--- In cybalist@..., markodegard@... wrote:
> For a while, the Ab-e Vakhan is labelled the Pyandzh, along the
border
> with Tajikistan. Some considerable distance downstream, there is a
> town of this name. Just after the town of Pyandzh on the river
> Pyandzh, you come to another river, the Vakhsh -- which
Two books that give a very good description of these areas from RV is:
Bhargava, M. L. 1964. A Geography of Rigvedic India. Upper India
Publishing House: Lucknow
Saxena, D. P. 1976. Regional Geography of Rigvedic India.Grantham:
Kanpur
There are extensive discussions on the equation of river Trshtama (in
RV X.75) with Gilgit river and so on.
****
> The 'Hinduism religious continuum' (starting from Vedic times,
> assimilating various strata) used to reach west to Persia, but has
now
> been forced back to the eastern border of Pakistan,
VA: I do not think we should view the situation in this manner. Pre-
Islamic Afghanistan had many Zarathushtris and they cannot be called
Hindu by any stretch. The 'Hinduization' of Afghanistan at the
expense of Buddhism started relatively late (say 500 AD) and after
450 years thence, all Indic religions were dealt with severe death
blows by invading Islam. The recent destruction of Bamiyan icons of
Lord Buddha was one of the last painful blows delivered.
> (should we mention the other eastern outlier of Christendom, the
> Thomas Christians of India?).
VA: The Thomas Christians are probably descendents of Nestorians who
came around 400 AD to flee Byzantine persecution - although current
romantic notions equates the Thomas of Canaa with the Apostle with
the same name. There is even a grave of St. Thomas (besides the other
6 in the world) near Chennai.
> Pakhtoons. CNN says 'Pashtuns'. 'Pashtoons' sounds like animated
> features
VA: Indians call them Pathans while the they themselves call
themselves Pakhtoon and their traditional code as Pakhtoonwali. Their
language is called Pashtu/Pashto by us. Note that the RV mentions
a 'Paktha' who were defeated in the Dasarajna war and Talageri
equates them to ansectors of Pathans (whereas Hoffman says that the
name simply means 'fifth'). Pathans were not a very strong group till
around 1600 (or a few decades before that) when the diverse ethnic
groups of Afghanistan underwent a 'Pakhtoonization' - there is a
recent post on this issue on the Indian Civilization list.
As for the term 'Afghan', it is used in the for, 'Avaghana' as early
in Puranic passages dating to the middle of the first millennium AD.
Sometimes, the same land are also referred to as 'Upaganasthana'.
>
> Religious refugees make for interesting populations. Here in the
> United States, you get assimilated, and without losing your
religion,
VA: My forefathers (on my mother's side, and my wife's family) never
thought of themselves as refugees and were assimilated fast in the
Indiansociety. My own parents and in laws and ourselves have
absolutely no attachment or fascination for Pakistan and Afghanistan
and we would have no interest if the two countries would not send
Islamic terrorists into our land.
Over the last 55 years, Pakistanis and Indians have drifted quite
apart and within India itself it is impossible to say whose
forefathers came from there. Certain politically correct groups might
term themselves as 'South Asians' to make themselves feel better, but
that is all.