Alishang
Alishang is a village, river and a fertile valley of Laghman Province, and also the district headquarters of Mihtarlam District, in eastern Afghanistan.[1][2]
Location
It lies about 40 km northwest of Jalalabad. The fertile Alishang valley drained by the Alishang River, which is described as "contracted", has an abundance of mounds and caves. Is surrounded by Badrow hills. Alladad Khan castle is located close to the village.[3][4] The Alishang River valley has a number of villages on the way from Jalalabad, such as Kargai, Tajak, Tigadee and Safees along its river course, which in some reaches is very narrow and can be forded by dismounting from the horse’s back.[5]
Geography
Alishang village is on the banks of Alishang River, which is also called the Nadjil River. It rises in the mountains of Nadjil on the southern slopes of Hindukush mountains and after traversing 90 miles joins the Alinghar River in Alishang village. The valley and the river are both named as Alishang. Similarly, Alinghar River is also known as the Kow, which rises in the Hindukush mountains joins the Alishang River in Alishang.[5] The Rhododendron Afghanicum was found in the Laghman Valley, northeast of Kabul.[6]
History
In May 327 BCE, when Alexander the Great invaded the republican territories of the Alishang/Kunar, Massaga and Aornos on the west of Indus, Shashigupta had rendered great service to the Macedonian invader in reducing several Kshatriya chiefs of the Ashvakas of the Alishang/Kunar and Swat valleys. He appears to have done this in an understanding with Alexander that after the reduction of this territory, he would be made the lord of the country. And Arrian definitively confirms that after the reduction of the fort of Aornos in Swat where the Ashvakas had put up a terrible resistance, Alexander entrusted the command of this extremely strategic fort of Aornos to Shashigupta and made him the Satrap of the surrounding country of the eastern Ashvakas.[6]
The earliest history is traced to the Mughal Emperor Babur. In the 1520s, Babur, while camping in Alishang, had hunted wildlife in the mountains of the Alishang valley before he returned to India.[7]
In the 1840s, the settlement was described as a "small walled-in town, of about four hundred houses, but has nothing remarkable in its appearance." The place finds mention in Babur's writings and the people inhabiting the village are stated to be cantankerous and are given an epithet in the local language.[8]
External links
References
- ↑ Geographic Names, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
- ↑ Burnes, Sir Alexander; Leech, Robert; Lord, Perceval Barton; Wood, John (1839).
- ↑ Mason, Charles (1844). Journeys in Balochistan,Afghanistan the Panjab, & Kalat. p. 293
- ↑ Jalali, Ali Ahmad; Grau, Lester W. (25 January 2002). Afghan guerrilla warfare: in the words of the Mujahideen fighters. Zenith Imprint. p. 217. ISBN 978-0-7603-1322-0.
- ↑ Burnes, Sir Alexander; Leech, Robert; Lord, Perceval Barton; Wood, John (1839).
- ↑ Arrian's Anabasis, 1893, Book 4b, Ch xxx, and Book 5b, ch xx, E. J. Chinnock; The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, 1896, p 112, Dr John Watson M'Crindle; The History and Culture of the Indian People, 1969, p 49, Dr Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bhāratīya Itihāsa Samiti; Historiae Alexandri Magni, Book 8, Ch XI, Curtius.
- ↑ Stephen Frederic Dale (2004). The garden of the eight paradises: Bābur and the culture of Empire in Central Asia, Afghanistan and India (1483–1530). BRILL. pp. 316–. ISBN 978-90-04-13707-3.
- ↑ Mason, Charles (1844). Journeys in Balochistan,Afghanistan the Panjab, & Kalat. p. 293.
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