Rawalpindi, Attock and Jhelum
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Rawalpindi, Attock and Jhelum
January 28, 2007
EXCERPTS: Another time, same place
A study on the history and culture of the districts of Rawalpindi, Attock and Jhelum.
Ihsan H. Nadiem traces the beginnings of the federal capital and its inhabitants, long before it came to be known as Islamabad.
The region in which the federal capital now sits tells a long story of human existence. The earliest known human culture in the subcontinent flourished here some 500,000 years ago. Researches carried out by geologists and pre-historians such as Wadia, H. De Terra, T.T. Patterson, M. Salim, etc., have brought to light many a facet of the activities of the primitive man in that distant period in the Soan Valley on the Pothohar Plateau.
Stone Age
The study of Palaeolithic (or Old Stone Age) cultures in this valley is said to be closely connected to terraces that were formed during the four interglacial periods. Five such terraces, with Palaeolithic implements imbedded in them, give evidence of human activity in that remote period. As no skeletal remains of the Palaeolithic Man, or scientifically retrieved fossilised bones of mammals have so far been found in this region, scientists owe their entire knowledge of the Stone-Age Man to the finding of these stone implements.
The first of these terraces dated back to the second or Great Interglacial Period and, accordingly, the stone tools found from here have been assigned the corresponding date. The earliest tools consisting of flakes struck from large pebbles have been attributed to to what archaeologists call the ‘Pre-Soan’ period. They are comparable to the Cromerian tools, the earliest Palaeolithics brought to light in Europe.
Neolithic Age
The cultural progress of Man during his primitive stages was slow. However, as time passed the quality of the stone tools improved. The old stone culture, which is viewed as having continued for thousands of years, is further divided into the Early Soan and Late Soan periods, the whole era falling in the Palaeolithic period ... With the lapse of a millennia, the Palaeolithic cultures developed into Neolithic (or New Stone Age) culture, which roughly covers a time span of 10,000 to 5,000 years, dating back from present times.
It was the time when Man learnt to refine and polish stone tools. Experts have also found specimens of Neolithic tools in this region near Khanpur — on the other side of the Margalla — and some Neolithic burials of long-headed Homo sapiens, particularly near Rewat.
In the nomenclature of the Soan Stone Age, the typical tool found here is named ‘Chopper’, mainly because of its mode of manufacture. Alongside this typical tool, ‘flake choppers’ industry of Soan, denoting another class, is also present in this region. In this type the tool is shaped on the core itself. The core tool is also named the ‘hand-axe’, which is oval-shaped, so formed by whittling down the rough, original stone by the means of a hammer.
Although the studies carried out so far have brought to light many an unknown aspect of Man’s strides in those remote periods, the result of these probes are by no means final. The vast area of the Pothohar Plateau still needs comprehensively concerted archaeological exploration. There is a need to comb the whole region in a scientific way to substitute the knowledge already acquired.
Gandhara Grave culture
Scholars were silent in regard to the precise development in this area during the next many thousand years till they encountered the Sarai Khola, a prehistoric settlement in the vicinity of Taxila.
Prior to its discovery even archaeologists of the stature of John Marshall believed that the Gandhara region did not have any prehistoric settlement. Sarai Khola in fact pushed back the knowledge of the activities of Man some 2,500 years, roughly from 600BC to around 3,000BC.
Excavations at the site — in the late 1960s and early 1970s — brought to light three cultural sequences: historic at the top, Kot Dijian in the middle and late Neolithic at the bottom. Of more significance, than the finds, was a graveyard consisting of some 50 graves where skeletal remains were found lying from east to west with faces turned towards either the north or south. These graves, which offered no funeral goods, belonged to two different periods. Archaeologists have assigned these graves a period between 1600BC — that follows the extinction of the Harappans and roughly marks the arrival of the Aryans — to 600BC, the earliest period of the Gandharan culture.
Gandhara culture
As the proto-historic period is left behind, the Achaemenian King Darius I (522-486BC) is seen invading the region — along with other parts of Punjab and Sindh — and adding these areas to his empire (circa 518BC), together with constituting the Indian Satrapy mentioned by Herodotus. This Satrapy, with Taxila as the main centre, was said to be the richest in the entire Iranian Empire.
The Achaemenian rule lasted here for about four generations till 359BC. The Aramaic script was used here, as it was throughout the Iranian Empire. It was from Aramaic that the Kharoshthi script — commonly employed in the northwestern part of the Subcontinent until 5th century AD — was derived in this region.
It was in 327BC that Alexander of Macedonia entered into this region after crossing the Indus around Attock. The area at that time formed the kingdom of Texiles, ruled by a Hindu raja, situated between the Indus and the Jhelum. The raja of Texiles, with his capital at Taxila or Takshasila of the Hindus, did not resist the march of the Macedonian and was, in return, assigned the charge of the greater part of the adjoining country. Takshasila of yore has now been identified with the archaeological site of Bhir Mound, also recognised as the first city-site of Taxila.
It was in 321BC that the native ruler, Chandragupta Maurya led a successful rebellion against the Macedonian Empire’s local ruler, Seleucus Nicator. Till then the region had been open to influences from the West but it was the first time that it came under eastern dominance of the Mauryan dynasty of Magadha on the Ganges.
However, the impact of Alexander’s campaign of this region, even if brief, made its mark, though indirectly, on the arts and crafts, helping increase contacts of this region with the West. The artisans, who stayed behind infused an alien style into the local arts and crafts and gave birth to an entirely new sculpturing scene which was developed later and named after the region as Gandhara Art.
Taxila in those days was known all over South Asia as a great centre for imparting education in the disciplines of medicine, engineering and philosophy. As it was a prestigious centre of learning and the progeny of the elite of the period used to come here for studying, Chandragupta himself being no exception.
Ashoka, who had served as viceroy of Gandhara during the reign of his father, succeeded him on the throne. He had remained in Taxila for quite some time and was responsible for the building of the Kunala Stupa. Taxila touched further heights amongst the centres in imparting education where students from far off places came to study. It was then situated on the most frequented Grand Trunk Road, which connected with Patliputra and beyond to the deltaic port on the river Ganges.
During this and the following periods, some attempts of incursions into this region were made from the West. The Scythian element, the You-ti Clan, after having established in the immediate West, wrested the kingdom of Taxila from Manas in 105BC. They, though repulsed in 56BC by the Indian sovereign Vikramaditya, overran the region on the latter’s death and established the Kadphises dynasty. They were pushed away by another horde of Scythians to whom belonged the dynasty of Kaniska kings. They continued to rule till the 5th century AD, during which period the famous Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hien visited the area on his march of crossing the five rivers.
White Huns
The White Huns, or Ephthalites devastated the country in the 5th century, and in turn they were subdued in the year 555AD by the Turkshahis, who, though, mostly remained confined to the West of the Indus with Hund as their summer capital. Later, when in power, the Hindushahiyas moved eastwards, leaving their first capital at Hund. They then held influence over Punjab with their capital first at Nandana and later at Sirhind.
During these periods, portions of Punjab, especially this region, were also, from time to time, conquered and ruled by Kashmiri kings. The region between the Indus and the Jhelum was being ruled by the Kashmiri king of the Naga dynasty when the most famous of the Chinese Pilgrims, Hiuen Tsang, visited the territory in 613AD.
Muslim period
After the advent of Islam in the 8th century AD through Sindh, most of Punjab came under the new faith but it took quite some time, that too from its western regions, for it to get established in the region of Pothohar and the Taxila Valley. During the adventures of Sabuktagin (d. August, 997) and then the multiple outings to the heart of India by his son, Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi, the region of present day Islamabad did not play much of a role except to see every now and then the marching in of various armies.
The waxing and waning power of the local Gakkhars followed the movements of the Muslim forces from the East. They, however, sided openly with Anangpal when he stood against Mahmud of Ghazni as the former had given it the colour of religious war. The Gakkhars of the Pothohar region strengthened his hands by providing him with a large number of fighting men though the result once again came in favour of the Sultan. After having witnessed many ups and downs, and outings to Punjab and beyond while mostly the Taxila and Pothohar regions saw them marching to and fro, the Ghaznavi dynasty finally ended in 1186, after being in power for almost 224 years. Now Shahabuddin, commonly known as Muhammad Ghauri, brother of Sultan of Ghaur, started coming over to this region in search of treasures. His success in obtaining his goals continued as also his general, Qutbuddin Aibak, was indeed defeating Hindu rajas on the other hand.
In 1193AD, he reduced the town of Mirath and the town of Delhi, which later became the seat of the Muslims governing the Indian territories. Meanwhile the fearsome Gakkhars of the Punjab hills and Pothohar revolted and having wasted the country between Jhelum and Chenab, overran almost all of Punjab. The Gakkhars were defeated when they had taken over Lahore, Muhammad Ghauri attacking them from the west and his general Aibak from the east.
Having settled the affairs of his empire in India, Sultan Shahab-ud-din Muhammad Ghauri started his march back to Ghazni. He was camping at a place near the village Dhamiak in the Pothohar — now in Jhelum district — when, while sleeping in his tent, he was fatally wounded by some angry Gakkhars who had lost some of their relatives in the late wars. It happened on March 14, 1205AD. His dead body was carried with grim pomp to Ghazni while viscera were buried here, marking a grave on the spot.
Excerpted with permission from
Islamabad: Pothohar, Taxila Valley & Beyond
By Ihsan H. Nadiem
Sang-e-Meel Publications, 25 Shahrah-i-Pakistan, Lahore
Tel: 042-7220100.
smp@sang-e-meel.com
ISBN 969-35-1904-3
144pp. Rs1,600
Ihsan H. Nadiem, former director of archaeology, is the author of many books on heritage and archaeology including Buddhist Gandhara: History, Art and Architecture and Thar: The Great Pakistani Desert, Land, History, People.
