buddhist civilization.

Scholars of Gandhara travelled east to India and China and were influential in the development of early Mahayana Buddhism. The art of Gandhara included the earliest frescos known in human history and the first- and some of the most beautiful --depictions of bodhisattvas and the Buddha in human form. During the next two hundred years Buddhism spread over northern India, perhaps receiving a new impulse from the Greek kingdoms in the Punjab.

About the middle of the third century BC Asoka, the king of Magadha or Behar who reigned from 264 BC to 227 BC, became a zealous convert to Buddhism. He is said to have supported 64,000 Buddhist priests; he founded many religious houses, and kingdom is called the Land of the Monasteries to this day. He
organized it on the basis of a state religion.

PAKISTAN'S HISTORY AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Aryan Civilization

                           Until the entry of the Europeans by sea in the late fifteenth century, and with the exception of the Arab conquests of Muhammad bin Qasim in the early eighth century, the route taken by peoples who migrated to India has been through the mountain passes, most notably the Khyber Pass, in today's northwestern
Pakistan. Although unrecorded migrations may have taken place earlier, it is certain that migrations increased in the second millennium BC.

In or about 1500 B.C., the Aryans from Central Asia descended developed the rudiments upon the Punjab and settled in the Sapta Sindhu, which signifies the Indus plain. They brought with them and of the religio-philosophical system of what later evolved into Hinduism. They developed a pastoral society that grew into the Rigvedic Civilization. The Rigveda is replete with hymns of praise for this region, which they describe as "God fashioned". The earlierhymns exhibit the Aryans on the northwestern frontiers of India just

starting on their long journey.

                          They show the Aryans on the banks of the Indus, divided into various tribes, sometimes at war with each other, sometimes united against the "dark-skinned" aborigines. They also brought an early version of Sanskrit, the base of Urdu, Punjabi, and Sindhi languages that are spokken in much of Pakistan today. They settled down as husbandmen, tilled their fields with the plough, and lived in villages or towns. But they also clung to their old wandering life, with their herds and "cattle-pens.

                          Cattle, indeed, still formed their chief wealth, the coin in whichpayments of fines were made; and one of their words for war literally meant "a desire for cows". They learned to build "ship perhaps large river-boats, and also seemed to have heard something of the sea. 9 The Aryan tribes in the Veda were acquainted with most of the metals, and had among them blacksmiths, coppersmiths and goldsmiths, besides carpenters, barbers and other artisans. They fought from chariots, and freely used the horse, although not yet the elephant, in war.

In those early days the Aryan tribes were known to be divided into four social grades on a basis of colour: the Kshatriyas or nobles, who claimed descent from the early leaders; the Brahmans on sacrificing priests; the Vaishyas, the peasantry; and last of all the Sudras, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, of non-Aryan

descent. Even below these there were low tribes and trades,aboriginal tribes and slaves. 10 But it is also clear that so long as the Sapta Sindhu remained the core of the Aryan Civilization, it remained free from the caste system.

                        The caste institution and the ritual of complex sacrifices took ape in the Ganges Valley where a social and political system evobserved in which the Aryans dominated but various indigenous Peoples and ideas were also accommodated and absorbed. There can no doubt that the Indus Valley Civilization contributed much to
evelopment of the Aryan civilization.

PAKISTAN'S HISTORY AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Indus Valley culture

which constituted the environment for Valley Civilization. Baluchistan area were still struggling against a difficult highland themselves at Kot Diji in the Sindh province, one of the most developed urban civilizations of the ancient world which flourished between the years 3300 and 1300 BC in the Indus Valley sites of Moenjodaro and Harappa. Indus Valley Civilization From the earliest times, the Indus River Valley region has been both a transmitter of cultures and a receptacle of different ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups. Indus Valley Civilization (known also as Harappan culture) spréad and flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent in present-day Pakistan along the Indus River valley in Punjab and Sindh, and was the first major civilization in South Asia.

There are several theories about the origin of Indus valley Civilization. The Indus people might have come from Mesopotamia as they had links with them. It was the time of decline of Mesopotamian Civilization. In the settlements at Indo-Irania borders there was a concept of village society. So they might have come from northwestern borders (Iran). But all these are hypotheses and not established facts. The only fact is that the Indus people had trade relations with the people of both Mesopotamia and Iran.
This civilization, which had a writing system, urban centres, and a diversified social and economic system, was discovered in the 1920s at its two most important sites: Moenjodaro, in Sindh near Sukkur, and Harappa, in Punjab south of Lahore.5 The imposing ruins of the beautifully planned towns present clear evidence of the unity of a people having the same mode of life and using the same kind of tools.6 These people possessed a high standard of art and craftsmanship and a well-developed system of quasi pictographic writing, which despite continuing efforts still remains undecipherable.

A number of other lesser sites stretching from the Himalayan foothills in Indian Punjab to Gujarat east of the Indus River and to Balochistan to the west have also been discovered and studied. How closely these places were connected to Moenjodaro and Harappa is not clearly known, but evidence indicates that there was some link and that the people inhabiting these places were probably related.

Indus Valley Civilization was essentially a city culture sustained by surplus agricultural produce and extensive commerce, which included trade with sumer in southern Mesopotamia.(today's modern Iraq). Copper and bronze were in use, but not iron. Mohenjodaro and Harappa were built on identical plans of well-laid- out streets, elabourate drainage systems, public baths, differentiated residential areas, flat-roofed brick houses and fortified

administrative and religious centers enclosing meeting halls and granaries. Weights and measures were standardized.

                     By far the most exquisite but most intriguing artifacts unearthed to date are the small, square steatite seals engraved with human or animal motifs. Large numbers of the seals have been found at Mohenjodaro, many bearing pictographic inscriptions generally thought to be a kind of script. Despite the efforts of philologists from all parts of the world, however, and despite the use of computers, the script remains undeciphered, and it is unknown if

it is proto-Dravidian or proto-Sanskrit.

                     Nevertheless, extensive research on the Indus Valley sites, which has led to speculations on both the archaeological and the linguistic contributions of the pre-Aryan population to Hinduism's subsequent development, has offered new insights into the cultural heritage of the Dravidian population still dominant in southern cIndia. Artifacts with motifs relating to asceticism and fertility rites suggest that these concepts entered Hinduism from the earlier civilization.

But one thing is clear. The Indus Valley Civilization existed in the western part of the subcontinent, almost exclusively on the banks of the Indus River (present-day Pakistan). Therefore, the assertion that the current-day Pakistanis are inheritors of the Indus Valley Civilization is not an exaggeration. This makes Pakistan the real
inheritor of one of the oldest civilizations of the world.