Independence Day (Pakistan)
Independence Day, observed annually on 14 August, is a national holiday in Pakistan. It commemorates the day when Pakistan achieved independence and was declared a sovereign state following the end of the British Raj in 1947. Pakistan came into existence as a result of the Pakistan Movement, which aimed for the creation of an independent Muslim state in the north-western regions of South Asia via partition; the movement was led by the All-India Muslim League under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The event was brought forth by the Indian Independence Act 1947 under which the British Raj gave independence to the Dominion of Pakistan which comprised West Pakistan and East Pakistan. In the Islamic calendar, the day of independence coincided with Ramadan 27, the eve of which, being Laylat al-Qadr, is regarded as sacred by Muslims; the main Independence Day ceremony takes place in Islamabad, where the national flag is hoisted at the Presidential and Parliament buildings. It live televised speeches by leaders.
Usual celebratory events and festivities for the day include flag-raising ceremonies, cultural events, the playing of patriotic songs. A number of award ceremonies are held on this day, Pakistanis hoist the national flag atop their homes or display it prominently on their vehicles and attire; the area constituting Pakistan was a part of the British Indian Empire throughout much of the nineteenth century. The East India Company begun their trade in South Asia in the 17th century, the company rule started from 1757 when they won the Battle of Plassey. Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown assuming direct control over much of the Indian subcontinent. All-India Muslim League was founded by the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference at Dhaka, in 1906, in the context of the circumstances that were generated over the division of Bengal in 1905 and the party aimed at creation of a separate Muslim state; the period after World War I was marked by British reforms such as the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms, but it witnessed the enactment of the repressive Rowlatt Act and strident calls for self-rule by Indian activists.
The widespread discontent of this period crystallized into nationwide non-violent movements of non-cooperation and civil disobedience. The idea for a separate Muslim state in the northwest regions of South Asia was introduced by Allama Iqbal in his speech as the President of the Muslim League in December 1930. Three years the name of "Pakistan" as a separate state was proposed in a declaration made by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, in the form of an acronym, it was to comprise the five "northern units" of Punjab, Kashmir and Baluchistan. Like Iqbal, Bengal was left out of the proposal made by Rahmat Ali. In the 1940s, as the Indian independence movement intensified, an upsurge of Muslim nationalism helmed by the All-India Muslim League took place, of which Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the most prominent leader. Being a political party to secure the interests of the Muslim diaspora in British India, the Muslim League played a decisive role during the 1940s in the Indian independence movement and developed into the driving force behind the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim state in South Asia.
During a three-day general session of All-India Muslim League from 22–24 March 1940, a formal political statement was presented, known as the Lahore Resolution, which called on for the creation of an independent state for Muslims. In 1956, 23 March became the date on which Pakistan transitioned from a dominion to a republic, is known as Pakistan Day. In 1946, the Labour government in Britain, exhausted by recent events such as World War II and numerous riots, realized that it had neither the mandate at home, the support internationally, nor the reliability of the British Indian Army for continuing to control an restless British India; the reliability of the native forces for continuing their control over an rebellious India diminished, so the government decided to end the British rule of the Indian Subcontinent. In 1946, the Indian National Congress, being a secular party, demanded a single state; the Muslim majorities, who disagreed with the idea of single state, stressed the idea of a separate Pakistan as an alternative.
The 1946 Cabinet Mission to India was sent to try to reach a compromise between Congress and the Muslim League, proposing a decentralized state with much power given to local governments, but it was rejected by both of the parties and resulted in a number of riots in South Asia. In February 1947, Prime Minister Clement Attlee announced that the British government would grant full self-governance to British India by June 1948 at the latest. On 3 June 1947, the British government announced that the principle of division of British India into two independent states was accepted; the successor governments would be given dominion status and would have an implicit right to secede from the British Commonwealth. Viceroy Mountbatten chose 15 August, the second anniversary of Japan's surrender in the World War II, as the date of power transfer, he chose 14 August as the date of the ceremony of power transfer to Pakistan because he wanted to attend the ceremonies in both India and Pakistan. The Indian Independence Act 1947 passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom divided British India into the two new independent dominions.
The act provided a mechanism for division of the Bengal and Punjab provinces betwe
Wazir Mansion
Wazir Mansion known as Quaid-i-Azam Birthplace Museum is a former family home in the Kharadar district of Karachi, Pakistan, considered the birthplace of the country's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah."It was built during 1860-1870 with stone masonry in lime and jute mortar to suit the volatile weather of Karachi." "It was an auspicious day of December 25, 1876, when the founder of our homeland, i.e. Pakistan, was born." Wazir Mansion now may be the accepted birthplace of Quaid-e-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Once, his birthplace was misunderstood to be Jhirk, an old small town near Karachi, revealed to be untrue; the reality was disclosed in the book My Brother written in the 1960s by Muhammad Ali Jinnah's sister, Fatima Jinnah in his biography wherein she described the salient features of her brother's life. She mentioned their ancestral village, Paneli, in the state of Gondal, Kathiawar, in the province of Gujarat, in present-day India, their father, Mr. Jinnah Bhai Poonja, had settled in Karachi because of a business partnership with an English Merchant company named Grams Trading Company, whose office was located in Karachi.
Jinnah's ancestral family and their progenies including M. A. Jinnah's daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren have been residents, to this day, of the province of Gujarat and Bombay. Muhammad Ali Jinnah's father settled here for some time. By 1900, he again returned to his native state, British India. "Gowardhan Das was among the owners of this building from whom Wazir Ali Ponawala bought it at some point in 1904." The Government of Pakistan, in 1953, acquired this historic building. Under Ancient Monuments Preservation Act, 1904, the government protected it; the Pakistan Public Works Department was assigned the work of its conservation and renovation. It was formally inaugurated as Jinnah's birthplace museum on 14 August 1953. A project of strengthening and rehabilitation was completed by the government in 2010. Now this birthplace museum is a three-storey building with a museum galleries; the house now serves as a national archive. "The house where Mohammad Ali Jinnah spent 16 years of his childhood and youth is a precious national monument that provides inspiration to our nation."
Jinnah family Mazar-e-Quaid Quaid-e-Azam House Quaid-e-Azam Residency Jinnah House List of museums in Pakistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan also the Republic of Uzbekistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. The sovereign state is a secular, unitary constitutional republic, comprising 12 provinces, one autonomous republic, a capital city. Uzbekistan is bordered by five landlocked countries: Kazakhstan to the north. Along with Liechtenstein, it is one of the world's only two doubly landlocked countries. What is now Uzbekistan was in ancient times part of the Iranian-speaking region of Transoxiana and Turan; the first recorded settlers were Eastern Iranian nomads, known as Scythians, who founded kingdoms in Khwarezm, Sogdia and Margiana. The area was incorporated into the Persian Empire and, after a period of Macedonian Greek rule, was ruled by the Persian Parthian Empire and by the Sasanian Empire, until the Muslim conquest of Persia in the 7th century; the Muslim conquest in the 7th century converted the majority of the population, including the local ruling classes, into adherents of Islam. During this period, cities such as Samarkand and Bukhara began to grow rich from the Silk Road.
The local Khwarezmian dynasty, Central Asia as a whole, were decimated by the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. After the Mongol Conquests, the area became dominated by Turkic peoples; the city of Shahrisabz was the birthplace of the Turco-Mongol warlord Timur known as one of Genghis Khan's grandchildren, who in the 14th century established the Timurid Empire and was proclaimed the Supreme Emir of Turan with his capital in Samarkand. The area was conquered by Uzbek Shaybanids in the 16th century, moving the centre of power from Samarkand to Bukhara; the region was split into three states: Khanate of Khiva, Khanate of Kokand, Emirate of Bukhara. It was incorporated into the Russian Empire during the 19th century, with Tashkent becoming the political center of Russian Turkestan. In 1924, after national delimitation, the constituent republic of the Soviet Union known as the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic was created. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, it declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan on 31 August 1991.
Uzbekistan has a diverse cultural heritage due to strategic location. Its first major official language is Uzbek, a Turkic language written in the Latin alphabet and spoken natively by 85% of the population. Russian has widespread use as a governmental language. Uzbeks constitute 81% of the population, followed by Russians, Tajiks and others. Muslims constitute 79% of the population while 5% of the population follow Russian Orthodox Christianity, 16% of the population follow other religions or are non-religious. A majority of Uzbeks are non-denominational Muslims. Uzbekistan is a member of the CIS, OSCE, UN, the SCO. While a democratic republic, by 2008 non-governmental human rights organizations defined Uzbekistan as "an authoritarian state with limited civil rights". Following the death of Islam Karimov in 2016, the second president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, started a new course, described as a A Quiet Revolution and Revolution from Above, he stated he intended to abolish cotton slavery, systematic use of child labour, exit visas, to introduce a tax reform, create four new free economic zones, as well as amnestied some political prisoners.
The relations with neighboring countries of Tajikistan and Afghanistan drastically improved. However, the Amnesty International report on human rights in the country for 2017/2018 described continued repressive measures, including forced labour in cotton harvesting, restrictions on movements of'freed' prisoners; the Uzbek economy is in a gradual transition to the market economy, with foreign trade policy being based on import substitution. In September 2017, the country's currency became convertible in the market rates. Uzbekistan is a major exporter of cotton; the country operates the largest open-pit gold mine in the world. With the gigantic power-generation facilities of the Soviet era and an ample supply of natural gas, Uzbekistan has become the largest electricity producer in Central Asia. Renewable energy constitutes more than 23% of the country's energy sector, with hydroelectricity and solar energy having 21.4% and 2% respectively. Uzbekistan has an area of 447,400 square kilometres, it is the 56th largest country in the 42nd by population.
Among the CIS countries, it is the 2nd largest by population. Uzbekistan lies between latitudes 37° and 46° N, longitudes 56° and 74° E, it stretches 1,425 kilometres from west to east and 930 kilometres from north to south. Bordering Kazakhstan and the Aralkum Desert to the north and northwest and Afghanistan to the southwest, Tajikistan to the southeast, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Uzbekistan is one of the largest Central Asian states and the only Central Asian state to border all the other four. Uzbekistan shares a short border with Afghanistan to the south. Uzbekistan is a landlocked country, it is one of two doubly landlocked countries in the world (that is, a country completel
Urdu
Urdu —or, more Modern Standard Urdu—is a Persianised standard register of the Hindustani language. It is the official national lingua franca of Pakistan. In India, it is one of the 22 official languages recognized in the Constitution of India, having official status in the six states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, as well as the national capital territory of Delhi, it is a registered regional language of Nepal. Apart from specialized vocabulary, spoken Urdu is mutually intelligible with Standard Hindi, another recognized register of Hindustani; the Urdu variant of Hindustani received recognition and patronage under British rule when the British replaced the local official languages with English and Hindustani written in Nastaʿlīq script, as the official language in North and Northwestern India. Religious and political factors pushed for a distinction between Urdu and Hindi in India, leading to the Hindi–Urdu controversy. According to Nationalencyklopedin's 2010 estimates, Urdu is the 21st most spoken first language in the world, with 66 million speakers.
According to Ethnologue's 2017 estimates, along with standard Hindi and the languages of the Hindi belt, is the 3rd most spoken language in the world, with 329.1 million native speakers, 697.4 million total speakers. Urdu, like Hindi, is a form of Hindustani, it evolved from the medieval Apabhraṃśa register of the preceding Shauraseni language, a Middle Indo-Aryan language, the ancestor of other modern Indo-Aryan languages. Around 75% of Urdu words have their etymological roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit, 99% of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit; because Persian-speaking sultans ruled the Indian subcontinent for a number of years, Urdu was influenced by Persian and to a lesser extent, which have contributed to about 25% of Urdu's vocabulary. Although the word Urdu is derived from the Turkic word ordu or orda, from which English horde is derived, Turkic borrowings in Urdu are minimal and Urdu is not genetically related to the Turkic languages. 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 te. Contrary to popular belief, Urdu did not borrow from the Turkish language, but from Chagatai, a Turkic language from Central Asia. Urdu and Turkish borrowed from Arabic and Persian, hence the similarity in pronunciation of many Urdu and Turkish words. Arabic influence in the region began with the late first-millennium Muslim conquests of the Indian subcontinent; the Persian language was introduced into the subcontinent a few centuries by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties including that of Mahmud of Ghazni. The Turko-Afghan Delhi Sultanate established Persian as its official language, a policy continued by the Mughal Empire, which extended over most of northern South Asia from the 16th to 18th centuries and cemented Persian influence on the developing Hindustani; 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 known as Hindi.
The language was known by various other names such as Hindavi and Dehlavi. Hindustani in Persian script was used by Muslims and Hindus, but was current chiefly in Muslim-influenced society; the communal nature of the language lasted until it replaced Persian as the official language in 1837 and was made co-official, along with English. Hindustani was promoted in British India by British policies to counter the previous emphasis on Persian; this triggered a Hindu backlash in northwestern India, which argued that the language should be written in the native Devanagari script. This literary standard called "Hindi" replaced Urdu as the official language of Bihar in 1881, establishing a sectarian divide of "Urdu" for Muslims and "Hindi" for Hindus, a divide, formalized with the division of India and Pakistan after independence. There have been attempts to "purify" Urdu and Hindi, by purging Urdu of Sanskrit words, Hindi of Persian loanwords, new vocabulary draws from Persian and Arabic for Urdu and from Sanskrit for Hindi.
English has exerted a heavy influence on both as a co-official language. There are over 100 million native speakers of Urdu in India and Pakistan together: there were 52 million and 80.5 million Urdu speakers in India as per the 2001 and 2011 censuses respectively. However, a knowledge of Urdu allows one to speak with far more people than that, because Hindustani, of which Urdu is one variety, is the third most spoken language in the world, after Mandarin and English; because of the difficulty in distinguishing between Urdu and Hindi speakers in India and Pakistan, as well as estimating the number of people for whom Urdu is a second language, the estimated number of speakers is uncertain and controversial. Owing to interaction with other languages, Urdu has become localized wherever it is spoken, including in Pakistan. Urdu in Pakistan has undergone changes and has incorporated and borrowed many words from region
Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan
Sheila Irene Pant better known as Begum Ra'ana Liaqat Ali Khan, was the First Lady of Pakistan from 1947 to 1951 as the wife of Liaquat Ali Khan who served as the 1st Prime Minister of Pakistan. She was one of the leading woman figures in the Pakistan Movement along with her husband, a career economist, prominent stateswoman from the start of the cold war till the fall and the end of the cold war. Ra'anna was one of the leading woman politicians and nationwide respected woman personalities who started her career in the 1940s and witnessed key major events in Pakistan, she was one of the leading and pioneering woman figures in the Pakistan Movement and served as the executive member of Pakistan Movement committee working under Muhammad Ali Jinnah. She served as economic adviser to Jinnah's Pakistan Movement Committee and became First Lady of Pakistan when her husband Liaqat Khan Ali became Pakistan's first prime minister; as First Lady of Pakistan, she launched programs for woman's development in the newly founded country.
She would start her career as a stateswoman that would last a decade. In the 1970s, she joined hands with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's political movement and joined the socialist government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, elected prime minister at that time, she was one of the most trusted and close government and economical advisers to Bhutto and his government, had played influential role and involved with many key economical decisions taken by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto led the appointment of Ra'ana as the Governor of Sindh Province, she took the oath on 15 February 1973. Ra'ana was the first woman Governor of Sindh as well as first Chancellor of University of Karachi. In 1977, Ra'ana along with Bhutto and his party, won the parliamentary elections of 1977, but did not take the gubernatorial office due to martial law imposed by General Zia-ul-Haq, Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan Army. Ra'ana went on to work and dedicated her life for the social and economic benefit of women of Pakistan till her death in 1990.
She died in 1990 due to cardiac arrest and was buried in Karachi, with full state and military honours given to her in her funeral. Because of her services and efforts for medical and woman development and woman empowerment, Ra'ana is known as "Māder-e-Pakistan". Sheila Irene Pant was born in Almora, now in India, to a Kumaoni Christian family, her father, Daniel Pant, served in the United Provinces Secretariat. Of Kumaoni Brahmin heritage, the Pant family was a recent convert to Christianity in 1871. Sheila Irene Pant attended the University of Lucknow, where she gained Double First Class Honours BA in Economic and BT in Religion studies in 1927, she obtained double MSc in Economics and Sociology with Honors in 1929. She began her career as a teacher in the Gokhale Memorial School after completing the Teachers Diploma Course from the Diocesan College, Calcutta. After her master's degree, Pant was appointed as Professor of Economics in the Indraprastha College, of Delhi in 1931. Pant met Liaqat Ali Khan when he came there to deliver a lecture on Law and Justice at the Indraprastha College in 1931.
In December 1932, she married Liaqat Ali Khan. Upon marriage she changed her name from Sheila Irene Pant to Begum Ra'ana Liaqat Ali Khan. After the reorganisation of the Muslim League, Begum Ra'ana devoted herself to the task of creating political consciousness amongst the Muslim women society of the British Indian Empire. During this time, Ra'anna became an executive member of Jinnah's Working Committee and served there as economical adviser, her struggle for emancipation and support for Pakistan continued till the creation of Pakistan for Muslims of India in 1947. With her husband, Ra'ana opposed the Simon Commission. While a Professor of Economics, Ra'ana intensely mobilised students from her college and went to the Legislative Assembly to hear her husband's debate carrying placards of "Simon Go Home". With Liaquat Ali Khan winning the debate, she became an instant hero with her friends, she sold him a ticket to a stage show to raise funds for flood relief in Bihar. Ra'ana proved to be companion.
She played a major role in the Pakistan Movement. She became a defining moment in Pakistan's history when she accompanied her husband to London, United Kingdom in May 1933. There and Khan met with Jinnah at Hamstead Heath residence, convinced Jinnah to return to the British Indian Empire to resume the leadership of the All India Muslim League. Jinnah returned to India, Ra'ana was appointed as an executive member of the Muslim League and the Chairperson of the Economic Division of the Party. In 1942, when it became apparent that Imperial Japan was near attacking India, Jinnah summoned Ra'ana said to her "Be prepared to train the women. Islam doesn't want women to be shut up and never see fresh air". To undertake this task, Ra'ana organised Muslim women in the same year, when she formed a small volunteer medical corps for nursing and first aid in Delhi. Begum Ra'ana played an important role in creating political awareness among women. Ra'ana was among the aspiring women in South Asia and encouraged hundreds of women to fight for Pakistan shoulder-to-shoulder with men.
Ra'ana was the first First Lady of Pakistan. As First Lady, she initiated reforms for woman and child development and social progress of women, played a major role for women's part in Pakistan's politics. After the assassination of her husband Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951, Begum Ra'ana continued her services for the social and economic benefit of women of P
Pakistan
Pakistan the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the world’s sixth-most populous country with a population exceeding 212,742,631 people. In area, it is the 33rd-largest country. Pakistan has a 1,046-kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, China in the far northeast, it is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in the northwest, shares a maritime border with Oman. The territory that now constitutes Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures and intertwined with the history of the broader Indian subcontinent; the ancient history involves the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation, was home to kingdoms ruled by people of different faiths and cultures, including Hindus, Indo-Greeks, Turco-Mongols and Sikhs. The area has been ruled by numerous empires and dynasties, including the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Alexander III of Macedon, the Seleucid Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, the Gupta Empire, the Arab Umayyad Caliphate, the Delhi Sultanate, the Mongol Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Afghan Durrani Empire, the Sikh Empire and, most the British Empire.
Pakistan is the only country to have been created in the name of Islam. It is an ethnically and linguistically diverse country, with a diverse geography and wildlife. A dominion, Pakistan adopted a constitution in 1956, becoming an Islamic republic. An ethnic civil war and Indian military intervention in 1971 resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the new country of Bangladesh. In 1973, Pakistan adopted a new constitution which stipulated that all laws are to conform to the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Quran and Sunnah. A regional and middle power, Pakistan has the sixth-largest standing armed forces in the world and is a nuclear power as well as a declared nuclear-weapons state, the second in South Asia and the only nation in the Muslim world to have that status. Pakistan has a semi-industrialised economy with a well-integrated agriculture sector and a growing services sector, it is ranked among the emerging and growth-leading economies of the world, is backed by one of the world's largest and fastest-growing middle class.
Pakistan's political history since independence has been characterized by periods of military rule, political instability and conflicts with India. The country continues to face challenging problems, including overpopulation, poverty and corruption. Pakistan is a member of the UN, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the OIC, the Commonwealth of Nations, the SAARC and the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition; the name Pakistan means "land of the pure" in Urdu and Persian. It alludes to the word pāk meaning pure in Pashto; the suffix ـستان is a Persian word meaning the place of, recalls the synonymous Sanskrit word sthāna स्थान. The name of the country was coined in 1933 as Pakstan by Choudhry Rahmat Ali, a Pakistan Movement activist, who published it in his pamphlet Now or Never, using it as an acronym referring to the names of the five northern regions of British India: Punjab, Kashmir and Baluchistan; the letter i was incorporated to ease pronunciation. Some of the earliest ancient human civilisations in South Asia originated from areas encompassing present-day Pakistan.
The earliest known inhabitants in the region were Soanian during the Lower Paleolithic, of whom stone tools have been found in the Soan Valley of Punjab. The Indus region, which covers most of present day Pakistan, was the site of several successive ancient cultures including the Neolithic Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro; the Vedic period was characterised by an Indo-Aryan culture. Multan was an important Hindu pilgrimage centre; the Vedic civilisation flourished in the ancient Gandhāran city of Takṣaśilā, now Taxila in the Punjab, founded around 1000 BCE. Successive ancient empires and kingdoms ruled the region: the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Alexander the Great's empire in 326 BCE and the Maurya Empire, founded by Chandragupta Maurya and extended by Ashoka the Great, until 185 BCE; the Indo-Greek Kingdom founded by Demetrius of Bactria included Gandhara and Punjab and reached its greatest extent under Menander, prospering the Greco-Buddhist culture in the region.
Taxila had one of the earliest universities and centres of higher education in the world, established during the late Vedic period in 6th century BCE. The school consisted of several monasteries without large dormitories or lecture halls where the religious instruction was provided on an individualistic basis; the ancient university was documented by the invading forces of Alexander the Great, "the like of which had not been seen in Greece," and was recorded by Chinese pilgrims in the 4th or 5th century CE. At its zenith, the Rai Dynasty of Sindh ruled the surrounding territories; the Pala Dynasty was the last Buddhist empire, under Dharmapala and Devapala, stretched across South Asia from what is now Bangladesh through Northern India to Pakistan. The Arab conqueror Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Sindh in 711 CE; the Pakistan government's official chronol
Cedrus deodara
Cedrus deodara, the deodar cedar, Himalayan cedar, or deodar/devdar/devadar/devadaru, is a species of cedar native to the western Himalayas in Eastern Afghanistan, Northern Pakistan and India, Southwestern Tibet and Western Nepal, occurring at 1,500–3,200 m altitude. It is a large evergreen coniferous tree reaching 40–50 m tall, exceptionally 60 m with a trunk up to 3 m in diameter, it has a conic crown with drooping branchlets. The leaves are needle-like 2.5–5 cm long up to 7 cm long, borne singly on long shoots, in dense clusters of 20–30 on short shoots. The female cones are barrel-shaped, 7–13 cm long and 5–9 cm broad, disintegrate when mature to release the winged seeds; the male cones are 4–6 cm long, shed their pollen in autumn. The botanical name, the English common name, derives from the Sanskrit term devadāru, which means "wood of the gods", a compound of deva "god" and dāru "wood and tree". Among Hindus, as the etymology of deodar suggests, it is worshiped as a divine tree. Deva, the first half of the Sanskrit term, means deity, or deus.
Dāru, the second part, is cognate with the words durum, druid and true. Several Hindu legends refer to this tree. For example, Valmiki Ramayan – Kishkinda khanda- stanza 4-43-13 reads: lodhra padmaka khaNDeSu devadaaru vaneSu ca | raavaNaH saha vaidehyaa maargitavyaa tataH tataH || || 4-43-13 That means “In the stands of Lodhra trees, Padmaka trees and in the woods of Devadaru, or Deodar trees, Ravana is to be searched there and there, together with Sita. ” Forests full of Deodar or Devadāru trees were the favorite living place of ancient Indian sages and their families who were devoted to the Hindu god Shiva. To please Lord Shiva, the sages used to perform difficult tapasya practices in deodar forests; the ancient Hindu epics and Shaivite texts mention Darukavana, meaning a forest of deodars, as a sacred place. The deodar is the national tree of Pakistan, it is grown as an ornamental tree planted in parks and large gardens for its drooping foliage. General cultivation is limited to areas with mild winters, with trees killed by temperatures below about −25 °C, limiting it to USDA zone 7 and warmer for reliable growth.
It can succeed in rather cool-summer climates, as in Stateline and Ushuaia, Argentina. The most cold-tolerant trees originate in the northwest of the species' range in Kashmir and Paktia Province, Afghanistan. Selected cultivars from this region are hardy to USDA zone 7 or zone 6, tolerating temperatures down to about −30 °C. Named cultivars from this region include'Eisregen','Eiswinter','Karl Fuchs','Kashmir','Polar Winter', and'Shalimar'. Of these,'Eisregen','Eiswinter','Karl Fuchs', and'Polar Winter' were selected in Germany from seed collected in Paktia. C. Deodara, the two cultivars ‘Feelin’ Blue’ and ‘Aurea’, have gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit. Deodar is in great demand as building material because of its durability, rot-resistant character and fine, close grain, capable of taking a high polish, its historical use to construct religious temples and in landscaping around temples is well recorded. Its rot-resistant character makes it an ideal wood for constructing the well-known houseboats of Srinagar, Kashmir.
In Pakistan and India, during the British colonial period, deodar wood was used extensively for construction of barracks, public buildings, bridges and railway cars. Despite its durability, it is not a strong timber, its brittle nature makes it unsuitable for delicate work where strength is required, such as chair-making. C. deodara is used in Ayurvedic medicine. The inner wood is used to make incense. Inner wood is distilled into essential oil; as insects avoid this tree, the essential oil is used as insect repellent on the feet of horses and camels. It has antifungal properties and has some potential for control of fungal deterioration of spices during storage; the outer bark and stem are astringent. Because of its antifungal and insect repellent properties, rooms made of deodar cedar wood are used to store meat and food grains like oats and wheat in Shimla and Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh. Cedar oil is used for its aromatic properties in aromatherapy, it has a characteristic woody odor.
The crude oils are yellowish or darker in color. Its applications cover soap perfumes, household sprays, floor polishes and insecticides and is used in microscope work as a clearing oil; the bark of Cedrus deodara contains large amounts of taxifolin. The wood contains cedeodarin, cedrin and deodarin; the main components of the needle essential oil include α-terpineol, limonene, anethole and eugenol. The deodar cedar contains lignans and the phenolic sesquiterpene himasecolone, together with isopimaric acid. Other compounds have been identified, including -matairesinol, -nortrachelogenin, a di
