Minar-i Chakri is a pillar made of carved stones on an elevation of 16 kilometers southeast of Kabul in Afghanistan. It is 28.5 meters high and is one of Buddhist buildings which at the time of the Kushan Empire was built in the area of Kabultals. Minar-i Chakri was built in the 1st century AD. and was heavily damaged during the Afghan Civil war. In 1988 it was subsequently destroyed by the hardline Taliban regime. [1]
Minar-i Chakri [2] is located directly on the northern slope of the Shakh Baranta ridge and continues to go 600 meters to the plain of Kabul. The city can be seen from above and the snow-capped mountains of the Hindu Kush in the background. To the south there is a plateau up to another mountain range with peaks of over 3000 meters. The pillar lays widely on an old trade and tour route, the closest connection to the regional capital of the Greek-Bactrian empire of Alexandria on the Caucasus. It is 65 kilometres north of Kabul, and from the southeast, it goes towards Jalalabad heading towards India. Under the rule of the Kushanas, the Greek province (satrapy) Paropanisadai was renamed Kabulistan and the provincial administration was moved to Kabul. During the reign of King Vima Kadphises, from around 100 AD, the empire began to expand into India and the economic had a magnificent growth, which was reflected in the construction of Buddhist monuments and monasteries around the capital. This also included the construction of two Buddhist pillars (Sanskrit Stambha) in the south of the city: the 19 meter high Surkh Minar ("red tower"), which collapsed in an earthquake in spring 1965, and the Minareh Syah ("black tower"), which is closer to the foot of the mountain, which was named Minar-i Chakri [3] in the 19th century.
Minar-i Chakri was first found on its way into Western antiquity through British soldiers who were exploring the country in the 19th century. In 1841, Charles Masson published a detailed report and the drawing about a "Greek monument" in London. However with the withdrawal of the British Army at the end of the First Anglo-Afghan War some of the survivors reported about a pillar they had seen. [4]
The ancient history of Afghanistan, also referred to as the pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan, dates back to the Helmand Civilization around 3300–2350 BCE and the Oxus Civilization around 2400–1950 BCE. Archaeological exploration began in Afghanistan in earnest after World War II and proceeded until the late 1970s during the Soviet–Afghan War. Archaeologists and historians suggest that humans were living in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the region were among the earliest in the world. Urbanized culture has existed in the land from between 3000 and 2000 BC. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages have been found inside Afghanistan.
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Menander I Soter was a Greco-Bactrian and later Indo-Greek King who administered a large territory in the Northwestern regions of the Indian Subcontinent and Central Asia. Menander is noted for having become a patron and convert to Greco-Buddhism and he is widely regarded as the greatest of the Indo-Greek kings.
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Indian architecture is rooted in the history, culture, and religion of India. Among several architectural styles and traditions, the best-known include the many varieties of Hindu temple architecture and Indo-Islamic architecture, especially Rajput architecture, Mughal architecture, South Indian architecture, and Indo-Saracenic architecture. Early Indian architecture was made from wood, which did not survive due to rotting and instability in the structures. Instead, the earliest existing architecture are made with Indian rock-cut architecture, including many Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain temples.
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The Indo-Greek Kingdom, or Graeco-Indian Kingdom, also known historically as the Yavana Kingdom (Yavanarajya), was a Hellenistic-era Greek kingdom covering various parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern India. This kingdom was in existence from c. 200 BC to c. 10 AD.
The Qutb Minar, also spelled Qutub Minar and Qutab Minar, is a minaret and "victory tower" that forms part of the Qutb complex, which lies at the site of Delhi's oldest fortified city, Lal Kot, founded by the Tomar Rajputs. It consists of 399 steps It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Mehrauli area of South Delhi, India. It is one of the most visited tourist spots in the city, mostly built between 1199 and 1220.
Greater India, also known as the Indian cultural sphere, or the Indic world, is an area composed of several countries and regions in South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Indian culture, which itself formed from the various distinct indigenous cultures of South Asia. It is an umbrella term encompassing the Indian subcontinent and surrounding countries, which are culturally linked through a diverse cultural cline. These countries have been transformed to varying degrees by the acceptance and introduction of cultural and institutional elements from each other. The term Greater India as a reference to the Indian cultural sphere was popularised by a network of Bengali scholars in the 1920s, but became obsolete in the 1970s.
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Zunbil, also written as Zhunbil, or Rutbils of Zabulistan, was a royal dynasty south of the Hindu Kush in present southern Afghanistan region. They were a dynasty of Hephthalite origin. They ruled from circa 680 AD until the Saffarid conquest in 870 AD. The Zunbil dynasty was founded by Rutbil, the elder brother of the Turk Shahi ruler, who ruled over the Hephthalite kingdom from his capital in Kabul. The Zunbils are described as having Turkish troops in their service by Arabic sources like Tarikh al-Tabari and Tarikh-i Sistan. However the term "Turk" was used in an inaccurate and loose way.
Chakari was a village in Khaki Jabbar District, Kabul Province, Afghanistan. In the 1990s during the Afghan Civil War large portions of it were destroyed, and many people left. As of 2002 many of the former inhabitants had not returned.
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The Turk Shahis or Kabul Shahis were a dynasty of Western Turk, or mixed Turko-Hephthalite, or a group of Hephthalites origin, that ruled from Kabul and Kapisa to Gandhara in the 7th to 9th centuries AD. They may have been of Khalaj ethnicity. The Gandhara territory may have been bordering the Kashmir kingdom and the Kannauj kingdom to the east. From the 560s, the Western Turks had gradually expanded southeasterward from Transoxonia, and occupied Bactria and the Hindu-Kush region, forming largely independent polities. The Turk Shahis may have been a political extension of the neighbouring Western Turk Yabghus of Tokharistan. In the Hindu-Kush region, they replaced the Nezak Huns – the last dynasty of Bactrian rulers with origins among the Xwn (Xionite) and/or Huna peoples.
The architecture of Afghanistan refers to a distinct style of architecture of the modern country and its predecessor states. As the connection between the three major cultural and geographic centers of Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Iranian plateau, the boundaries of the region prior to this time changed with the rapid advancement of armies, with the land belonging to a vast range of empires over the last two millennia.
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