An Inquiry Into the Ethnography of Afghanistan/Page 51-75
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By H. W. Bellew
The Oriental University Institute, Woking, 1891
Ethnology of Afghanistan:Page 51-75
The Surs
[Page-51]: of Nadali (Nadori), both situated on the plain between the Helmand river and the Sistan basin, distinct traces of former Rajput occupancy ; both Sura and Nadoria being the names of well-known Gahlot or Sisodia Rajput clans. Another fact worthy of note in connection with the Indian relations of the Suri, is the wide dissemination of this tribe of Afghanistan on the Indus border, throughout Sind, and the peninsula of ancient Saurashtra to which they gave their name. The early seat of the Sur in Afghanistan was the country called Ghor by the Arabs ; it is perhaps connected with the Gaur, or Gor, of the Rajput, who have a tribe of that name, as well as the Bengal kingdom so called, and said to mean "White, Fair."
We have now disposed of the principal Persian tribes mentioned by Herodotus, as quoted in the outset of this inquiry, and have noticed as briefly as possible various others amongst the inhabitants of Afghanistan whose names have cropped up by the way. I now proceed to notice some of the nations of the ancient Persian Empire, the names of which Herodotus has recorded in his enumeration of the twenty satrapies into which it was divided by Darius Hystaspes for the purposes of tribute, so far as those names appear to bear a relation to tribes still existing in Afghanistan. Herodotus explains that, in this division of the empire for the collection of tribute, "the Persian territory alone has not been mentioned as subject to tribute, for the Persians occupied their lands free from taxes"; and further, that, "in constituting these twenty satrapies, Darius set governors over them, and appointed tribute to be paid to him from each nation, both connecting the adjoining people with the several nations, and omitting some neighbouring people, he annexed to some others that were more remote." Herodotus does not cite any instance of such distribution; but in describing the seventh satrapy he expressly states that the four nations composing it were "joined together," and it is the only instance in which he makes any remark of the kind ; from which we may infer that in the other satrapies the nations mentioned by name were not all joined together. At all events, in the case of the seventh satrapy, the modern representatives of the four nations severally named as composing it are still found, and by precisely the same names as those mentioned by Herodotus, in adjoining districts of Afghanistan, a fact which serves to indicate the exact situation and extent of this satrapy itself. In several of the other satrapies also, the nations composing them respectively were apparently contiguous one to the other ; some of these, which come within the region of our inquiry, we will notice in their proper places, the others we need not further allude to more than to observe in this place that in
[Page-52]: Afghanistan to-day are found many tribes bearing the same names as were borne by the ancient nations of Asia Minor.
An interesting discovery of Baraki tribe
In this connection it may be allowable, perhaps, to conjecture in order to account for the existence at the present day, as I hope to show, in the extreme eastern provinces of the ancient Persian Empire, of tribes and nations whose original (in the time of Darius Hystaspes, at least,) seats were in its extreme western provinces — that the former association together of different nations for the payment of tribute, may have led in after times, to their location together in one province in some redistribution or other of the fiscal arrangements of the empire ; or, perhaps, nations and tribes, driven from their seats by internal revolutions or external conquests, may, from former association in the payment of tribute, have held together as friends and confederates for mutual support in their new settlements ; or, probably, they may have been transported, bag and baggage, by order of the king, from one extremity of the empire to the other for purely military purposes or as an exemplary punishment.
Of the last kind of transportation Herodotus has recorded an instance which is of the greatest interest and importance to us in this inquiry. He tells us (Bk. iv. 200, etc.) that, about the same time that Darius Hystaspes led his expedition across the Bosphorus against the Skythians, his governor of Egypt sent a naval and military force against the Greek colonies of Barke and Kyrene in Libya; and that after the Persians had captured Barke, they enslaved the Barkaians and took them to Egypt on their return from this expedition. By this time Darius also had returned from his Skythian campaign to his capital at Susa ; and Herodotus adds to what he had said of the Persians returning to Egypt from Libya, that
- " the Barkaians whom they had enslaved, they transported from Egypt to the king ; and king Darius gave them a village in Baktria to dwell in. They gave then the name of Barke to this village, which was still inhabited in my time in the Baktrian territory."
And I may now repeat these words of Herodotus, and say that, after the lapse of about two thousand three hundred and fifty years, the village of Barke, which he mentions, is still in our day inhabited, and by the posterity, in name, at least, if got in lineal descent also, of the Barkaians he speaks of ; and that too in the very territory he indicates. The colony of Barkaians in Baktrian territory, of which the "Father of History " has thus informed us, is to-day represented by the Baraki tribe inhabiting the villages of Baraki in the Baghlan district of Kunduz, and of Barki Bark and Barki Rajan, in the Logar district of Kabul, which last is a tract comprised within the Bakhtar Zamiri or " Bakhtar territory," of Orientals, and the Baktriana of the Greeks.
[Page-53]: This interesting discovery, together with some other notes relating to the tribes of Afghanistan, most of which I reproduce in this paper and rectify where necessary, I had the privilege of making known in a paper which I read by invitation at a meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society a few years ago, as an installment, I had hoped, of other papers in pursuit of the same subject, had my health, which was by no means satisfactory at that time, permitted. My offering for discussion was, however, received with so little approval, and called forth so strong a disapproval from the Director of that august Society for the encouragement of Oriental research, that I willingly laid aside my notes on the subject, together with the aptitude acquired by a long acquaintance with the country and its peoples, to some more suitable occasion, when I might lay my information before others more willing to investigate it. The present occasion appears to me to afford such an opportunity ; and in submitting this paper to the notice of the learned men of this Ninth International Congress of Orientalists, I hope, not that what I advance will be received without severe scrutiny and criticism, but that it may meet with the close consideration which the subject claims, as a means of throwing light upon many obscure points connected with the history of the peoples of this Afghanistan region in their past relations to the revolutions and invasions which have since the Alexandrian conquest successively swept over its area. The information I have here hastily put together on the subject of our inquiry, — so far as relates to the recognition of the existing peoples of Afghanistan and their identification with the ancient nations of that territory and their successors, as their names and circumstances have come down to us in the records of the historian and geographer, — is, I am fully sensible, fragmentary and defective in detail ; but with all its faults, it will serve, I trust, as a stimulus to others better qualified than myself to pursue the inquiry with more of method and in greater detail, and, above all, with a greater knowledge of Oriental history than I can hope ever to attain. The field of research in Afghanistan is a large one, and almost untrod, so far as methodical and critical investigation is concerned ; and affords material to fill volumes with information of a most interesting kind, and of no small importance to the historian and statesman alike. But to return to our subject of immediate inquiry.
Herodotus on Paionoi
Herodotus gives some other instances of the transplanting of nations and tribes by king Darius after his return from the Skythian expedition. He says (Bk. v.) that, " Darius commanded Magabazus, whom he had left as his general in Thrakia, to remove the Paionoi from their abodes, and to bring to him themselves, their children, and their wives. "Magabazus accordingly
[Page-54]: invaded Paionia, and took- possession of their towns, and the Paionoi immediately gave themselves up to the Persians. Thus the Siropaionoi and Paioplai, and the tribes of the Paionoi as far as the Lake Prasias were removed from their abodes, and transported into Asia. But those about Mount Pangaius and near the Doberoi, the Agrianai, Odomantoi, and those who inhabit Lake Prasias itself, were not at all subdued by Megabazus. . . . Those of the Paionoi then who were subdued were taken to Asia. . . . Megabazus, leading with him the Paionoi, arrived at the Hellespont, and having crossed over from thence, came to Sardis, bringing the Paionoi with him. . . . The Paionoi, who had been carried away captive by Megabazus from the river Strymon, occupied a tract in Phrygia, and a village by themselves." The tribes named as thus transported into Phrygia are the Paioni, the Paioplai, and the Doberi. The Paioni on the river Strymon, not far from the Hellespont, were a branch of the Panni, or Pannoni, who gave their name to the country called Pannonia ; and the Paioplai and Doberi appear to have been clans of the same tribe. Anyhow, we find in Afghanistan at the present day tribes bearing the same names, viz. : the Panni, the Popali, or Popalzi, and the Dawari; and all settled together in the Kandahar country, where, curiously enough, they have a ridge of hill and a district, with its village, called Panjwai, which may stand for the Pangains of Herodotus. Formerly the Panni was a numerous and important tribe in Afghanistan, but in the time of the Lodi kings of Delhi, they, along with several other important tribes of Afghanistan, emigrated bodily to Hindustan, where they established small colonies in various parts of the country, as in Hydrabad of the Dakhan, in Barar, Karaoli, Shekhawati, and other parts of Central India, Rajwarra, etc., leaving but few of the tribe in Afghanistan.
The Popali, or Popalzi, form one of the principal tribes of the modern Durani, and are reckoned at about twelve thousand families, mostly agricultural and partly pastoral. Their Sado clan furnished the king, and the Bami clan the prime minister of the newly-established Durani monarchy. Their chief seats are in the Tiri and Darawat districts north of Kandahar, and along the Tarnak valley to the east of that city as far as Shahri Safa. The Dawari apparently gave their name to the Zamin Dawar district, or " Dawar territory," on the west bank of the Helmand adjoining Darawat, but are not now found as a separate tribe of that name in this district, though its inhabitants are often called Dawari amongst the people of the country. There is another district called Dawar on the Lidus base of the Suleman range, which was probably peopled from the Zamin Dawar above mentioned; but as we shall refer to these tribes again in a later passage, we need not dwell further on them now.
[Page-55]: It must be noted here, in regard to the above-described transportation of the Paioni, that afterwards, Ionia having revolted, these Paioni, at the instigation of the Milesians, attempted to return back to their country, and some of them did thus escape. But only a small body, for, as Herodotus says,
- "The Paionoi, having taken with them their children and wives, fled to the coast; but some of them through fear remained where they were. The fugitives were pursued by a large body of Persian cavalry, but they escaped to Khios; the Khians conveyed them to Lesbos, and the Lesbians forwarded them to Doriskus, thence proceeding on foot they reached Paionia."
As these fugitives escaped by ship, their number probably was not great, and the larger portion of the Paioni exiles, we may reasonably conclude, remained in Persian territory. Perhaps, in consequence of this attempt to escape, the remaining Paioni were moved away further from their own country; possibly to the very place, Zarain Dawar, where we now find their modern representatives, as above stated.
Herodotus mentions another transportation of people by Darius, which I may quote as bearing upon our present inquiry. He says (Bk. vi.),
- " The Persians having conquered the Ionians at sea, besieged Miletus both by land and sea, and took it completely in the sixth year after the revolt of Aristagoras (the revolt of the Ionians above mentioned), " and reduced the city to slavery. . . . Such of the Milesians as were taken alive, were afterwards conveyed to Susa, and King Darius, without doing them any other harm, settled them on that which is called the Red Sea,, in the city of Ampe, near which the Tigris, flowing by, falls into the sea."
The Milesians were of the Milyi nation of Asia Minor, and, together with the ancient Malli of the Indus valley, may be represented in Afghanistan by the tribes bearing the name of Mali. One of these, the Mali of the Yusufzi, Swat and Bajaur districts, has some small sections upon the Indus, where is a town called Amb now in the possession of the chief of the Tanaoli tribe. These Ionians are traceable by that name in Afghanistan in the form of Yunus (Iwvos) , This Muhammadan name appears among the sections of many of the Afghan' tribes, especially in those inhabiting the Indus Valley about the Peshawar district, which was one of the principal seats of the Greek dominion. But in the Sanskrit writings the name Ionian appears in the form of Yona or Yavana, and Jona or Javana.
Satrapies of the empire of Darius
In order to save time and to avoid the inconvenience of repeated references, I proceed now to take the several satrapies of the empire of Darius, in the order they are described by Herodotus (Bk. iii.), and to notice such of the nations, mentioned by him as
[Page-56]: composing them severally, which appear to be connected with the tribes now found in Afghanistan.
First satrapy:
The first satrapy comprised the Ionoi, Magnesoi, Aioloi, Karoi, Lydoi, Milyoi, and Pamphyloi.
Of these, the
- Ioni, as above stated, are now represented in Afghanistan by the Yuntis sections of various tribes on the eastern borders of the country. Similarly the
- Pamphyli by the Parmuli or Furmuli tribe. Each of these, excepting the Ludi already described, will appear again in its proper place amongst the sections of the Afghan clans ; for nowhere in Afghanistan are any of these nations found as distinct or separate tribes at the present day, with the exception only of the Parmuli or Furmuli, who are a distinct people, not reckoned as Afghan at all, and speaking, not the Pukhto, but a Persian dialect. The first satrapy was situated in Asia Minor, where these nations had their territorial possessions. Their representatives in Afghanistan were probably colonists planted by Alexander, in the provinces taken from the Arians, on settlements of his own, as stated by Strabo in the passage before quoted.
Second satrapy :
The second satrapy comprised the Mysoi, the Lydoi, the Lasonoi (in another passage called Kabaloi Meionoi), the Kabaloi, and the Hygennoi.
Of these the
- Mysi may be now represented by the Musa sections of many of the Afghan tribes ; formerly they appear to have formed a distinct tribe settled in the Musadara, or "valley of the Musa" in the Ghor country adjoining Zamiandawar, west of the Helmand river, into which the Musa stream empties, not far from Girishk. On the other hand, the Musa clans of Afghanistan may derive from an Indian tribe of that name anciently seated on the Indus below the junction of the modem Chenab ; for Aerian mentions amongst the local chieftains and princes of this region with whom Alexander came into conflict, one Musikanus; a name which seems to be the Greek rendering of Muse ka Raja, or " Prince of the Musa tribe ; " but I have not found any such name as Musa amongst the Rajput and Hindu tribes in the lists given by Tod and Sherring. The
- Lasoni may be represented by the Lasi or Lasani of Balochistan ; they are not now found by that name amongst the Afghan tribes, but by their other name of
- Kabali Meioni, they may be represented by the Miyani, an important division of the trading association of caravan merchants called Pavindah ; and perhaps also by the various sections of traders and religious beneficiaries styled Miyan. The Kabuli may be represented by the modern Kabuli and the Kabul-khel of the great Vaziri tribe. And the
[Page-57]:
- Hygenni, without doubt, by the Khugani, seated along the northern base of the Sufed Koh. From its composition, supposing my identifications are correct, this satrapy comprised a considerable portion of the ancient Paropamisus, from the Khybar Pass in the east to the vicinity of Farah in the west. The Khugani were formerly a numerous and important tribe, extending along the northern base of Sufed Koh, from near the Khybar Pass to the plain of Kabul at Butkhak ; but now they occupy a much restricted area, being confined to the Gandumak valley, between the Shinwari on the east, and the Ghilzi on the west. Perhaps it will be as well to dispose of the Khugani in this place.
- Khugani — Hygenni of Herodotus — are also called Khugiyani, Gigiyani, [[Khaogani] and Khagwani. In the Afghan genealogies they are classed in the Ghurghushti division of the nation, amongst the tribes of its Kararai or Karalanri branch. Karalanri is a Pukhto word, and means " the brotherhood, kindred, or associates of Karai "; and Karai or Garai is the name of a well-known Turk tribe, now settled in the Khorasan hills south of Mashhad, about Zawah and Turbati Jam, etc. The Khugani are reckoned at six thousand families in their ancient seats on the north slopes of Sufed Koh, and have a colony of nearly equal strength in the Doaba of Peshawar, where they inhabit the villages of Srikh Marozi, Matani, Mandozi, etc. They have besides some small settlements at Kandahar, and nearer home in the Lower Kunar valley and adjoining districts of Bajaur. The Khugani are considered a distinct people from all around them, being neither Afghan, nor Pathan, nor Ghilzi, nor Tajik ; and by the Pathans they are reckoned as of the same race as the Chamkani tribe, which indeed is counted as a branch of the Khugani. Among the Khugani of Sufed Koh, and sharing the land with them are the Lalai, Laili, or Lele Vaziri, said to be an offshoot of the great Vaziri tribe of the Suleman range, and reckoned at six thousand families.
The Khugani are in three main divisions, viz., Vaziri, Khyrbun, and Sherzad.
The Vaziri or Laili sections are —
Of these names
- Motik for Maithili Brahman ?
- Barak will appear again later on.
The Khyrbun are in two divisions, viz.,
Of these names,
[Page-58]:
- Karai is the name of a Turk tribe above mentioned.
- Jali will appear again.
- Mukar is Rajput, and
The Sherzad sections are — Lughmani, Khodi, [[Mama, Marki, Shadi, etc.
Of these names,
- Mzarai may be the Musulman substitute for an original Maviari, the name of a large Hindu tribe of the Indian desert and Indus valley ; or it may be the Muhammadan guise of the Misr Brahman, for
- Mama, one of the sections, is the name of a Brahman tribe of Northern India.
- Khodi, or Khadi, and Shadi are different pronunciations of the same word, and stand for the Chato Brahman.
Third satrapy
The third satrapy comprised the Hellespontoi, the Phrygoi, the Thrakoi, Paphlagonoi, Mariandynoi, and Syroi, and was evidently situated at the western extremity of the empire. None of these names are found amongst the tribes of Afghanistan, excepting the Syri, or Suri, which has already been noticed.
Fourth satrapy:
The fourth satrapy was composed of the Kilikoi, and apparently comprised the province of Kilikia, the modern Adana, with perhaps the adjoining province of Karaman with its capital Koniya, the ancient Ikonium. The Kiliki may perhaps be represented in Afghanistan by the Ghilji or Khiliji, The Ghilji of Afghanistan, called also Ghalzoe, Khalaja, and Khalachi, are said to be a Turk tribe from beyond the Jaxartes, and of the Khilichij or "Swords- men" tribe of Turk. They have been known in Afghanistan by the name of Ghilji or Khilichi, at least since the time of Mahmud of Grhazni, towards the close of the tenth century, and were probably settled in the country at a much earlier date. The name appears in the form of Khizilchi, or Khilichi, or Khizilji, as the patronymic of the Saljuk dynasty of Rum, or Asia Minor, whose capital was Ikonium, during the twelfth century. We have seen what is the composition of the Ghilji tribe of Afghanistan, and how largely it is made up of Indian elements.
Saljuk dynasty
The Saljuki, as recognised by Latham, are evidently the Greek Seleuki, Alexander's successors in the Greek Empire of Asia.
There are some curious details recorded by Oriental writers, as quoted by D'Herbelot, connected with the origin of the founder of the Saljuk dynasty, which reigned in Asia in three separate and contemporaneous branches during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and in the case of the greatest of them to the middle of the fourteenth ; viz., those of Persia, from 1037 to 1196 A.D., a period of 159 years ; of Kirman, from 1041 to 1187 A.D., 146 years ; and of Rum, or Asia Minor, from 1087 to 1360 A.D., or
[Page-59]: 263 years. D'Herbelot, on the authority of the Lab Tartkh, says that Saljuk descends in thirty-four generations from Afrasyab, king of Turan or Turkistan; that he had four sons — Mikail (Michael), Israil (Israel), Musa (Moses), and Yunus (Jonas) (all purely Hebrew names), who acquired great riches in friends, lands, and flocks and herds ; that they migrated from Turkistan into Transoxiana in search of more abundant pastures in 375 of the Hijra, which commenced on 23rd May, 985 A.D. ; that they halted first on the borders of Bukhara and Samarkand, and thence sought permission of the Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi to pass the Oxus into Khorasan, of which province he was master ; and that Mahmud granted them permission to establish themselves in the environs of Nisa and Abivard. That Mikail had two sons, named Toghrul Beg and Jafar Beg; that they became the chiefs of this colony, and increased so greatly and rapidly by the accession of fresh hordes of Turk, as to become a cause of alarm ; that Mahmud being dead, his son and successor, Masa'ud, led an army to turn them out, but was defeated ; and that Toghrul, after this assumed royalty, and in 429 h. (commenced 23rd October, 1037 A.D.), was crowned as Sultan at Nishapur, which he made his capital.
A different account is given by Khondemir, who says that Saljuk was the son of Dakak, a principal officer of Bigu, a Turk Sultan, who dwelt in the Khazar country or plain of Kapchak, above the Caspian Sea. Dakak had the surname of Tazialuc or "Strongbow," and on his death left a young son, named Saljuk, whom Sultan Bigu adopted and brought up with the surname or title of Bashachi, or " Captain." Saljuk having violated the privacy of his patron's harem, and thus incurred his vengeance, fled with all his family, friends, and dependants to Samarkand, and established himself in that vicinity, where he and his embraced Islam. His followers increasing he had frequent conflicts with Beli Khan, the governor of the city of Samarkand, in which, proving victorious, he advanced to Bukhara, where he was well received. Of his four sons above mentioned, Khondemir gives the name of Bigu to Yunus, and calls the sons of Mikail, Muhammad and Daud.
To the above accounts D'Herbelot adds . that of Mirkhond which is to the effect that Masaud, the son of Mahmud Ghaznavi, rejected altogether the claim of the Saljuk to descent from the Turk ; because the family or race of Saljuk nowhere appeared in the Turk genealogies, and that, being a Turk himself, he well knew all the families and noble houses of that nation. This rebuff was given by Masa'ud to an ambassador from the Saljuki, requesting the assignment of a residence, and swearing obedience
[Page-60]: and fidelity on their part. In consequence of this the Saljuki "waged war with Masa", and soon took all Khorasan from him, and joined it to their possessions in Transoxiana.
Putting these different accounts together, the probability is, that the people represented by Saljuk and his sons were an obscure party of pastoral or nomadic Greeks, Israelites (for that Jews, and Christians too, were both numerous and influential in these parts at the time of the Mughol invasion, fully two centuries later than the period of the Saljuk's appearance, is a well ascertained fact), and wandering Turk, probably Christian in religion, all confederated together for mutual protection and support, much after the fashion of existing tribes in Afghanistan ; who, taking advantage of the disturbed state of the country during the declining rule of the Samani dynasty, under the lead of a Greek of the Saljuk family, acquired extended possessions and wealth, and increasing their strength by the accession and incorporation of neighbouring Turk nomads and stragglers of all sorts, rapidly rose to power and to sovereign rule ; and that the successes achieved by the Saljuk leader, having been mainly effected by the aid of his Turk followers and adherents, who naturally far out-numbered his own petty tribe, he and his immediate successors, from motives of policy, adopted their nationality, content with bestowing their own patronymic on the dynasty they had founded. The Saljuki early took possession of the Kandahar province ; and the sixth Sultan of the Persian branch of the dynasty. Sultan Sanjar, took his name from the city of Sanjar near Kandahar, the ruins of which are now known by the name of Takhti Sanjari, " The Throne of the Sanjar." Sultan Sanjar, despite his military misfortunes, is praised for his valour, magnanimity, and justice, and was celebrated for the magnificence of his court, and, as D'Herbelot says, was usually called "Alexander the Second." Probably on account of an acknowledged Greek descent, for his military achievements could hardly have entitled him to so proud a surname. He died in 1157 A.D., after a reign of fifty years, and has left a living memorial of his rule in the Sanjari sections of Afghan tribes about the Bolan, and of Sanjarani Baloch in the adjoining principality of Kalat.
Fifth satrapy:
The fifth satrapy was composed of all Phoinikia, Syria, which is called Palestine, and Cyprus. It offers nothing of interest to us in this inquiry beyond the surmise that it may have supplied the people of the Antiokhia (Andkhui) built " as a Syrian city " by Antiokhus the son of Seleukus, as before noticed.
Baraki tribe of Kabul
Sixth satrapy :
The sixth satrapy comprised Egypt, and the Libya bordering thereon, and Kyrene, and Barke, and the Lake Moeris. Here we find something of interest to us. I have already quoted the
[Page-61]: passage in Herodotus, describing the transportation of the Barkaians from the far distant Libya to the village in Kunduz of Baktria, which the exiles named Barke in commemoration of the Libyan Barke ; which was founded 554 B.C, and only half a century prior to their own enslavement and deportation as captives of war, by a colony from the adjoining Greek settlement in Kyrene.
Herodotus, after describing the manner in which the Libyan Barke was founded by Greek colonists (Bk. iv. 155), states that the name given to the first king was Battus, which in the Libyan tongue meant "king." I mention this because in the Logar valley of Kabul, which is to-day their principal settlement in Afghanistan, the Baraki tribe have two villages close together, the one called the Baraki Rajan, the other the Baraki Barak ; a distinction probably marking some recognised difference originally existing amongst the exiled Barkaians (Barkai of Herodotus) on their first settlement in these parts, such as the Barkai of the king's family or household, and the Barkai of the city of Barke ; for such is the exact meaning of the names themselves — Baraki Rajan meaning " Royal Barkai," Baraki Bark meaning " Barke of the Barkai." That these Baraki of Afghanistan, or rather their ancestors the Barkai of Herodotus, were recognised as Greeks by Alexander and his followers — notwithstanding the absence of any such explicit statement, and of the mention even of their name — seems clear from a passage in Arrian (Bk. iii. 28), who — after saying that, from the Euergetes Alexander directed his march against Baktria, and on his way received the homage of the Drangai, Gadrosoi, and Arakhotoi (each of which nations we shall speak of later on) ; and then proceeded to the Indians adjacent to the Arakhotoi (the Indians in the Paropamisus about Ghazni, the former seat of the Batani tribe before described), all which nations he subdued with the utmost toil and difficulty, owing to the deep snow and extremities of want ; and then, marching to Mount Caucasus, built a city there which he called Alexandria — adds, that in this city Alexander left a Persian prefect in the government of the country, with a party of his troops for his support, and then passed over the mountains, at a part where the surface was bare, nothing but the sylphium (Pukhto tarkha = "wormwood"), and the turpentine tree (Pukhto khinjak = " mastich ") growing there, but the country very populous and supporting multitudes of sheep and neat cattle, for they feed on the sylphium, of which, says Arrian, the sheep especially were so fond that some of the Kyreneans left their sheep at a distance and enclosed within a fence, to prevent their destroying the sylphium by gnawing the roots, as it was there very valuable.
This mention of the Kyreneans in Baktria, near the present Kabul,
[Page-62]: and the Barkai or Barkaians, in 330 B.C., is extremely interesting in relation to the colony of the Greek exiles transported from the kingdom of Kyrene in Libya, of which Barke was but a branch, to this very country by Darius Hystaspes, as before related ; and affords important evidence in corroboration of my identification of the Baraki tribe of Kabul with the Barkai exiles of Herodotus ; for these Kyreneans mentioned by Arrian can be none other than the Barkaians of whom Herodotus speaks, viz., the Baraki of Baghlan in Kunduz.
After the time of the Greek dominion the Baraki, it would appear, increased greatly in numbers and influence, and acquired extensive possessions towards Hindu Kush in the north, and the Suleman range in the south, and eastward as far as the Indus.
During the reign of Mahnud Ghaznavi the Baraki were an important tribe, and largely aided that Sultan in his military expeditions. The reputation then acquired as soldiers they still retain, and the Afghan monarchs — of the Barakzi family at all events — always entertain a bodyguard composed exclusively of Baraki. The Baraki are mentioned by the Emperor Babar as among the principal tribes of Kabul in the early part of the sixteenth century. They are now reckoned at about ten thousand families in Afghanistan, and, besides their head quarters in Kunduz and Logar, have settlements in Butkhak, and at Kanigoram in the Vaziri country, and on the Hindu Kush, about Bamian and Ghorband districts. In Afghanistan, though their true origin is not suspected, the Baraki are considered a distinct people by themselves ; they are disclaimed alike by Afghan and Pathan, by Ghilji and Hazarah, by Tajik and by Turk. Amongst themselves the Baraki use a peculiar dialect, which is more of a Hindi language than anything else, to judge from the few words I have met with.
The Baraki pretend descent from the Arab invaders, but this is a conceit of their conversion to Islam. They are a fine, tall, and active people, with fairer complexions than the generality of Afghans, and are held in consideration as a respectable people. They have no place in the Afghan genealogies by that name, being generally reckoned along with the Tajik population. Yet it is not altogether improbable that the present ruling tribe of the Durani in Afghanistan is originally derived from the Baraki ; for I can find no other source whence the Barakzi can have sprung ; the same remark applies also to the great Barak clan of the Khatak tribe. By reckoning these Durani Barak and Khatak Barak as offshoots from the Baraki, the Barkai of Herodotus, the great decline of the Baraki — perhaps at that time properly called Baraki — from the prosperity and influence they
[Page-63]: are said to have enjoyed in the reign of Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi, is at once explained. Possibly the split and alienation may have been owing to the readiness of the one and the reluctance of the other to accept Islam in the early period of its introduction.
Sattagydai, Grandarioi, Dadikai, and Aparytai
Seventh satrapy:
The seventh satrapy contained the Sattagydai, Grandarioi, Dadikai, and Aparytai, joined together.
These are the names apparently of the dominant nations responsible for the payment of the tribute. They are all recognisable by the same names to-day along the eastern frontier of Afghanistan.
- Sattagydai, or "Sattag kindred," are now represented by the Khattak, Shattak, Sattak, and Shitak or Sitak tribes of the Indus border ; the
- Grandarioi by the Gandari, now a mere handful by that name in the hills north of the Khybar Pass ; the
- Dadikai, or those of the Dadi stock, by the Dadika (obsolete) or Dadi, found among the sections of several Afghan tribes about the Bolan, and by the Dadu-putra or Daudputra of Bahawalpur; and the
In the time of Darius Hystaspes all these nations were accounted Indians, and held much the same tracts of country as those in which their posterity are now found. From its composition this satrapy must have comprised the whole of the Indus border from the mountains of Boner on the north to those of the Bolan Pass on the south, and from the river Indus to the watershed of the Suleman and Khybar ranges bounding its valley on the west.
Let us now examine the composition of these several nations as they now exist, and let us take them in the order of their succession from north to south; this being the more convenient arrangement for disposing of them and the tribes now associated with them.
Gandhari clan
Gandhari — Gandhari of the Sanskrit writers, and Gandarioi of the ancient Greeks — now inhabit a small canton called Nawagai, of which the capital is Gandhar, a town said to contain four thousand houses ; the country lies north of the Kabul river, between its Kunar tributary and the Bajaur hills. The Gandari are now reckoned among the clans of the Safi tribe, and are counted at about three thousand families. The celebrated Akhund of Swat, Abdul Ghafur by name, a religious recluse of considerable local sanctity and influence, some few years ago was a Gandharai, though commonly called a Safi, of which tribe the Gandhari or Gandari is a principal clan. The Safi is a considerable tribe inhabiting the Lughman district, and lower valleys at the base of the Kafiristan hills, from the Alishang river round to the Kunar. They are a fair and manly race, speak a dialect of their own, and are commonly reckoned as a branch of the Pashai. Some Safi I have met wore ringlets on each temple, and had the
[Page-64]: top of the head close cropped, much after the fashion of Oriental Jews.
Anciently the Gandhari were a numerous and important people, and gave their name to the whole country lying between the Indus and Kabul rivers, and drained by the Swat river and its affluents; its Indus border extending from Attock to Kanra Ghorband, below Gilgit. This country is the Gandhara of Sanskrit authorities, and may be taken to represent that of the Gandarioi of Herodotus ; its southern boundary being the Kabul river eastward of the Kunar junction ; and its western the watershed of the Bajaur range separating it from the valley of the Kunar river; the northern boundary is formed by the high mountains dividing this tract from the Darada country. The Gandaritis of Strabo had a much smaller area, and was restricted mostly to the plain country (or Sama) between the junction of the Kabul and Indus rivers; and perhaps more particularly to the Doaba portion of this tract, between the Kabul and Swat rivers.
The larger area of the Gandhara above defined comprised, besides the Doaba and Sama, all the hill country drained by the Panjkora (the Guraius of the Greeks), Swat (ancient Suastus) and Barandu rivers, and containing the cantons of Bajaur, Swat, Boner, etc., as far northwards as the Kohistan of Kanra and Ghorband, beyond which lay the country of the Dardu.
The Gandhari, or inhabitants of the Gandhara thus defined, comprised several distinct nations or tribes, of which the predominant Gandhari themselves occupied as their central seat the interfluvial tract enclosed by the Kabul, Swat, and Kunar rivers ; whilst the other nations occupied the rest of the plain country and the hill region up to the lofty mountains separating the drainage of the Swat river from that of Gilgit. The existing Gandari, or Gandhari, as before stated, are now confined to a little canton in the midst of the Nawagai hills ; the rest of their ancient country being in possession of other tribes, principally the Mahmand, of whom we shall speak presently.
Of the other nations anciently inhabiting the Gandhara country, Strabo furnishes us with the names of five, which we can easily recognise as we follow his account. He says (Geog. xv. 2) : " On his return to Baktriana from his expedition into Sogdia, and against the Skythians, Alexander, crossing the same mountains into Ariana by other roads, proceeded towards India, and the rivers Kophes (Kabul) and Khoaspes (Swat or Landi) which unite near Plemyrium (the modem village of Prang ; the Pukhto corruption probably of the Hindi Pramaraka, " of the Pramara," a well-known Rajput tribe, very largely represented amongst the Afghan tribes all along the Indus border), after the Khoaspes
[Page-65]: (khwar = River in Pukhto and Asip or Isap, the Pukhto name of the Aspioi tribe of Arrian, and of their own modem Muhammadanized Yusufzi) has passed by another city Gorys (Guri or Gori, the ruins of which are a well-known and prominent feature of the Tulash glen in Swat) in its course through Bandobene (Barawal district of Bajaur) and Gandaritis (Gandhar), and wintering in the territories of the Hypasioi (Strabo calls them Aspasioi in another passage; Arrian calls them Aspioi which is nearer to the current Pukhto Isapi or Isapzi of the modern Yusufzi) and in that of Asskanus (king of the Rajput Aswaka — " of the Aswa," a tribe anciently inhabiting the Swat valley, now represented by the Aspin of Chitral, and Yashkun or Yaskan of Yasin and Gilgit), in the beginning of spring he descended into the plains to the city of Taxila (the site of which is marked by the modern Takhal villages near the Peshawar cantonment ; not by the Taxila found east of the Indus, for Alexander has nob yet crossed that river). After the river Kophes follows the Indus. The country lying between the two rivers is occupied by the Astakenoi (Astaki tribe ; of which Astes mentioned by Arrian, was the chieftain), Masianoi (Mashwanri]] of Gandghar on east bank of Indus, previously described), Nysaioi (inhabitants of Nysaia of the Greeks, Nisida of the Rajput, and Nisatta of our day, around which are the ruins of the ancient free city ofNysaia), and Hypasioi (or Aspasioi the Aspioi of Arrian, the Isap of the Pukhtun, and the Yusufzi of the modern Musalman). Next is the territory of Assakanus (king of Swat and Bajaur, above noticed) where is the city of Masoga (if not the same as the Gorys above mentioned, perhaps its site is marked by the modern Bajaur commonly called Khahr or Shahr, " The City"), the royal residence of the country. Near the Indus is another, Peukalaitis (its site is perhaps marked by the ruins of Beka, on the Indus bank below Topi), for at this place a bridge which was constructed afforded a passage for the army."
Arrian gives a more particular account of Alexander's course through the country above described. He says in effect (Bk. iv. 224 et seq,) that Alexander, after the reduction of Sogdia, marched back into Baktria, whence, at the approach of spring (327 B.C.), he pushed forward with all his forces for India, and passing over Mount Caucasus, arrived at Alexandria, the city he had built among the Parapamisai, when he made his first expedition into Baktria. From this passing forwards to Nikaia (Nijrao) he proceeded to the river Kophenes (Kao of Dara Najil, where it joins Kabul river). Here, dividing his forces, he despatched Hephaistion and Perdikkas with a division of the army into the country of Peukalaotis (identified by Cunningham— 'Ancient Geography
Astes or Hasti King
[Page-66]: of India" — with the Sanskrit Pushkalavati the ancient capital of Gandhara, and situated on the East bank of the Swat or Landi river near its junction with the Kabul stream), towards the river Indus, the prince of which was called Astes (chieftain probably of the Astakenoi of Strabo, and governor of their capital city, now represented by the modern Charsada, commonly called Hashtnagar, indicating a former name of the sort, most likely Hastinagar, " City of the Hasti"; for Hashtnagar is a compound Persian and Hindi word meaning " eight cities," and has hence been vulgarly applied to as many villages along this river, and to the district in which they are situated).
Astes was slain in the defence of a city (not named) into which he had fled ; Hephaistion took this city after a siege of thirty days, and then gave the government of it to Sangaius (perhaps of the Sangu clan of the Shinwari tribe, now inhabiting the Nazian valley of [Nangrihar]] district west of the Khybar Pass). Alexander, after dividing his forces as above stated, then himself marched with a detachment against the Aspioi (Isap) the Thyraioi (Tirahi) and Arasakoi (Orakzi) and passing through a rough mountainous country along the river Khoe (Kao, the name of the Kabul river from the junction of the Kao of Dara Najil to that of the Kunar stream), which he crossed with some difficulty (perhaps at the ford opposite Jalalabad, where he passed to the south of the Kabul river), he, ordering his foot to follow at leisure, himself, with all his horse, and eight hundred heavy-armed Makedonian targeteers, whom he mounted on horseback, marched forwards with speed against the Barbarians, who had retired to the mountains (northern slopes of Sufed Koh) or within their strongest forts. The first of these strong towns he attacked (not named ; perhaps a Thyraioi or Tirahi castle in the Kot-rud, "Fortress river," valley) was surrounded with a double wall, and made a stout defence ; but was taken on the second day of assault, many of the defenders escaping to the neighbouring mountains. When he had laid that city level with the ground, Alexander marched to another, named Andaka (Daka Kam Daka, two villages close to one another on the south bank of the Kabul river, near the western entrance to the Khybar Pass), which yielding upon articles, he there left Kraterus with other captains of Foot, to subdue and govern the whole province (Nangrihar or Jalalabad), as it should seem to him most convenient.
The expedition against the Arasakoi
The expedition against the Arasakoi (Orakzi), I may here observe, must have been conducted by Kraterus. For Alexander, as Arrian continues, next directed his march towards the river Euaspla (the same apparently as the Khoaspes of Strabo ; by crossing the Kabul river at the ford between Daka and Lalpura,
[Page-67]: and thence marching over the Goshta plain), where the general of the Aspioi lay, and in two days' time by long journeys came to the city (not named ; perhaps Gandhar in Nawagai), which on his approach the Barbarians set on fire, and fled to the mountains. The Makedonians pursued and make great slaughter of them before they could reach those rugged and almost inaccessible places of retreat. Alexander then passed one of these mountains and came to the city of Arigaius (perhaps the Total range, to the city of Arichand where are extensive ruins round about the existing village of that name, at the eastern base of the range, in the Ranrizi district of Yusufzi), and found it deserted and burnt by the inhabitants. Alexander considered the situation of this place extremely commodious, and Kraterus having in the meantime rejoined him, he ordered him to rebuild the city and people it with such of the neighbouring inhabitants as would voluntarily come, and with others out of the army who were unfit for further service. In the meantime Alexander directed his march (along the skirt of the Totai and Malakand hills perhaps) to the place where the Barbarians had fled (perhaps the Mora mountain and pass of that name into Swat), and encamped at the foot of a certain mountain (probably Malakand, or perhaps Pajah), where, learning that many more fires appeared in the camp of the Barbarians than in his own, he moved forwards with a strong force to attack them, and after a sharp conflict on the plain and the hill occupied by the enemy, they were defeated with the loss of forty thousand men taken, and two hundred and thirty thousand head of cattle.
The Assakeni
Thence Alexander, having been rejoined by Kraterus with his troops, who had rebuilt Arigaius, moved with a detachment towards the Assakeni (Yaskiin of Bajaur), who were said to have an army of twenty thousand horse, and thirty thousand foot, besides thirty elephants ready to take the field, and passing through the territory of the Guraioi (so called perhaps from the Gori Rajput then inhabiting the modern Panjkora country), crossed the river of that name (Guriaus, modern Panjhora) with much difficulty, owing to its depth and rapidity, and the boulders and slippery stones in its bed, and finding that the Barbarians had fled to their strongholds, first led his army to Masaga (Bajaur or Khahr), the capital of that country, which was held by a party of seven thousand mercenaries from the inner parts of India. After the capture of this place, in which were taken the mother and daughter of Assakanus, Alexander sent a detachment against Bezira, (Rustam Bazar in Sudhum valley of the Yusufzi Sama, or " Plain "), and another to Ora with orders to invest the place till he came.
I may here note, that Justin, speaking of this capture of
[Page-68]: Masaga, calls the place Mount Daidalus (Tal Dardiyal), a mountain north of the Panjkora river between Bajaur and Swat), kingdom of Queen Cleosis or Cleophis (Assakanus being, according to Curtius, recently dead), whose realm was restored to her by Alexander, by whom she afterwards bore a son, who was named Alexander. I may add also, in reference to this statement, that at the present day several of the chiefs and ruling families in the neighbouring States of Chitral and Badakhshan boast a lineal descent from Alexander the Great.
Ora, Assagetes
On reaching Ora, (its site may perhaps be marked by the high mound of ruins called Sari Bahlol on the Yusufzai Sama, five or six miles from the frontier fort of Mardan), Alexander took the place without much difficulty, though it was defended by Indians sent into it for that purpose by Abissarus (prince of Abhisara of Sanskrit writers, the modern Chach Hazaqrah on the east bank of the Indus), and on this the inhabitants of Bezira (Bazar) seated on an eminence and surrounded by a stout wall, deserting the city at night, fled to the rock called Aornos (perhaps Shah Dum or Malka on the heights of Mahaban) for safety, and many of the neighbouring Barbarians, forsaking their villages, followed them thither. Alexander determined to take this rock of Aornos (Aranai is a common Hindi name for hill ridges in these parts ; there is an Aranai spur of Mahaban near Charorai in the Chamla valley, and another Aranai ridge of the Marri hills near Kahuta in Rawalpindi district), and having placed garrisons in Ora and Masaga, and sent a new colony into Bezira for the defence of the country ; and Hephaistion and Perdikkas having by his orders re-peopled another city called Orobates (the site of which has been recognised by Sir A. Cunningham in the ruins of Arahai on the south bank of the Kabul river, near Naoshera cantonment), and furnished it with a garrison, and moved forwards to the river Indus to prepare the bridge for its passage as they had been ordered to do ; he then moved that way himself, and the city Penkelaotis (Pushkalavati above noted, the modern Hashtnagar or Charsada) not far from the Indus surrendering, he put a garrison into it, and proceeded to take many other small towns seated upon that river; attended by Kophaius and Assagetes, the two princes of that province (Kophaius perhaps being the chieftain of the Koba Rajput tribe). He arrived at last at Embolima (modern Ambela in the Chamla canton of Boner), a city seated not far from the rock Aornos (modem Malka, near the summit of Mahaban mountain ; the stronghold, in recent years, of the Wahabi fanatics of Hindustan, at the destruction of which, at the close of the Ambela campaign of 1863-4, I was present with the " Queen's Own Corps of Guides," to whom this duty had been assigned), defended by
[Page-69]: Indians, and leaving Kraterus there with part of the army to collect stores of corn and all other necessaries for a long continuance in the place, with the rest marched towards the Rock. After the capture of Aornos, Alexander, descending from the Rock, marched into the territories of the Assakenoi (perhaps the Rajput Aswaka or Assaka, the tribe perhaps of the above- mentioned Assagetes, which name may stand for Assa Jat of the Assa tribe of the Jat nation (present Asiagh Jats:Wiki editor) or race ; the Assakenoi may be now represented by the Yaskun as before stated), in pursuit of the Barbarians who had fled into the mountains there ; and when he arrived at the city of Dyrta (capital perhaps of the Darada), there, he found both that and the country around entirely destitute of inhabitants. (Alexander appears to have crossed the Barandu river into the Puran and Chakesar valleys, now inhabited by the Chagharzi Afghans; there is a castellated village in Chakesar called Daud perhaps the Musalman disguise of a native Dardu, possibly so named from inhabitants of the Dardu tribe.)
King Akalphis at Nysa
Next day he sent a force to scour the country round, whilst he himself proceeded on his march towards the river Indus, sending the army before to level the road, which would otherwise have been impassable. From some Barbarians captured, Alexander understood that the inhabitants of that country were fled to Barisades for safety, but that they had left their elephants in the pastures near the river Indus. Alexander took them to be his guides to the place where the elephants were, and some of them being caught and conveyed to the army, Alexander ordered a full-grown wood which he found near the river to be cut down by his soldiers, and vessels to be built therewith, which being launched into the river, he and his force were thereby conveyed to the bridge which Hephaistion and Perdikkas had already built. Alexander then entered that part of the country which lies between the two rivers Kophenes and Indus (Kabul and Indus rivers), where Nysa is said to be situate, and on arrival at Nysa (modern Nisatta, on the left bank of the Landi Swat river, near its junction with the Kabul stream) with his army, the citizens sent a deputation headed by Akalphis (perhaps a chief of the Aka tribe of the Naga), beseeching Alexander to leave the liberties of the city entire for the sake of their god Dionysus, and assuring him that Bacchus, having subdued the Indians and determined to return to Greece, built this city as a monument of his victories, and the mountain also which is so near it (Kohi Mor or Kiamur) he would have denominated Merus. From Nysa Alexander moved to the bridge over the Indus, and there passed his army across the river ; whither we need not to follow his course, until he sails down the Indus to the sea, when we may
[Page-70]: again, later on, take note of his proceedings so far as they relate to the subject of our immediate inquiry.
The principal nations anciently inhabiting the country of the Grandarioi
From the foregoing particulars gathered from the accounts of Herodotus, Strabo, and Arrian, we learn the names of the principal nations anciently inhabiting the country of the Grandarioi.
They are the Astakenoi, the Masianoi, Nysaioi, Aspioi, and Assakenoi.
- Astakenoi were probably, as before suggested, the tribe of Astes, prince of the Hastika Rajput, inhabitants of the Hastinagara (modern Hashtnagar) district. They are not now known by that name in Afghanistan, except in a few small sections called Hasti among the clans of some of the Pathan tribes on this border ; their ancient seat here is now occupied by the Mahmand tribe, the Muhammadzi clan of which inhabits the Hashtnagar district.
- Masianoi, as before stated, are now represented by the Mashwanri, whose chief seat now is at Srikot on Gandghar hill of Chach Hazarah on the east bank of the Indus ; but as
- Mashani, Masani, Mashu, etc., they are found amongst the sections of several of the Pathan tribes along the Indus.
- Nysaioi were probably the inhabitants of the free city Nysa, and may be represented in regard to their locale by the modern town of Nisatta before mentioned, around which are very extensive ruins covering several square miles of mounds and debris.
- Assakenoi are, as suggested before, perhaps now represented by the Yaskun of Chitral and Yasin districts adjoining their ancient seats in Bajaur. Bajaur was probably the country of Bajaswa, fourth in descent as Tod tells us (" Annals of Rajasthan," vol. i. p. 41) from Ujamida, one of the three grand branches sent forth from Hasti, and which is said to have spread all over Panjab and across the Indus, 1600 B.C. Bajaswa, who obtained possessions about the Indus, had five sons, who gave their name of Panchalika to Panjab. Kampila, the youngest son, founded its capital, named Kampilnagara (the site of which is marked by the existing village of Kamilpur near Attock, where is now the British cantonment called " Campbellpore"), and to this family belonged the Princess Drupdevi, the wife in common of the five Pandu brothers, the heroes of the Mahabharat. The Panch Pandu are well known in the local legends commemorating their deeds still current among the tribes of the Grandhara country.
- Yaskun of Chitral and Yasin are evidently the same people as the ancient Assakenoi of the Grreeks, who formerly inhabited Swat and Bajaur, but they are not now found in these districts by that name. Probably they are included amongst the Swati,
- [Page-71]: which is the generic name for all the ancient or Indian inhabitants of Swat and Bajaur since their conversion to Islam. Among the Swati is a large division distinguished by the name
- Gabari, Gabarai or Gawari, who, before their adoption of Islam, were, as the name implies, "Fire-worshippers," and perhaps Persians of the Pauthiali tribe (before mentioned), one of whose chief ancient seats is marked by the existing Pandiali district in the present Mahmand hills, between the Kabul and Swat rivers.
- Aspioi are now represented by the Isap tribe, which is widely distributed amongst the sections of several of the larger tribes occupying the eastern borders of Afghanistan, from Kandahar to the Indus ; and which exists at the present day, under the Musalman name of Yusufzi as a large and powerful tribe in the ancient seats of its remote ancestors, to which they have given their modern name of Yusufzai (plural Yusufzi) or Isapzi as it is pronounced by the hill clans.
- Aspioi, so called by Arrian, are the Hypasioi or Aspasioi of Strabo, and are mentioned at a later period by Curtius as the Agriaspai or Ariaspai in the Kandahar country. By their modern name of Yusufzi they possess all the country lying between the Swat and Kabul and Indus rivers to the high mountains separating them from the Darada country of Yasin and Grilgit ; in fact, the whole of the ancient Gandhara as previously defined, with the exception of the tract to which that name was more strictly limited, situate between the Kabul and Swat rivers and bounded westward by the lower course of the Kunar stream ; in which area the modern Kandari or Gandari are still found in the little canton of their name amidst the Nawagai hills on the Bajaur border.
Ancient Gandhari deported by Jats
The great mass of the ancient Gandhari, together with their neighbours the Isapi, in the adjacent Sama, or " Plain," between the Swat, Kabul, and Indus rivers, were deported by the Yuechi, Getai, or Jata to the valley of the Tarnak river, and there settled about its banks in the fifth century of our era, at the time that they carried the begging-pot of Buddha from Peshawar to Kandahar ; in which latter place I had the good fortune to see this venerable relic in the year 1867. It was at that time in a state of perfect preservation in the humble retreat of a Muhammadan recluse amidst the ruins of the ancient castellated city of Kandahar. What became of the Gandhari thus transplanted to Kandahar, — the name of which country is probably derived from this colony of the Indus Gandhari, — is not very clear, as they are not now known by that name amongst the existing tribes of the modern Kandahar country ; at least not as a distinct territorial tribe. But of their fellow-countrymen and comrades in
[Page-72]: this migration, the Isapi, it is known that their descendants, ten centuries later, under the Muhammadan name of Yusufzi, or "Sons of Joseph," — a name which has led to some confusion in connection with the Afghan claim to Israelite descent — returned to their ancient country and fatherland, in association with another tribe, the Mandaur (Mandruani of Pliny), from the banks of the Helmand river.
According to their own accounts the Yusufzi came into their present settlements in the Peshawar valley about the middle of the fifteenth century, during the reign of Mirza Uluqh Beg, who was king of Kabul and Ghazni, and the grandson of Amir Tymur (Tamerlane of European writers), and paternal uncle of the Emperor Babar, founder of the Mughal dynasty of India.
Prior to this migration, they dwelt in the Ghwara Margha, or "fat pasture" district, at the sources of the Arghasan river, a southern tributary of the Tarnak. In consequence of a dispute about pasture with the Tarin tribe, occupying the Lower Arghasan and Kadani districts, they migrated thence to Kabul ; where, meeting with other migrating tribes, named Mahmand, Khalil, and Daudzi, collectively styled Ghorya-Khel, or Ghori, they joined with them and took to plundering the roads and vexing the country. Their depredations became so intolerable that Ulugh Beg sent a force to chastise them, and they were driven out of the Kabul district towards Jalalabad. Here they formed an alliance with the Khugiani tribe, inhabiting the north slopes and skirt of the Sufed Koh, and with their aid moved forwards towards the Indus. The Yusufzi, under the lead of their chief, or Malik, named Khan Kajoh or Kachu, passed over the Khybar hills, into the Peshawar district, where they were granted a strip of land along the hill skirts as a residence. But quarrelling with the Dalazak occupants about the use of a water-course there, they broke into war with them, and after a succession of hostilities, drove them across the Kabul and Swat rivers into the Sama. Here the Dalazak rallied at their capital, called indifferently Kot Kapura, Langar Kot, Kapurdagarhi, and Garhi Kapur (or " Fortress of the Kapur," or Kapol, the name of a mercantile Rajput tribe), and renewed hostilities against the Yusufzi, who had passed the Swat river into the Sama. Their efforts were unavailing, and the victorious Yusufzi, driving the Dalazak across the Indus into Chach Hazarah, took possession of the Sama.
The unfortunate Dalazak, about a century later (1644-7 A.D.), in consequence of their turbulence and the disorders they created in Chach, were almost exterminated by the Emperor Jahangir, who deported the remnant of the tribe bodily into Hindustan and Dakhan, in which parts they are now lost in the mass of the
[[page-73]: population. Of those who escaped this deportation, scattered families and small communities are still found in various parts of the Peshawar and Rawalpindi districts, and small sections of Dalazak are also found in several clans of the Isapzi in the hills of Boner. But the Dalazak, said to have been an extremely numerous and powerful people formerly in Peshawar, have altogether disappeared, as a territorial tribe, from these parts, where their place has been taken by the Yusuf and Mandanr, and their confederate invaders above named. After the expulsion of the Dalazak, the Yusuf and Mandanr took possession of the Sama, and during the next twelve years gradually made themselves masters of Swat. In the meantime the Mahmand and other Ghorya-Khel, together with the Khugiani who had joined them in this invasion, took possession of the tracts about Peshawar, which now bear their names ; whilst another and larger body of Mahmand took possession of the hill tracts, now called after them, which lies between the Kabul and Swat rivers, an intermediate range between the Khybar and Swat hills.
At this period the Sama of Yusufzi was a wild pasture tract, covered with stunted jungle, thinly peopled, and dotted all over with mounds of bare earth, concealing the ruins of former towns and villages, said to have been destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni. Its chief place was the fortified town of Langar Kot, above mentioned, where the Dalazak made their last stand and the Yusufzi gained their decisive victory. The country to the northeast, near Swabi, was at that time called Kark-khana, "Rhinoceros den," and was covered by an extensive reedy swamp in which that animal harboured. The Emperor Babar, as he relates in his Memoirs, coming from Kabul by the Kama, Bajaur, and Swatb districts, passed through this country in the beginning of 1519 A.D. On this occasion he married the daughter of the Yusufzi chieftain, and hunted the rhinoceros in the marshy tract above mentioned. The rhinoceros, it would appear, was an inhabitant of these parts from a very early period, and in the old Persian was called Ambela whence probably the appellation of the village of that name in the Chamla district of Boner, which I have in a preceding passage recognised as the Emholima of Arrian.
The rhinoceros has long since disappeared from these parts, and is not now found anywhere, I believe, in Northern India. Shields of rhinoceros hide are common amongst the hill Yusufzi, and highly prized by them even now, get them whence they may.
The ancient mounds, or tumuli above mentioned, are so numerous and extensive as to form a distinguishing feature of the Sama landscape. They indicate the former existence in this country of a very numerous, prosperous, and highly- civilized
[Page-74]: population of the Buddhist religion ; which, as we learn from the travels of the Chinese pilgrims, Fa Hian and Hwen Thsang, was flourishing in Northern India, and in this part of Afghanistan particularly, in the fifth century, but was on the decline in the seventh. The architectural remains and sculptures still found in vast abundance in the ruins of the larger towns and cities of this country, and in some of the mounds that have been excavated, bear distinct evidence of Greek art ; whilst the immense number and great variety of Greek Baktrian coins found from time to time even now in the debris of ancient habitations all over the Gandhara country, prove conclusively, all other evidences aside, that it was once a flourishing seat of Greek colonization. These facts would naturally prepare us to find in the midst of the ruins of their anciently lapsed prosperity and dominion some trace of the posterity of those Greek colonists of whose industry and art we have so rich a store of relics, to say nothing of the distinctly Byzantine character of the domestic industries and decorations practised by the natives of this country to our day ; but it is not easy to discover them in the multitude of tribes amongst whom they are lost, except, perhaps, through the doubtful medium of Greek nomenclature, more or less corrupted by the lapse of ages in a foreign and distant land, and habitually disguised by Muhammadan transformations, and sometimes appropriated by conquering invaders. Nevertheless, we do find among the present inhabitants of this Yusufzi country certain tribes and clans bearing names which are more easily referable to a Greek source than to any other ; unless, indeed, the Geta or Jata tribes, by whom the Greeks were dispossessed, also bore names resembling, or the same as, those of the Greeks. The tribal names Aka, Ali, Bai, Juna or Jana, Yunus, etc., though now supposed to be of the Jat race, may have been adopted by that people from the Greeks with whom they mixed, and whose language their kings adopted upon their coins. If the Baraki before mentioned are the representatives of the Libyan Barkai Greek, and the source whence sprung the modern Barak or Barakzi of the Durani Afghan, and the Barak of the Khattak Pathan, then we need not be staggered by the appearance of Greek Akhai in the Aka Pathan and Aga Jat his co-partner in the soil ; of Greek Aioli in the Pathan Ali or Aali ; of Greek Boioi in the Rajput or Pathan Bai ; of Greek Ionoi in the Rajput and Pathan Juna and Yunus. With these invading Geta, or Jata, of whom a principal division was called Mand (the Goth, or Jute, and Wend, of Europe), came other numerous and powerful hordes of Hun, who have left the mark of their conquests in Afghanistan by enduring settlements of their tribesmen. In the part of Afghanistan we
[Page-75]: are now considering these were the Goei and the Geougen Tatar Hun who, as De Guigne tells us, leaving their ancient seats in the extreme east of Tartary, to the north of China, sent large hordes westward at an early period before the Christian era. These hordes, after centuries of wanderings and warfare on the ample ground of Northern Asia, gradually drifted southwards and west-wards to the great Shamo or Gobi desert (perhaps so called after the Goei or Gavi), where joining the Yuechi or Getai, who had preceded them from the same regions in the far east (and possibly at the outset from the Northern American continent), they advanced westward along both sides of the Celestial Mountains (Tien Shan of the Chinese, Kailas of the Brahman), through the Ayghur Kashghar and Jatta Zunghar, and invaded the populous, civilized, and rich countries at the sources of the Syhon and the Gyhon (Sir and Amu Jaxartes and Oxus) where the Greeks held the sway. Whilst the Yuechi and the Geougen (the Jata and the Gujar) advanced into the south and south-east, the Goei (modern Gavi or Kabi) apparently, for the most part, remained to the north of Hindu Kush ; the only trace of them by that name now found in Afghanistan is in the Gavi Hazarah about Bamian and Ghorbund, though there are sections of Kabi and Kaba in several of the Afghan tribes along the Indus border ; the name also appears amongst the clans of the Pramara Agnikula Rajput, having been probably adopted and incorporated into that tribe at an early period. Of the Jata and Gujar great populations throughout the Indus valley, and all over Northern India, attest the completeness of the hold they took of the country ; the Jata, or Jat, mainly as agricultural settlers, the Gujar largely as a pastoral people. Both are fine, manly, stalwart, and brave races.
In Yusufzi the Gujar have some considerable villages on the Sama ; but in the hills, where they are most numerous, they are wholly devoted to the care of herds and flocks — neat cattle, buffaloes, goats, and sheep. In the Lower Indus valley and Balochistan the Jat is a camel-breeder, and identified with the care of that animal.
Regarding the Aspioi of Arbian (the modern Isap, or Isapzi or Yusufzi), it appears that they occupied the hills circling the plain from the Swat river round to the Indus ; whilst the Assakenoi (the modern Yasun or Yashkun) of the same author occupied the hills and valleys drained by the Swat and Panjkora rivers. Thus these two tribes and the Gandhari occupied the whole of the hill tracts of the Gandhara country. The Aspioi are now represented by the Isap division of the Yusufzi, and are a free people in the hills beyond the British border ; where they seem to have held their possession all along ever since they were found by the
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