The Hindu, Buddhist and Jain architectural heritage of Pakistan is part of a long history of settlement and civilization in Pakistan. The Indus Valley civilization collapsed in the middle of the second millennium BCE and was followed by the Vedic Civilisation, which extended over much of northern India and Pakistan.
The Vedic Period (c. 1500 – c. 500 BCE) is postulated to have formed during the 1500 BCE to 800 BCE. As Indo-Aryans migrated and settled into the Indus Valley, along with them came their distinctive religious traditions and practices which fused with local culture. [1] The Indo-Aryans' religious beliefs and practices from the Bactria–Margiana culture and the native Harappan Indus beliefs of the former Indus Valley Civilisation eventually gave rise to Vedic culture and tribes. [2] [note 1] The initial early Vedic culture was a tribal, pastoral society centred in the Indus Valley, of what is today Pakistan. During this period the Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, were composed. [note 2]
Several early tribes and kingdoms arose during this period and internecine military conflicts between these various tribes was common; as described in the Rig Veda, which was being composed at this time, the most notable of such conflicts was the Battle of Ten Kings. This battle took place on the banks of the River Ravi in the 14th century BC (1300 BCE). The battle was fought between the Bharatas tribe and a confederation of ten tribes:
Its early phase saw the formation of various kingdoms of ancient India. In its late phase (from c. 700 BCE), it saw the rise of the Mahajanapadas, and was succeeded by the golden age of Hinduism and classical Sanskrit literature, the Maurya Empire (from c. 320 BCE) and the Middle kingdoms of India.
Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of north-east Afghanistan. [5] [6] [7] The region centered around the Peshawar Valley and Swat river valley, though the cultural influence of "Greater Gandhara" extended across the Indus river to the Taxila region in Potohar Plateau and westwards into the Kabul Valley in Afghanistan, and northwards up to the Karakoram range. [8] [9] [10]
Famed for its unique Gandharan style of art which is heavily influenced by the classical Greek and Hellenistic styles, Gandhara attained its height from the 1st century to the 5th century CE under the Kushan Empire, who had their capital at Peshawar ( Puruṣapura ). Gandhara "flourished at the crossroads of India, Central Asia, and the Middle East," connecting trade routes and absorbing cultural influences from diverse civilizations; Buddhism thrived until the 8th or 9th centuries, when Islam first began to gain sway in the region. [11] It was also the centre of Vedic and later forms of Hinduism. [12]
Temples:
(A Jain Stupa is also located in Sindh province.)
In December 2017, the Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar while hearing a case on Katas Raj Temple in Chakwal stressed, "This temple is not just a place of cultural significance for the Hindu community, but also a part of our national heritage. We have to protect it." [17] The bench of judges during the hearing of the case also expressed displeasure at the displacing of idols from the temples, demanding to know why there were no statues in the temples of Shiri Ram and Hanuman. The bench was told that a former chairman of the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) earned millions of rupees from corruption [during his tenure] and then ran away [from Pakistan]. [18]
The Cemetery H culture was a Bronze Age culture in the Punjab region in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, from about 1900 BCE until about 1300 BCE. It is regarded as a regional form of the late phase of the Harappan civilisation, but also as a phase of the Indo-Aryan migrations.
Indian religions, sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions, are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent. These religions, which include Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, are also classified as Eastern religions. Although Indian religions are connected through the history of India, they constitute a wide range of religious communities, and are not confined to the Indian subcontinent.
The history of Pakistan precedes the country's creation in 1947. Although, Pakistan was created in 1947 as a whole new country by the British through partition of India, but the history of the land extends much further back and is intertwined with that of Afghanistan, India, and Iran. Spanning the northwestern expanse of the Indian subcontinent and the eastern borderlands of the Iranian plateau, the region of present-day Pakistan served both as the fertile ground of a major civilization and as the gateway of South Asia to Central Asia and the Near East.
The historical Vedic religion, also called Vedicism or Vedism, and sometimes ancient Hinduism or Vedic Hinduism, constituted the religious ideas and practices prevalent amongst the Indo-Aryan peoples of the northwest Indian subcontinent during the Vedic period. These ideas and practices are found in the Vedic texts, and some Vedic rituals are still practiced today. The Vedic religion is one of the major traditions which shaped modern Hinduism, though present-day Hinduism is significantly different from the historical Vedic religion.
Taxila or Takshashila is a city in the Pothohar region of Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and is just south of the Haripur District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Gandhara was an ancient Indo-Aryan civilization centred in present-day north-west Pakistan and north-east Afghanistan. The core of the region of Gandhara was the Peshawar and Swat valleys extending as far east as the Pothohar Plateau in Punjab, though the cultural influence of Greater Gandhara extended westwards into the Kabul valley in Afghanistan, and northwards up to the Karakoram range. The region was a central location for the spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and East Asia with many Chinese Buddhist pilgrims visiting the region.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ancient India:
Swat District, also known as the Swat Valley, is a district in the Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Known for its stunning natural beauty, the district is a popular tourist destination. With a population of 2,687,384 per the 2023 national census, Swat is the 15th-largest district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The Mahājanapadas were sixteen kingdoms and aristocratic republics that existed in ancient India from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE, during the second urbanisation period.
The history of Hinduism covers a wide variety of related religious traditions native to the Indian subcontinent. It overlaps or coincides with the development of religion in the Indian subcontinent since the Iron Age, with some of its traditions tracing back to prehistoric religions such as those of the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation. Hinduism has been called the "oldest religion" in the world, but scholars regard Hinduism as a relatively recent synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no single founder, which emerged around the beginning of the Common Era.
The Gandhara grave culture of present-day Pakistan is known by its "protohistoric graves", which were spread mainly in the middle Swat River valley and named the Swat Protohistoric Graveyards Complex, dated in that region to c. 1200–800 BCE. The Italian Archaeological Mission to Pakistan (MAIP) holds that there are no burials with these features after 800 BCE. More recent studies by Pakistani scholars, such as Muhammad Zahir, consider that these protohistoric graves extended over a much wider geography and continued in existence from the 8th century BCE until the historic period. The core region was in the middle of the Swat River course and expanded to the valleys of Dir, Kunar, Chitral, and Peshawar. Protohistoric graves were present in north, central, and southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as well as in north-western tribal areas, including Gilgit-Baltistan province, Taxila, and Salt Range in Punjab, Pakistan, along with their presence in Indian Kashmir, Ladakh, and Uttarakhand.
Sculpture in the Indian subcontinent, partly because of the climate of the Indian subcontinent makes the long-term survival of organic materials difficult, essentially consists of sculpture of stone, metal or terracotta. It is clear there was a great deal of painting, and sculpture in wood and ivory, during these periods, but there are only a few survivals. The main Indian religions had all, after hesitant starts, developed the use of religious sculpture by around the start of the Common Era, and the use of stone was becoming increasingly widespread.
Tourism in Pakistan is a growing industry. In 2010, Lonely Planet termed Pakistan "tourism's 'next big thing'". The country is geographically and ethnically diverse, and has a number of historical and cultural heritage sites. Condé Nast Traveller ranked Pakistan The Best Holiday Destination for 2020 and also declared it the third-highest potential adventure destination in the world for 2020. As security in the country improves, tourism increases; in two years, it has increased by more than 300%.
Pakistani architecture is intertwined with the architecture of the broader Indian subcontinent. The major architectural styles popular in the past were Temple, Indo-Islamic, Mughal and Indo-Saracenic architecture, all of which have many regional varieties. With the beginning of the Indus civilization around the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, for the first time in the area which encompasses today's Pakistan an advanced urban culture developed with large structural facilities, some of which survive to this day. This was followed by the Gandhara style of Buddhist architecture that borrowed elements from Ancient Greece. These remnants are visible in the Gandhara capital of Taxila.
The History of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa refers to the history of the modern-day Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age, is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas, was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the urban Indus Valley Civilisation and a second urbanisation, which began in the central Indo-Gangetic Plain c. 600 BCE. The Vedas are liturgical texts which formed the basis of the influential Brahmanical ideology, which developed in the Kuru Kingdom, a tribal union of several Indo-Aryan tribes. The Vedas contain details of life during this period that have been interpreted to be historical and constitute the primary sources for understanding the period. These documents, alongside the corresponding archaeological record, allow for the evolution of the Indo-Aryan and Vedic culture to be traced and inferred.
The Kingdom of Kapisa, appearing in contemporary Chinese sources as Caoguo and Jibin, was a state located in what is now Afghanistan during the late 1st millennium. Its capital was the city of Kapisa. The kingdom stretched from the Hindu Kush in the north to Bamiyan and Kandahar in the south and west, out as far as the modern Jalalabad District in the east.
Punjab is the largest province in population and the second largest province in physical size in Pakistan. In 2017, 1.75 million tourists visited Pakistan according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.
Gandhāra was an ancient Indo-Aryan kingdom of northwestern Indian subcontinent whose existence is attested during the Iron Age. The inhabitants of Gandhāra were called the Gāndhārīs.