Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s7.8

c48.s7.8

The term Paṭhān is now used to denote any one speaking the Pakhtūn language, or Paṣtū, and thus includes the Afghān, a foreign race which, however, has impressed its name upon the whole country. The Afghān, whose Jewish origin is insisted on by several authorities, and regarded as unproved by others, first settled in the hill tracts of Ghor and Hazāra. Thence they descended upon the Helmand valley, which was in the occupation of the Gāndhārī, a Paṭhān tribe expelled from the Peshāwar valley by one of the Scythian invaders. These people were dominated and then converted by the Afghān, who finally intermarried freely with them. The Gāndhārī, however, took the first opportunity of reverting to their former seat, where, under the names of Yūsufzāi, Mohmand, etc., they now reside. The Afghāns, by this time known as Tarīn, Ṣirānī, and Abdālī, or Durrānī, remained round Kandahār until the 18th century, when they transferred their headquarters to Kābul. The Ghilzāi, a Turk tribe which is Paṭhān but not Afghān, arrived across the Bāmīān from Ghor, like its predecessors. After rendering great assistance to Mahmūd of Ghazni on his raids into India, the Ghilzāi took possession of the country between Jellālābād and Qal'at-i-Ghilzāi, and have since spread east and west from that nucleus. In addition to the Gāndhārī just mentioned, the Paktyes contained, according to ancient writers, the Aparytai, or Āfrīdī; the Sattagydai, or Khatak, and the Dadikai, or Dādi, all of whom are ascribed to an Indian origin. Along with the Afghān, Ghilzāi, the Scythic Kākar, the Wazīrī (said to be Parmār Rājputs), and a few Turk accretions brought down by Sabaktagīn and his successors, these tribes constitute the Paṭhān of to-day. The territories occupied by the ancient people of that name, however, have been much altered. The Kākar nearly obliterated the Dādi in Sewistān; the Khatak and Āfrīdī were dispossessed by the Turk to a great extent. But through the operation of intermarriage and the adoption by all of the Paṣtū language, the whole has been welded into one nation, with the usual fictions as to common descent to explain the fusion.