Journal of Asian Civilizations

French travelers' descriptions about India during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were an invaluable historical value to ascertain the Occident perception over Oriental world [Mughal India]. These French travelers and adventurers gave a fascinating...

IntroductionWith the modern over-concern with texts and their study, oral productions have come to lose their identity, of being a separate way of organizing experience and have started to be considered as variants of written products. Deep familiarity...

IntroductionDifferent people trace back the present name of Shahbaz-garha1 to different sources. Some say that it is due to a saint, named Shahbaz-Qalandar mentioned in Babur's Memoirs as Shahbaz-Qalandar (Masson 1846: 297; Leyden and Erskine 1826: 252;...

Each academic discipline, either belonging to natural or social science, has its own history of methodological and theoretical developments. A historiographical study of any such a field is vital for the directions to be specified with regard to future...

The sufis of the Islamicate world have sometimes articulated the transcendent experience of Divine love in their poetic compositions in an idiom of temporal human love. The woman-soul symbol abounds in Indo-Muslim literature, wherein the sufi poets employed...

The storyThis tale is an example of the tussle existed between the Jaina and Buddhist followers. A wealthy man Srigupta at Rajagriha was the follower of Jaina doctrine while his wife was Buddhist. The wife did not like the heretic Jaina teacher of her...

IntroductionThe paper aims at contributing to the debate about social ontology i.e. question of the nature of social entities. Social scientists are divided over the question whether social entities are objective i.e. they have existence of their own...

IntroductionBy means of this brief essay the authors intend to partly fill a gap in the knowledge of Swat's history and culture ante-19691, as well as to pay a minimal tribute to the memory of Domenico Faccenna, the unforgettable leader of the Italian...

IntroductionThe name Hindu owes its origin to the Persians who did not reach beyond the "Sindhu", the original name of the river Indus, at the time of their conquest of Indian provinces. (Rapson 2011: 81). The Persian pronounced S as H, and the name...

Horror and war are interlinked whether one turns back to the ancient times or views it in the modern atomic age. It is embodied with abhorrence and repugnance, keeping no element of attraction or beauty, for its association with massacres, especially...

Swat valleySwat valley is named after its river Su-p'o-fa-su-tu of Subha-vastu (Sastri 1924:93-94). The Rig-Veda mentions it as Suvastu meaning fair dwelling (Stein 1921: 2). River Swat, the Sanskrit Suvastu and Greek Souastos or Souastene, is a tributary...

IntroductionAltit Fort marks the significance of village Altit as a center for cultural and political activities during the early era of Ayaskutz and the forgotten dynasties before they ruled. This village is situated in the eastern areas of proper Hunza,...

The Department of Archaeology, University of Peshawar since its establishment in 1962, has rendered great services to the Archaeology and cultural assets of the Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by excavating different Pre-historic, Proto-historic sites...

Sheikh Ruknuddin Abul Fata, popularly known as Shah Rukne Alam, is one of great Sufi saints of South Asia belonging to the period of Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526). He belonged to that early age of the Muslim Rule in South Asia when Muslim traditions were...

Introduction: Background:According to Edward, "Islamic art is the expression of a whole culture, intimately interwined with religious theological, and legal commitments" (Edward 1975:4 23-430).Beside the theological and legal commitments the religious...

IntroductionIndeed, Persian has been remained as the common language of private correspondence and a symbol of culture in India. Its position has been compared to French in Europe until recent times; therefore, Olaf Caroe has rightly called Persian as...

Historical recordsThe understanding of Vedic priests about the area where the sources of River Indus (Sindhu) lie, and that about its course, can be identified from a hymn in the Rig Veda (Rig Veda: X. 75, 5). It speaks, "First thou goest united with...

IntroductionThe Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan holds a set of anomalous attributes ranging from cultural diversity to enriched historical accounts and intriguing topographic features which converges the global attentions. Spreading over an area...

IntroductionIn Pakhtun society, proverbs occupy a special place in oral literature and are the most widely used for all folklore (Tair and Edwards, 1982; Akhtar, 1997). Rather than relics of the past, Pashto proverbs are still widely spoken and play...

IntroductionHaving knowledge of the people and of their past, the establishment of an independent state by the Afghans in 1747, seems circumstantial, however, the role of historical forces could not be ignored here. Perpetual foreign dominance over the...

IntroductionThe Mahavastu is a poetic biography of the Buddha and at the same time a wonderful collection of Indian stories, in the form of Jatakas, emerging from the main hagiography like branches from the trunk of a tree. Many of them have parallels...

This essay explores the theme which Günther-Dietz Sontheimer had drawn attention to in his writings, namely the relationship of the forest to the settlement - the vana to the ksetra. These could be opposing concepts contrasting the habitat of the ascetic...

IntroductionHsuan Tsang describes Peshawar as the core of Kaniska's Empire with its northern extension to Swat and Buner Districts and eastern extension along the River Indus (Ingholt 1957:13). It has variously been described as Kukkuta in some Jataka...

IntroductionThe word androgyny is derived from two ancient Greek words: andro meaning man and gyne meaning woman. As a phenomenon, androgyny is defined by the psychologists as an ability to display both male and female characteristics in human identity...

IntroductionBoth history and archaeology are sister disciplines having complementary dimensions in terms of subject matter and also in relation to theoretical and methodological praxes (Khan 2012).1 For a considerable span of time this relationship remained...

IntroductionEducation in the Islamic tradition began with the study of the Quran which enjoins the Muslims to its study to acquire knowledge of the God's words to conduct themselves properly in the world. With the expansion of the Muslim rule the scope...

The application of the physical and chemical sciences in archaeology has made it possible to solve some of the problems and questions of archaeology. In 1888 the first specialized laboratory was established in Berlin called the Chemisches Labor der Königlichen...

IntroductionBodhesar (meaning Bodhe's water reservoir) is situated five kilometers north-west of Nagar Parkar town on Mithi-Badin highway. According to the Consensus Report 2009, the total population of the village is about 800 persons living in 50 houses....

The present study is first attempt to investigate Mankiyali, an undocumented language, spoken in the Mansehra District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). No previous linguistic literature has reported the language (O'Leary, 1992; Grierson, 1928; Morgenstierne,...

IntroductionThe idea of making rock-cut architecture is an ancient one (Ching et al, 2011: 173). Cave architecture, although it evolved originally from the natural cave dwellings of hermit (Goetz 1962: 252-61), it is made in imitation of traditional...

Identification and DiscussionSasanian Coins (3rd - 6th century CE)The Great Sasanian dynasty of Persia (Iran) is represented by two coins and both belong to the late period associated with king Khusrau II (590-627 CE). The obverse design of these coins...

Gandhara forms a most important link connecting India with the West due to its distinctive position among all the regions of India since its history may be traced with notable continuity from the earliest times to the recent days. Its fame rests mainly...

IntroductionThere is a huge corpus of Gandharan sculptures and reliefs translating textual versions of the life of Sakyamuni into stone. The corpus forms major part of collections of different museums all over the world. These objects have been comprehensively...

Nimogram, a very significant Buddhist site of Swat Valley has yielded considerable number of artifacts; the total number of artifacts recovered from this single Buddhist site is 466. The sculptures are intermingled with stones from the stupas. Not a...

With the forced eviction of the Dilazaks from the lands around Peshawar around AD 1535 (Caroe 1958: 189), the Ghoriakhels (i.e. Khalil, Mohmand, Daudzai and Chamkani tribes) quickly moved in and soon became "too rich and arrogant for Yusufzai stomachs...

The evolution of the city dates back to the 2nd century AD. Muslim rule influence began with the advent of Mahmud of Ghazni in 990 AD culminating with the Mughals up to 1749.The Sikhs ruled the Punjab for 50 years who were succeeded by the British in...

(I)Background of the Village and Main Ethnic GroupsThe village, ChakNo. 253/JB (Nangay Sundray) is situated approximately 35 kilometers on the Jhang-Faisalabad road in the East of the Jhang city. This village was established during 19th century under...

IntroductionIn the age of globalization there are many societies in the world which enjoy their tribal and cultural identities. Baloch tribes too rely on their unique cultural and traditional style of living. The life of Baloch tribes is ruled by distinct...

IntroductionThe study of the material culture defined in the Gandhara sculptures is based on the hypothesis that the sculptors of Gandhara, as they depicted the Buddhist themes, had in their mind the contemporary persons and things around them. By using...

I. The historical background of Tillya Tepe: the legacy of Alexander the Great in the Oxus region, and the city of Ai Khanoum until the Kushans (334 B.C- 1st century. A. D)Although it is a well studied subject (Briant 2010: 156-157), it is still interesting...

IntroductionThe Kalhoras ruled over the province of Sindh for more than a century (1680-1783), leaving behind a large number of funerary monuments (Kalhoro 2010:215). These monuments are located in almost every district of Sindh. The distinctive feature...

The name "Gandhara", literary meaning the land of fragrance, is of Sanskirat origin which "met for the first time in Rig-Veda, a collection of old Indian hymns going back to the second millennium BCE (Ingolt 1957,13)" was "the ancient name of the tract...

Introduction:Taxila (also known as Taksh-shila), was an ancient Buddhist seat of learning, connected across the Khujerab pass to the Silk Road. It was also called Takshashila in Sanskrit in ancient India (Marshall 1945:1). Taxila Valley lies north Latitude...

IntroductionAfter the victory of Zahir ad - Dm Babur at the historic battlefield of Panipat in AD 1526, the foundation of Mughal dynasty was firmly laid. It opened a new chapter of great intellectual and artistic activities in the Indian history. It...

Many French travelers were rational observers and so they criticized the Indian superstitious and irrational beliefs propagated by the Brahmans. The scientific and rational mind of Occidental travelers and adventurers were surprise to see the irrational...

AbstractThe "eye-bead" is a distinctive form of bead or pendant that has circular or concentric circular patterns that can be interpreted as representing one or more eyes. This article investigates the origin and development of eye beads in the Indus...

AbstractAn attempt has been made in the present work to re-consider the terminology "vihara " in the light of the recently discovered inscription unearthed at a Buddhist shrine, mentioning the term vihara. Furthermore this paper also highlights the origin...

AbstractThis paper presents a brief account of the recent excavation conducted on the site of Badalpur, Taxila Valley in the premises of Haripur District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It focuses on the season 2013 excavations.Introduction:Taxila Valley...

Historical Importance of the ElephantAnimals found in the Indus Valley show some kind of sacred or magical importance. It is not clear whether in the Indus valley there was any importance of elephant separately but from the seals excavated from Mohen-jo...

AbstractIn Pakistan, till recently, the world knew only about the rock carvings of the northern areas of Pakistan. But in the recent years several researchers have documented rock carvings in the other areas of Pakistan too which include the areas of...

AbstractThis paper is about the discovery of prehistoric circular tombs in Mol Valley which I found during the survey of the megaliths in the Kohistan region of Sindh. The circular structures had been illegally dug by the treasure-hunters. In this paper,...

AbstractThe aim of this study is to precisely determine the prevailing trends in language use among the Pothwari speakers of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Studies show that intergenerational transmission is extremely vital to the language growth and language...

AbstractWhenever people move from one place to another, they have to free certain issues of adjustment, the nature of which can be varying according to the type of migration. The Arab migration to Iraq was not as difficult for the Arabs as modern migration...

IntroductionReligious sentiments of educated Muslim audience get mortified, when as opposed to what they have read in books, they find information that seems to them doubtful and untrue, about the history of Islam, the Holy Prophet, Mohammad (may peace...

AbstractThis paper, 'Sufism and Modernity ', looks at Sufism in terms of religious experience usual to all religions, including Buddhism and Islam The paper takes modernity to be a product of European history and defines it in terms of change of worldview...

AbstractThis paper deals with the exceptional discovery of a Neolithic-Chalcolithic settlement site in Swat Valley, Elanai-kamar, with its location, findings, as well as with its cultural relations with other comparable sites. The morphological and geological...

AbstractThe paper presents the nature and scope of environmental friendly urban/town planning and residential buildings of late 19th and early 20th century in Potohar Plateau. The study of urban/town planning includes a description of residential quarters...

AbstractThis paper deals with the Buddhist traditions that are found in the rock art of Sindh. The Khirthar Mountain Range, which separates Sindh from Balochistan, is rich in ancient petroglyphs. They are found in all valleys or Nais of the mountain...

AbstractThis paper proposes an analysis of religious practices among the Apatanis tribes of Arunachal Pradesh (India) in the context of the ongoing processes of social change in contemporary India and their resulting issuesIntroduction and Methodology.The...

Abstract:The discovery of old coins made at one of the site of Pushkalavati (Charsadda) in the first half of twentieth century was long disappeared from the eyes of scholars. This important data came into the hands of one of the authors when he was conducting...

AbstractThe first season of archaeological surveys carried along the shores of Lake Siranda (Las Bela, Balochistan) in January 2011 has shown the presence of two prehistoric shell middens characterised by fragments of mangrove and marine shells as well...

AbstractDespite much research done on the study of Bulghars, very less is known about the Eastern Bulghars or the Volga Bulghars. The Bulghars, which we commonly come across in our studies, is mostly the name given to Western Bulghars, who led to the...

1. Aims of the studyOur investigations on the stratigraphy and architecture of Period IX of Bir-kot-ghwandai/Barikot (from now on Barikot) focused on the analytic study of one of the main feature of this phase: the widespread and intense re-use and reutilization...

AbstractGumbat-Balo Kale is a well-known site in Gandharan archaeology. First visited by Sir Aurel Stein in 1926, the site was hastily excavated by Ph. Barger and E, Wright in 1938. The conditions of the main monument, a unique double-domed Buddhist...

AbstractBuddhism and the Buddhist art of Gandhara represent a bright chapter of the past history of the land of present day Pakistan. About Buddhism we find texts in different parts of the world which narrates the life of Buddha and his teachings. Gandhara...

AbstractThe paper deals with the question of the rich cultural and educational heritage of the land now encompassed by Pakistan. It discusses the fact that the area has a continuous educational legacy spread over several millennia, with an exceptional...

AbstractThe extant Muslim monuments in Hazara mainly comprise buildings of various periods representing mausolea of Muslim saints and rulers. During the recent archaeological explorations in districts Abbottabad (Ali et al 2009), Haripur (Ali et al 2010)...

AbstractThe Durrani tribe has ruled Afghanistan and the adjacent areas, now part of Pakistan, since 1747 except for the turbulent period after 1979. During the said long period the Durranis have left a deep imprint on the culture, art and architecture...

AbstractA number of archaeological researches have appeared about the archaeological and aancient monumnets of District Kohat. Different aspects and styles of architecture of the area have been discussed till now. This paper discusses Durranis' tombs...

AbstractThe folktale of Mokhi and Mataras is deeply embedded in Sindhi culture and society. Many rural folks still narrate the story of Mokhi and Mataras. Likewise, Sufi poets composed poems discussing the characters of this folktale. Their monuments...

AbstractReligion has always played a pivotal role in guiding the norms, values and beliefs of the human beings. Importance of religion in the history of human beings can not be denied. Though not abundant, evidences of the presence of Hinduism in Swat...

AbstractThe present-day Charsadda, one of the capitals of Gandhara, is known by different names in its long and rich history. The most prominent among them are Pushkalavati, Hashtnagar and now Charsadda. This paper discusses the historical evolution...

AbstractKhyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has rich periods in its history in terms of political, economic, social and religious realms. Intersetingly, many aspects of this long and eventful history have been studied by scholars over the last one hundred years....

AbstractThere prevailed, for a long time, the practice of strict disciplinary compartmentalization in academia. However, the first decades of the 20th century saw voices raised for multi/trans/interdisciplinary researches. The reason behind, obviously,...

AbstractThis paper presents newly discovered (and re-discovered) painted shelters from Mt. Karamar (Swabi District), Mt Ilam (Buner District) and from Amluk-dara (Swat District). These shelters, previously unknown or misreported, are part of a vaster...

The Buddhist religious site of Charg-patë was explored and excavated by the Department of Archaeology, University of Peshawar, in 1981 under salvage operation, named as Gandhära Archaeological Project. It is situated about 2 km to the north of Khanpur...

Uddiyäna (ancient Swat) occupies a unique place in history. It lies in the north of Peshawar, between latitude 34° and 35°-40' north and longitude 72° and 73° east. It is bounded on the west by Lower and Upper Districts of Dît, on the south-west by the...

The account of Fa-Hien, I-Tsing and Hiuan Tsang of the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries of the CE and the archaeological remains of the Buddhist period, scattered all over the Swat valley, prove that Swat remained an important centre of Buddhism for many centuries....

Buddhism is considered a religion of non-violence, and this feet has been personally demonstrated by the Buddha himselÇ who even forgave his deadly enemies. Dëvadatta, one of his disciples and cousins, could not tolerate the popularity of the Buddha...

Ladakh,1 historically known by different names (Cunningham 1977: 14; Franke 1904: 39-41)2 and description,3 is politically a part of Jammu and Kashmir State since its establishment in 1846 AD.4 Geographically located in the north most part of the state...

Qazi Abdullah was a son of Tajo who was also called Sahib and belonged to the Qazi family. His forefathers came from Sehwan. As the story of Qazi Abdullah bin Tajo is related, the grave of Qazi Abdullah was discovered long after his death, he appeared...

LocationThe Chaukhandi tomb of Khwaja Khalil Alias Nawab Amir Khan Khalil is located to the northwest of Badi-uz-Zaman's tomb at Makli Hill. The famous necropolis of Makli Hill at Thatta is situated about 98 km to the west of Karachi and 3 km southwest...

IntroductionThe Taxila Institute of Asian Civilizations, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad chalked out a programme of extensive exploration and documentation of the archaeological sites and historic monuments in Islamabad Capital Territory and Rawalpindi...

IntroductionThe phenomenon of supernatural has been widely prevalent throughout cultures regardless of time and space. Essentially it helps the people of a society to understand things, phenomenon as well as social actions, which are beyond their comprehension...