Afghan Hindus - History

History

Further information: History of Afghanistan

There is no information on when Hinduism arrived to Afghanistan but some historians have suggested that the territory south of the Hindu Kush may have been culturally connected with the Indus Valley Civilization in ancient times. At the same time, most historians maintain that today's Afghanistan was inhabited by the Medes followed by the Achaemenid before the arrival of Alexander the Great and his Greek army in 330 BC. It became part of the Seleucid Empire after the departure of Alexander three years later. In 305 BCE they gave south of the Hindu Kush to the Indian Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty.

Alexander took these away from the Aryans and established settlements of his own, but Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), upon terms of intermarriage and of receiving in exchange 500 elephants. —Strabo, 64 BC – 24 AD

When the Chinese travelers, Faxian, Song Yun and Xuanzang visited Afghanistan between the 5th and 7th centuries AD, they wrote numerous travelogues in which accurate information on Afghanistan was stored. They explained that Buddhism was practiced in different parts between the Amu Darya (Oxus River) in the north and the Indus River. Interestingly, these Chinese monks did not mention about Hinduism although Song Yun did state that the Hephthalite rulers did not recognize Buddhism but "preached pseudo gods and killed animals for their meat".

Read more about this topic:  Afghan Hindus

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “It gives me the greatest pleasure to say, as I do from the bottom of my heart, that never in the history of the country, in any crisis and under any conditions, have our Jewish fellow citizens failed to live up to the highest standards of citizenship and patriotism.”
    —William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    “The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
    —Terri Apter (20th century)

    “The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
    —Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)