1.
Attock
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Attock formerly Campbellpur, is a city located in the northern border of the Punjab province of Pakistan and the headquarters of Attock District. It is located on the bank of the Indus,80 km from Rawalpindi,100 km from Peshawar, Gandhara was an ancient kingdom extending to the Swat valley and the Potohar plateau regions of Pakistan as well as the Jalalabad district of northeastern Afghanistan. Situated astride the middle Indus River, the region had Takshashila and it was conquered by the Persian Empire and later in 327 BC by Alexander the Great. The region occupied by Chandragupta, founder of the Maurya empire, in the late 4th century BC and it was part of Bactria from the late 3rd century to the 1st century BC. The art form flourished in Gandhara until the 5th century, when the region was conquered by the Huns, the whole region formed part of the Kingdom of Ederatides the Greek, who extended his power over western Punjab. The Indo-Greek kings held the country after him, being at last ousted by the Indo-Scythians, when the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang visited the Attock district in 630 A. D. and again in 643 A. D. he reported that Buddhism was declining in the region. In the early 11th century, Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi launched seventeen expeditions into South Asia. In 1001, he defeated Raja Jayapala of the Hindu Shahi Dynasty of Gandhara in the Battle of Peshawar and marched further into Peshawar and, in 1005, Attock became part of the Ghaznavid Empire. The Attock fort was completed in 1583 under the supervision of Khawaja Shamsuddin Khawafi, the Battle of Attock took place on 28 April 1758 between Indian Maratha Kingdom and the Durrani Empire. The Marathas under Raghunathrao Ballal Peshwa and Maharaja Tukojirao Holkar Bahadur were victorious in the battle, in 1849, Attock was conquered by the British who created Campbellpur District. After 1947, the Pakistani Government renamed it as Attock in 1978, on 8 May 1758, the Marathas defeated Durrani forces in the Battle of Peshawar and captured the city of Peshawar. Marathas had now reached the Afghanistan border, ahmad Shah Durrani got alarmed with this success of Marathas and started planning to recapture his lost territories. After the decline of the Mughal Empire, the Sikhs invaded and occupied Attock District, the Sikhs established religious freedom and respected the native Muslims. The Sikh Kingdom under Maharaja Ranjit Singh captured the fortress of Attock in 1813 from the Afghan Kingdom, the citys foundations were laid in 1903, and it was named Campbellpur after Sir Colin Campbell. It was established near Attock fort that had guarded the major routes towards Central Asia, attocks first oil well was drilled in Khaur in 1915. It has an oil and gas field Dakhini near Jand, dhurnal & Sadkal in Tehsil Fateh Jang. The predominantly Muslim population supported the Muslim League and the Pakistan Movement, after the independence of Pakistan in 1947, the minority Hindus and Sikhs emigrated to India, while Muslim refugees from India settled in Attock. According to the Alif Ailaan Pakistan District Education Rankings 2014, Attock is ranked 3 out of 146 districts in Pakistan in terms of the quality of education, for facilities and infrastructure, the district is ranked 17 out of 146
2.
Urdu
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Urdu is a persianized standard register of the Hindustani language. It is the language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also one of the 22 official languages recognized in the Constitution of India, hyderabad, Rampur, Bhopal and Lucknow are noted Urdu-speaking cities of India. Urdu is historically associated with the Muslims of the northern Indian subcontinent, apart from specialized vocabulary, Urdu is mutually intelligible with Standard Hindi, another recognized register of Hindustani. Urdu, like Hindi, is a form of Hindustani, Urdu developed under the influence of the Persian and Arabic languages, both of which have contributed a significant amount of vocabulary to formal speech. Around 99% of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit, Urdu words originating from Chagatai and Arabic were borrowed through Persian and hence are Persianized versions of the original words. For instance, the Arabic ta marbuta changes to he or te, nevertheless, contrary to popular belief, Urdu did not borrow from the Turkish language, but from Chagatai. Urdu and Turkish borrowed from Arabic and Persian, hence the similarity in pronunciation of many Urdu, Arabic influence in the region began with the late first-millennium Arab invasion of India in the 7th century. The Persian language was introduced into the subcontinent a few centuries later by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties including that of the Delhi Sultanate. With the advent of the British Raj, Persian was no longer the language of administration but Hindustani, still written in the Persian script, the name Urdu was first used by the poet Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi around 1780. From the 13th century until the end of the 18th century Urdu was commonly known as Hindi, the language was also known by various other names such as Hindavi and Dehlavi. The communal nature of the language lasted until it replaced Persian as the language in 1837 and was made co-official. Urdu was promoted in British India by British policies to counter the previous emphasis on Persian and this triggered a Brahman backlash in northwestern India, which argued that the language should be written in the native Devanagari script. At independence, Pakistan established a highly Persianized literary form of Urdu as its national language, English has exerted a heavy influence on both as a co-official language. Owing to interaction with other languages, Urdu has become localized wherever it is spoken, similarly, the Urdu spoken in India can also be distinguished into many dialects like Dakhni of South India, and Khariboli of the Punjab region since recent times. Because of Urdus similarity to Hindi, speakers of the two languages can understand one another if both sides refrain from using specialized vocabulary. The syntax, morphology, and the vocabulary are essentially identical. Thus linguists usually count them as one language and contend that they are considered as two different languages for socio-political reasons
3.
Attock District
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Attock District is a district in Pothohar Plateau of the Punjab Province of Pakistan. Attock is the capital of the district, the district was created in April 1904 by the merging tehsils of nearby districts. Today the District consists of 6 tehsils that are Attock, Fateh Jang, Hazro, Hassan Abdal, Jand, the original name of Attock District was Attock. It was changed to Campbellpur after the Commander-in-Chief of British forces Sir Colin Campbell who rebuilt the city of Campbellpur, the name of the district was changed to Attock as of 1978 again. Attock city is the district headquarters, according to the 1998 census of Pakistan the district had a population of 1,274,935 of which 20. 45% were urban. The estimated population in 2008 was 1.58 million, the predominant first language according to the 1998 census was Punjabi, spoken by 87% of the population. Pashto was the language of 8. 3% and Urdu – of 1. 1%, the Punjabi dialect of the eastern Fateh Jang Tehsil is called Sohāī̃ and belongs to the Dhanni dialect group. The dialects of Pindi Gheb Tehsil and of Attock have been classified as part of Hindko proper, the district of Attock is divided into six tehsils which contain a total of 72 Union Councils. Attock has a total of 1,287 government schools out of which 51 percent are for girl students, the district has an enrolment of 224,487 in public sector schools
4.
Punjab, Pakistan
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Punjab, is Pakistans second largest province by area after Balochistan, and its most populous province with an estimated population of 101,391,000 as of 2015. It is bordered by Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as well as the regions of Islamabad Capital Territory and it also shares borders with the Indian states of Punjab, Rajasthan, and Jammu and Kashmir. The provincial capital of Punjab is the city Lahore, a centre of Pakistan where the countrys cinema industry. Punjab has been inhabited since ancient times, the Indus Valley Civilization, dating to 2600 BCE, was first discovered at Harappa. Punjab features heavily in the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata, in 326 BCE, Alexander the Great defeated King Porus at the Battle of the Hydaspes near Mong, Punjab. The Umayyad empire conquered Punjab in the 8th century CE, Punjab was later invaded by Tamerlane, Babur, and Nader Shah. Punjab reached the height of its splendour during the reign of the Mughal Empire, following a successful rebellion, Sikh-led armies claimed Lahore in 1759. The administration of the Sikh Empire was based out of Lahore, the province was formed when the Punjab province of British India was divided along religious boundaries in 1947 by the Radcliffe Line after Partition. Punjab is Pakistans most industrialised province with the industrial sector making up 24% of the gross domestic product. Punjab is known in Pakistan for its prosperity, and has the lowest rate of poverty amongst all Pakistani provinces. Punjab is also one of South Asias most urbanized regions with approximately 40% of people living in urban areas and its human development index rankings are high relative to the rest of Pakistan. Punjab is known in Pakistan for its relatively liberal social attitudes, the province has been strongly influenced by Sufism, with numerous Sufi shrines spread across Punjab which attract millions of devotees annually. The founder of the Sikh faith, Guru Nanak, was born in the Punjab town of Nankana Sahib near Lahore, Punjab is also the site of the Katasraj Temple, which features prominently in Hindu mythology. Several UNESCO World Heritage Sites are located in Punjab, including the Shalimar Gardens, the Lahore Fort, the excavations at Taxila. The region was known to the Greeks as Pentapotamia, meaning the region of five rivers. The word Punjab was formally introduced in the early 17th century CE as an elision of the Persian words panj and āb, thus meaning the five rivers, similar in meaning to the Greek name for the region. The five rivers, namely Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, flow via the Panjnad River into the Indus River, of the five great rivers of Punjab, four course through Pakistans Punjab province. Due to its location, the Punjab region came under constant attack and witnessed centuries of invasions by the Persians, Greeks, Kushans, Scythians, Turks
5.
Central Asia
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Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. It is also referred to as the -stans as the five countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix -stan. Central Asias five former Soviet republics are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Central Asia has historically been closely tied to its nomadic peoples and the Silk Road. It has acted as a crossroads for the movement of people, goods, the Silk Road connected Muslim lands with the people of Europe, India, and China. This crossroads position has intensified the conflict between tribalism and traditionalism and modernization, in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, Central Asia was predominantly Iranian, peopled by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Parthians. Central Asia is sometimes referred to as Turkestan, the idea of Central Asia as a distinct region of the world was introduced in 1843 by the geographer Alexander von Humboldt. The borders of Central Asia are subject to multiple definitions, historically built political geography and geoculture are two significant parameters widely used in the scholarly literature about the definitions of the Central Asia. The most limited definition was the one of the Soviet Union. This definition was also used outside the USSR during this period. However, the Russian culture has two terms, Средняя Азия and Центральная Азия. Since then, this has become the most common definition of Central Asia, the UNESCO general history of Central Asia, written just before the collapse of the USSR, defines the region based on climate and uses far larger borders. An alternative method is to define the region based on ethnicity and these areas include Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Turkic regions of southern Siberia, the five republics, and Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan as a whole, the northern and western areas of Pakistan, the Tibetans and Ladakhi are also included. Insofar, most of the peoples are considered the indigenous peoples of the vast region. Central Asia is a large region of varied geography, including high passes and mountains, vast deserts. The vast steppe areas of Central Asia are considered together with the steppes of Eastern Europe as a geographical zone known as the Eurasian Steppe. Much of the land of Central Asia is too dry or too rugged for farming, the Gobi desert extends from the foot of the Pamirs, 77° E, to the Great Khingan Mountains, 116°–118° E. Central Asia has the following geographic extremes, The worlds northernmost desert, at Buurug Deliin Els, Mongolia, the Northern Hemispheres southernmost permafrost, at Erdenetsogt sum, Mongolia, 46°17′ N
6.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
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Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the northwestern region of the country. It was formerly known as North-West Frontier Province and commonly called Sarhad and its provincial capital and largest city is Peshawar, followed by Mardan. It shares borders with the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to the west, Gilgit–Baltistan to the northeast, Azad Kashmir, Islamabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa does not share a border with Balochistan, which lies to its southwest. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also shares a border with Afghanistan, connected through the Khyber Pass. It is also the site of the ancient kingdom Gandhara, the ruins of its capital, Pushkalavati, and the most prominent center of learning in the Peshawar Valley, Takht-i-Bahi. It has been under the suzerainty of the Persians, Greeks, Mauryans, Kushans, Shahis, Ghaznavids, Mughals, Afghanistan, Sikhs, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the third largest province of Pakistan by the size of both population and economy though it is geographically the smallest of four. It comprises 10. 5% of Pakistans economy, and is home to 11. 9% of Pakistans total population, with the majority of the inhabitants being Pashtuns, Hazarewal, Chitrali. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa means Khyber side of the land of Pakhtuns while only the word Pakhtunkhwa means Land of Pakhtuns and according to scholars it means Pakhtun culture. When the British established it as a province, they called it North West Frontier Province due to its location being in north west of their Indian Empire. After independence of Pakistan, Pakistan continued with this name but a Pakhtun nationalist party and their logic behind that demand was that Punjabi people, Sindhi people and Balochi people have their provinces named after their ethnicities but that is not the case for Pashtun people. Major political parties especially Pakistan Muslim League were against that name since it was too similar to Bacha Khans demand of separate nation Pashtunistan. The ancient Aryan Migration is believed to have taken place around 2000 BCE, darius Hystaspes sent Scylax, a Greek seaman from Karyanda, to explore the course of the Indus river. Darius Hystaspes subsequently subdued the races dwelling west of the Indus, Gandhara was incorporated into the Persian Empire as one of its far easternmost satrapy system of government. The satrapy of Gandhara is recorded to have sent troops for Xerxes invasion of Greece in 480 BCE, in the spring of 327 BCE Alexander the Great crossed the Indian Caucasus and advanced to Nicaea, where Omphis, king of Taxila and other chiefs joined him. Alexander then dispatched part of his force through the valley of the Kabul River, while he advanced into modern Khyber Pakhtunkhwas Bajaur. Alexander then made Embolima his base, after Alexanders death in 323 BCE Porus obtained possession of the region, but was murdered by Eudemus in 317 BCE. Eudemus then left the region, and with his departure Macedonian power collapsed, sandrocottus, the founder of the Mauryan dynasty, then declared himself master of the province. His grandson, Ashoka, made Buddhism the dominant religion in ancient Gandhara, after Ashokas death the Mauryan empire collapse, just as in the west the Seleucid power was rising
7.
Sanskrit
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Sanskrit is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, a philosophical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and a literary language and lingua franca of ancient and medieval South Asia. As a result of transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia and parts of Central Asia, as one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. The body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical, the compositions of Sanskrit were orally transmitted for much of its early history by methods of memorization of exceptional complexity, rigor, and fidelity. Thereafter, variants and derivatives of the Brahmi script came to be used, Sanskrit is today one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which mandates the Indian government to develop the language. It continues to be used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the form of hymns. The Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- may be translated as refined, elaborated, as a term for refined or elaborated speech, the adjective appears only in Epic and Classical Sanskrit in the Manusmṛti and the Mahabharata. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the fourth century BCE. Sanskrit, as defined by Pāṇini, evolved out of the earlier Vedic form, the present form of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced back to as early as the second millennium BCE. Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or Pāṇinian Sanskrit as separate dialects, although they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a collection of hymns, incantations and theological and religio-philosophical discussions in the Brahmanas. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, for nearly 2000 years, Sanskrit was the language of a cultural order that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent East Asia. A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of Indian epic poetry—the Ramayana, the deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or innovations, and not because they are pre-Paninian. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ārṣa, meaning of the ṛṣis, in some contexts, there are also more prakritisms than in Classical Sanskrit proper. There were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit, paścimottarī, madhyadeśī, pūrvi, the predecessors of the first three dialects are attested in Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest. In the 2001 Census of India,14,035 Indians reported Sanskrit to be their first language, in India, Sanskrit is among the 14 original languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its official language. In October 2012 social activist Hemant Goswami filed a petition in the Punjab. More than 3,000 Sanskrit works have been composed since Indias independence in 1947, much of this work has been judged of high quality, in comparison to both classical Sanskrit literature and modern literature in other Indian languages
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Alexander III.". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 548. M. A. Foucher, Notes sur la géographie ancienne du Gandhara (commentaire a un chapitre de Hiuen-tsang)", Bulletin de l´École Française d´Extrême-Orient, I, No. 4 (Oct., 1901), pp. 322-369;
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