Old Punjab History

[Endike Baur]

The History of Punjab refers to the past history of Punjab region which is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in the northwest of South Asia, comprising eastern Punjab province in Pakistan and western Punjab state in India.[1] It is believed that the earliest evidence of human habitation in Punjab traces to the Soan valley of the Pothohar, between the Indus and the Jhelum rivers, where Soanian culture developed between 774,000 BC and 11,700 BC. This period goes back to the first interglacial period in the second Ice Age, from which remnants of stone and flint tools have been found.[2]

The Punjab region was the site of one of the earliest cradle of civilizations, the Bronze Age Harrapan civilization that flourished from about 3000 B.C. and declined rapidly 1,000 years later, following the Indo-Aryan migrations that overran the region in waves between 1500 and 500 B.C.[3] The migrating Indo-Aryan tribes gave rise to the Iron Age Vedic civilization, which lasted till 500 BC. During this era, the Rigveda was composed in Punjab,[4] laying the foundation of Hinduism. In the 6th century BC, Pushkarasarin, the monarch of Gandhara, assumed a role in halting the expansionary ambitions of the Achaemenid Empire until during the reign of Darius wherein tribute rendered by Gandhara to him is first documented.[5] A century later, the Janapadas of Punjab encountered the expansive undertakings of Alexander. The Janapadas exhibited resistance to his advances, notably the Aśvaka of Gandhara, the Mallians of South Punjab, and Porus of Central Punjab.[6] Following the demise of Alexander, Chandragupta Maurya, who had received his education in the city of Taxila, garnered support from republics such as Trigarta and Gandhara.[7] He subsequently conquered the Nanda Empire, with Taxila being designated as the provincial capital of the Northwestern territories. After its decline, the Indo-Greeks, Indo-Sakas and Indo-Parthians successively established reigns in Punjab however during this time a local kingdom known as the Apracharajas, maintained autonomy and other janapadas such as that of the Yaudheya and the Audumbaras in Eastern Punjab resisted their expansions.[8][9] In the late 1st century AD the Kushan Empire annexed Punjab, Gandharas cultural zenith occurred during this period in which artwork from the region flourished.

The devastating Hunnic invasions of Punjab occurred in the 5th and 6th century, which were ultimately repelled by the Vardhana dynasty.[10][11] Most of the western Punjab region became unified under the Taank And Odi Shahi Kingdoms in the early medieval period. Between the 8th and 12th century, the Tomara dynasty and Katoch dynasty controlled the eastern portions of Punjab.[12] Islam became established in Punjab when the Umayyad Caliphate conquered southern portions of the region up to Multan, which became independent from the caliphate under the Emirate of Multan in 855. The Ghaznavids conquered region in 1025, after whom the Delhi Sultanate followed. The Langah Sultanate ruled much of the south Punjab in the 15th century.

The Mughal Empire, established in 1526 AD, has left an immense cultural and architectural legacy in Punjab. The city of Lahore became one of the largest in the world under Mughals. In the 16th century, Sikhism was founded by Guru Nanak in central Punjab which attracted many followers. After a long period of anarchy due to decline of Mughals in the 18th century, the Sikh Empire in 1799 unified most of the Punjab region. The region was conquered by the British EIC in 1849 after Second Anglo-Sikh War and Punjab province was created in 1857. In 1947, Punjab was partitioned amidst wide-scale violence.

Today Punjab region is usually considered to consist of Punjab province in Pakistan and Punjab state in India. The boundaries of the region are ill-defined and focus on historical accounts and thus the geographical definition of the term "Punjab" has changed over time. In the 16th century, Mughal Empire referred it to a relatively smaller area between the Indus and the Sutlej rivers.[20] In British Raj, the Punjab Province was a large administrative region encompassing the present-day Indian states and union territories of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, and Delhi and the Pakistani regions of Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory. It bordered Balochistan and North-West Frontier to the west, Jammu and Kashmir to the north, the Hindi Belt to the east, and Rajasthan and Sindh to the south.[21]

Homo erectus lived on the Pothohar Plateau, in upper Punjab, Pakistan along the Soan River (nearby modern-day Rawalpindi) during the Pleistocene Epoch. Soanian sites are found in the Sivalik region across what are now India, Pakistan and Nepal.[22] The Soanian culture was a prehistoric technological culture from the Siwalik Hills.[23][24] It is named after the Soan Valley in Punjab, Pakistan.[25] The Soanian culture has been approximated to have taken place during the Middle Pleistocene period or the mid-Holocene epoch (Northgrippian). Soanian artifacts were manufactured on quartzite pebbles, cobbles, and occasionally on boulders, all derived from various fluvial sources on the Siwalik landscape. Soanian assemblages generally comprise varieties of choppers, discoids, scrapers, cores, and numerous flake type tools, all occurring in varying typo-technological frequencies at different sites.[26]

Relics and human skulls have been found dating back to 5000 BCE in the Pothohar Plateau in north of Punjab that indicate the region was home to Neolithic peoples who settled on the banks of the Swaan River,[27] and who later developed small communities in the region around 3000 BCE.[27]

The Indus Valley Civilisation is also known as the Harappan civilisation, after its type site Harappa, the first to be excavated early in the 20th century in Punjab.[28][a] The discovery of Harappa and soon afterwards Mohenjo-daro was the culmination of work that had begun after the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj in 1861.[29]

The civilisation flourished both in the alluvial plain of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan.[30][31]The cities of the ancient Indus were noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-residential buildings, and techniques of handicraft and metallurgy.[b] Mohenjo-daro and Harappa very likely grew to contain between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals,[33] and the civilisation may have contained between one and five million individuals during its florescence.[34] A gradual drying of the region during the 3rd millennium BCE may have been the initial stimulus for its urbanisation. Eventually it also reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise and to disperse its population to the east.

During the Iron Age, first legendary kingdoms appeared in Punjab including Gandhara, Kekaya, Madra, Sivi and Trigarta. Literary evidence from the Vedic Era suggests a transition from early small janas, or tribes, to many Janapadas (territorial civilisations) and gaṇasaṅghas. The latter are loosely translated to being oligarchies or republics. These political entities were represented from the Rigveda to the Astadhyayi by Panini. Archaeologically, the time span of these entities corresponds to phases also present in the Indo-Gangetic divide and the upper Gangetic basin.[35]

Some of the early Janas of the Rig Veda can be strongly attributed to Punjab. Although their distribution patterns are not satisfactorily ascertainable, they are associated with the Porusni, Asikni, Satudri, Vipas, and Saraswati. The rivers of Punjab often corresponded to the eastern Janapadas. Rig Vedic Janas such as the Druhyus, Anus, Purus, Yadus, Turvasas, Bharatas, and others were associated in Punjab and the Indo-Gangetic plain. Other Rig Vedic Janapadas such as the Pakhtas, Bhalanasas, Visanins, and Sivas were associated with areas in the north and west of Punjab.[35]

An important event of the Rig Vedic era was the "Battle of Ten Kings" which was fought on the banks of the river Parusni (Ravi river) in central Punjab, in c.14th century BCE, between the Bharata clan on the one hand and a confederation of ten tribes on the other. The ten tribes pitted against Sudas comprised five major tribes: the Purus, the Druhyus, the Anus, the Turvasas and the Yadus; in addition to five minor ones: the Pakthas, the Alinas, the Bhalanas, the Visanins and the Sivas. Sudas was supported by the Vedic Rishi Vasishtha, while his former Purohita, the Rishi Viswamitra, sided with the confederation of ten tribes.[36] Sudas had earlier defeated Samvaran and ousted him from Hastinapur. It was only after the death of Sudas that Samvaran could return to his kingdom.[37]

A second battle, referred to as the Mahabharat in ancient texts, was fought in Punjab on a battlefield known as Kurukshetra. This was fought between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Duryodhana, a descendant of Kuru (who was the son of king Samvaran), had tried to insult the Panchali princess Draupadi in revenge for defeating his ancestor Samvaran.[37]

Many Janapadas were mentioned from Vedic texts and there was a large level of contact between all the Janapadas with descriptions being given of trading caravans, movement of students from universities, and itineraries of princes.[38] In its heyday, the University of ancient Taxila attracted students from all over Indian subcontinent as well as those from surrounding countries.[37]

During the 6th century BCE, Gandhara was governed under the reign of King Pukkusāti. According to early Buddhist accounts, he had forged diplomatic ties with Magadha and achieved victories over neighbouring kingdoms such as that of the realm of Avanti.[39] It is noted by R. C. Majumdar that Pukkusāti would have been contemporary to the Achamenid king Cyrus the Great[40] and according to the scholar Buddha Prakash, Pukkusāti might have acted as a bulwark against the expansion of the Persian Achaemenid Empire into Gandhara. This hypothesis posits that the army which Nearchus claimed Cyrus had lost in Gedrosia had been defeated by Pukkusāti's Gāndhārī kingdom.[41] Therefore, following Prakash's position, the Achaemenids would have been able to conquer Gandhāra only after a period of decline after the reign of Pukkusāti, combined with the growth of Achaemenid power under the kings Cambyses II and Darius I.[41] However, the presence of Gandhāra, referred to as Gandāra in Old Persian, among the list of Achaemenid provinces in Darius's Behistun Inscription confirms that his empire had inherited this region from conquests carried out earlier by Cyrus.[42] It is unknown whether Pukkusāti remained in power after the Achaemenid conquest as a Persian vassal or if he was replaced by a Persian satrap, although Buddhist sources claim that he renounced his throne and became a monk after becoming a disciple of the Buddha.[43] The annexation under Cyrus was limited to the Western sphere of Gandhāra as only during the reign of Darius the Great did the region between the Indus River and the Jhelum River become annexed.[41] However Megasthenes Indica, states that the Achaemenids never conquered India and had only approached its borders after battling with the Massagetae, it further states that the Persians summoned mercenaries specifically from the Oxydrakai tribe, who were previously known to have resisted the incursions of Alexander the Great, but they never entered their armies into the region.[44]

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