In the Kubjikāmata-tantra, the goddess, also called Kujeśvarī, declares: “As I have flown up (oḍḍitā) here within Oḍḍīśa, therefore this place will be known as Oḍḍiyānaka.” The Sanskrit root word operative here is uddi (उड्डी), 'fly up,' of which oddita is a form. The name Oḍḍiyāna is thus aptly applied, for the Śakti of the residents of this Pīṭha is seen to be permanently 'in ascent'.
The Manthana Bhairava Tantra—a vast text devoted to the worship of Kubjikā—states, “The goddess’s primary sacred site in antiquity was known as Oddiyāna,” while the Kumārikākhaṇḍa (42.16ab) explains that Kubjikā embodies the vital breath, “the form of the breath is that of a bird (that flies upwards), and so (her seat) is Odyāṇaka.” This imagery of ascent and bird‑flight resonates with the epic memory of the Hindu Kush, where the Mahābhārata recalls the mountains and valleys as Uparisthāna or Upariśaena, the “high place” or “mountain of the bird”—another description of the land of Odyāṇaka or Oddiyāna.
Upariśaena is first attested in the Mahābhārata as the classical Sanskrit designation of the northern frontier of the Hindu Kush. Later Avestan texts preserve the cognate Upāirisaēna, derived from Proto‑Iranian upārisaina- (“juniper‑covered heights”), sometimes interpreted as “beyond the reach of eagles.” Edward Burt, in his Journey through Afghanistan (1839), was the first modern interpreter to render the Sanskrit epic term into Persian as 'argamiru bar hawā' (“soaring into the air”). Subsequent philologists recognised that Burt’s Persian gloss coincided with the Avestan 'saēna '(eagle), thereby linking the original Indic bird‑mountain to the later Iranian eagle imagery.
A. Identifying Oddiyāna
1. Odisha vs. Oddiyāna: Some scholars have attempted to connect the name Oddiyāna with the state of Odisha, but this identification is generally not accepted. Odisha is indeed renowned as the centre of twelve Śaktipeethas, both major and minor; however, a Peetha of Kubjikā Mata does not figure among them. This absence weakens the case for equating Odisha with Oddiyāna, directing our attention elsewhere.
2: Swāt Valley Identification: Most scholars instead equate Oddiyāna with the Rigvedic Suvāstu Valley—today’s Swāt River Valley in Pakistan. This identification dominates Hindu‑Purāṇic, Tibetan‑Buddhist, and modern scholarship. The Tantras themselves guide us northward, recounting the goddess’s movement through Ucchuṣmā Nadī, Sahya Mahāvana, Karala, and Hima‑Gahvara. Though not exact phonetic matches, these names resonate closely with the valleys and features of Swāt, strengthening the textual‑geographic link.
This identification dominates Hindu‑Purāṇic, Tibetan‑Buddhist, and modern scholarship. The Tantras themselves guide us northward, recounting the goddess’s movement through Ucchuṣmā Nadī, Sahya Mahāvana, Karala, and Hima‑Gahvara. Though not exact phonetic matches, these names resonate closely with the valleys and features of Swāt, strengthening the textual‑geographic link.
Most scholars instead equate Oddiyāna with the Rigvedic Suvāstu Valley, today’s Swāt River Valley in Pakistan, and this identification has become the dominant view in Hindu‑Purāṇic, Tibetan‑Buddhist, and modern scholarship. The Tantras themselves guide us in this direction. They recount the goddess’s movement through Ucchuṣmā Nadī, Sahya Mahāvana, Karala and Hima-Gahvara. Though these names are not exact phonetic matches for the various valleys of the Himalayas or the Hindukush, they echo closely with many names and features that are closely resonant with the Swat Valley.
i. Sahya Mahāvana and Mahodand: On the present-day map of the Swat Valley, which derives its name from the Rigvedic Suvastu (सुवस्तु), meaning 'abundant', we encounter a lake called Mahodand, corresponding to the Sahya Mahāvana Lake of the Puranas—one of the sacred groves visited by the Goddess Kubjika. The shift from maha (महा) in Mahāvana, to 'maho' in Mahodand, preserves the semantic resonance of 'abundance' across time.
ii. Ucchuṣmā and Usho: Tantric texts describe the Ucchuṣmā (उच्छुष्मा) river flowing through the Mahocchuṣma forest. The same prefix maho echoes in the name Mahodand, while the river name itself resonates with the present‑day Usho River. This phonetic continuity anchors the goddess’s itinerary in Swāt’s geography.
iii. Symbolism of Ucchuṣmā: The Ucchuṣmā is a river that the Goddess visits in her sojourn to her abode. The river name resonates with the present-day Usho River that flows through Swat, hence anchoring the geography.
iv. The Etymology of the name Ucchuṣmā: Etymologically, Ucchuṣmā (उच्छुष्मा) is best understood as a compound word with ud (उद्) meaning 'up', 'out', or 'forth', and uṣma (उष्म) meaning 'heat, 'warmth', and 'vital energy'. Together, ucchuṣmā means 'the rising warmth, the crackling heat that manifests upward'.
v. Ucchuṣmā in Tantric texts: In the tantric texts, Ucchuṣmā carries the sense of 'the rise of energy or fire, and the crackle of vital force', and as Uṣā (उषा), the goddess's name means 'dawn'. She embodies the radiant morning light, standing in contrast to Kubjikā’s hidden, coiled energy. Yet, as the goddess whose fiery energy bursts forth, she complements Kubjikā’s hidden, coiled force, hence completing all her aspects.
vi. Persian Influence: With time, and in the present‑day landscape of Swat, the resonance of Ucchuṣmā shifted into another linguistic register. Through Persian influence, Ucchuṣmā seems to have taken the form of 'chashma', meaning “spring” or “water source.” This semantic evolution is visible in the present‑day Kala‑Chashma on the Usho River. This is a folklore correlation, not a philological one.
We may take a moment here to define 'chashma'. The Persian 'chashma', meaning 'spring' and 'spectacle', derives from čashm or 'eye', itself ultimately a simplified derivation of Sanskrit cakṣu (चक्षु), 'eye' or 'sight', where the Sanskrit resonance remains clear. In the Rigveda, cakṣu is repeatedly invoked as a divine faculty, most memorably in Rigveda 1.115.1: "citraṃ devānām ud agād anīkaṃ, cakṣur mitrasya varuṇasya agneḥ' which translates as, 'The wonderful host of rays has risen. The sun is the eye of Mitra, Varuṇa, and Agni."
vii. The significance of ancient Suvastu: Philosophically, Ucchuṣmā embodies the surge of vital fire that becomes manifest—dawn’s flame rising into sight—so that the Rigvedic cakṣu (vision) and the Tantric uṣma (heat) converge, completing the circle of sight, source, and radiance, uniting Vedic vision, Tantric energy, and the cultural memory of springs in the landscape of Swat. Suvāstu, whose very name resounds with the abundance of energies and natural wealth, became the chosen abode of the Goddess — for in its fertile valleys and radiant currents, the śakti of Oḍḍiyāna found a dwelling worthy of her visitation
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| The Mahodad Lake, the Usho River Forest and Kala Chashma seem to be a reflection of the Puranic Mahochussma Forest, and the Usha River of the land of Suvastu. Map Courtesy: Google Maps |
viii. The confluence of Suvastu, Vajrasthana and Barikot: The valley of Swāt reveals yet another dimension of its sanctity. Here, the Usho River meets the Paloga River to form the Suvastu, creating a sangama. Completing this tableau, Falak Sar, the valley’s loftiest peak, rises sentinel‑like above the confluence. Paloga itself recalls the Sanskrit pālāga (पालाग), ‘running, flowing,’ a name that mirrors the restless course of its waters. And perhaps the Falak Sar is the mountain of Vajra that the scriptures speak of, an idea we explore ahead.
The mountains of Swat rise high, encircling the valley, with Falak Sar, the highest, rising to 5900 metres. In the Tantric texts, the mountains encircling Oddiyāna are described as vajraprākāra (वज्रप्राकार), or 'gleaming ramparts'. The word itself is layered, with vajra (वज्र), which in poetic texts is taken to mean 'diamond', or 'thunderbolt', and prākāra, which means 'rampart', and 'enclosing wall'. Vajra also has the meaning of 'fortification', and when fused, they create a polyvalent image: the Swāt valley as a fortress of light, a citadel of indestructible truth, and a mandala bounded by vajra walls.
In the valley lies a settlement. The Kathāsaritsāgara, which is a later adaptation of the older Guṇāḍhya’s Bṛhatkathā text and dated to the 6th century CE, states that this settlement is named Vajrakūṭa (वज्रकूट), meaning 'the diamond city'. In chapter 44, Vajraprabha, the King of the city states, says, "There is a city in this earth on the ridge of Himavat, called Vajrakūṭa, and rightly so called, as being all made of diamond. There I dwelt, as a king of the Vidyādharas named Vajraprabha, and my name too was rightly given me, because my body is framed of diamond.” The vajra or the diamond construction here describes the gleam of the snowy peaks, symbolises purity and divinity, as well as the secure placement of the city.
Today, the Swat Valley is home to the town of Barikot. Rising above the Suvastu river, Barikot could well be the Vajrakūṭa of the old Sanskrit texts. The Greeks, when they marched with Alexander, recorded the same citadel and Arrian in the Anabasis (IV.27) calls it Bazira. Curtius Rufus in the Historiae Alexandri (VIII.34) names the city Beira. These forms stem directly from vajra (वज्र), the Sanskrit /v/ shifting to /b/ in Greek transcription. Bazira is Vajra, carried across languages, preserved in memory. Centuries later, after the Greeks left, an inscription dated to the 10th century, carved in Śāradā script, was discovered at Barikot, which preserves the toponym vajrasthāna (वज्रस्थान). This inscription establishes the authenticity of the contents of the Sanskrit scriptures, which have long been dismissed as myth. The stone inscription states:
“… śrī jayapāladevarājye śrī vajira(sthā)ne …”
The inscription records the king’s name as Śrī Jayapāla and designates the city as Vajrasthāna. This toponym has often been mistranslated as “the gleam of the diamond,” yet its sense is richer: vajra signifies not only the 'brilliance' of the diamond but also its strength. The name thus conveys the image of a city both radiant and impregnable. A parallel occurs in the Harivaṃśa Purāṇa, which speaks of Vajrapura — the fortified city of Pradyumna, son of Śrī Kṛṣṇa — underscoring the Purāṇic tradition of associating vajra with both 'strength' and 'divine lineage'.
Early British editors, not well versed in Sanskrit or the Śāradā script, inadvertently or intentionally misread the Barikot inscription as 'Waziristhan' (Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1931–32, Sahni). Giuseppe Tucci (1894–1984), an Italian orientalist, Indologist, and pioneering scholar of Tibetan Buddhism and South Asian archaeology, in his Preliminary Report on Archaeological Researches in Swat (1958), restored its dignity, reading the name correctly as vajrasthāna and linking it to the Bazira/Beira of Alexander’s historians. Tucci’s correction of the Barikot inscription is more than philological precision—it is a bridge between textual tradition and archaeological reality, affirming that the tantric mapping of Oddiyāna was geographically exact.
ix. Ushu River, Mahodand Lake and Doorgah Valley and Glacier: On the Usho River, there lies a valley known as Doorgah, a name that seems to echo the goddess Durga herself. Here, the dawn‑goddess Uṣā and the fierce protectress Durgā converge, inscribing the valley within a Vedic‑Purāṇic mandala of radiant energies.
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The Doorgah Valley near the Usho Forest
and Mahodad Lake, Swat Valley
Map Courtesy: Google Maps |
Whether the toponym Doorgah is directly derived from the deity or not, its presence alongside the Usho valley’s resonance with Uṣā, the Rigvedic goddess of dawn, situates the landscape within a Vedic‑Puranic pantheon of names. The pairing of Uṣā and Durga—radiant dawn and fierce protectress—creates a symbolic layering that strengthens the case for this terrain as part of Oddiyāna’s sacred geography.
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The only thread that ties the names
Mahodand, Ushu and Doorgah are the Sanskrit scriptures.
Suvastu, or Swat Valley, Pakistan. Courtesy: Google Maps |
x. A glacier called Śaraṅg Bar: Further up the river lies a glacier called Śaraṅg Bar, whose name preserves a Sanskritic echo, a variation of śṛṅga (शृङ्ग) meaning ‘peak.’ The glacier is surrounded by areas with names such as Ghochhar Sar, lying near the Bhaskargol Lake, which reflects the Sanskrit sara (सर) 'lake', and bhaskara (भास्कर), 'radiance', weaving a tapestry of ancient names with forgotten meanings. Shandur too is a lake region, its name reflecting shandali (षण्डाली), Sanskrit for a 'large pond'. These names, embedded in the natural features of the valley, are not accidental survivals but part of a larger pattern of Indic sacred geography. They testify to the way mountains, rivers, and glaciers were woven into the mythic imagination, and how the Swat corridor became a living palimpsest of goddess traditions, remembered in both Tantric texts and local toponyms.
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Sanskrit names abound in the Gilgit-Baltistan and
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regions.
Courtesy: Map data © Mapcarta |
B. Extending the Frontiers of Oḍḍiyāna
Mainstream scholars generally limit the Purāṇic Oddiyānaka or Oddiyāna to the Swat Valley and the surrounding northern regions in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Yet the information in Tantric and Purāṇic texts, combined with the geography of the land, makes clear that the expanse of Oddiyānaka extended way beyond the valley of the Suvastu in Swat and the surrounding regions.
a. Karala: The Fierce Sanctuary of Hill and Plain: From the Swat valley’s Ucchuṣmā and Sahya Mahāvana, the Tantras guide the goddess eastward, into another terrain where her presence is remembered: Karala. The name itself derives from Karali, an epithet of the fierce Śakti, and in the scriptures it is equated with Jalandhara (जलन्धर). Yet Jalandhara is not a single place—it is a double sanctuary, spanning both hill and plain, and Karala becomes the bridge that binds them.
In the Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh, the goddess is worshipped as Tripurāmalinī, Vajreśvarī of Jālaśaila—the “hill of waters.” Here, rivers carve deep valleys, and the temple at Nagarkot preserves her thunderbolt form, sanctified as one of the fifty‑one Shakti Peethas. The texts call this Jālaśaila, a hill‑sanctuary where waters and mountains meet, and where the goddess’s fierce energy is anchored in stone.
To the southwest, in the plains of Punjab, lies Jalandhar, the fertile corridor between the Vipāśā (Beas) and Śutudrī (Sutlej). Here, the goddess is remembered as Tripurmalinī, and the Shakti Peetha of Jalandhar marks the spot where Sati’s breast is said to have fallen. The city’s very name, Jalandhara—“held by waters”—echoes its geography, lying between rivers that descend from Himachal’s high ranges.
Thus, Karala, as remembered in the Tantras, encompasses both the hill sanctuary of Kangra and the river‑fed plains of Punjab. Later traditions blurred them under the single epithet, but the texts preserve their cadence—Jālaśaila and Jalandhara, hill and plain, sangama and sanctuary, both held in the fierce embrace of Karala.
The above are the Goddess's known abodes, but her name flickers across other forgotten sanctuaries. In Kashmir, near the Shankaracharya Hill of Srinagar—where a venerable Śiva temple crowns the summit—an ancient spring-temple at its foot bears the name Durga Nag. Yet older still is a peak remembered as Sangari Karala. Sangar (सङ्गर) signifies a 'conflict', or 'battle'—the fierce aspect of Śakti—while Karala is Durga herself in her Tantric form. The hill thus enshrines her dread epithet, a reminder that the goddess makes her abode throughout the Himalayan range, where sanctuary and struggle are inseparably bound.
This site carries profound significance. Kashmir is the very land from which the Kubjikā Tantra emanated, yet traces of her presence here are scarce. The Karala Sangari Mountain, rising only to 1,650 meters, stands as one of the few surviving markers of her cultic memory. Its modest height is itself symbolic: Karala never claims the loftiest summits, but chooses middling elevations where human vision and devotion can still converge with the divine. In this quiet peak, her presence endures—not in grandeur, but in the subtle power of remembrance, a silent witness to the Tantric goddess who once emanated across the Himalayas.
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Durga Nag Temple near the Karala Sangari Mountain.
The abode of the Tantric Goddess Karala. |
b. Hima Gahvara, the Cave of Snow: The Tantras recount that before Kubjikā incarnates at her chosen seat, she traverses ten mountainous sanctuaries—Kaumāraparvata, Trikūṭa, Kiṣkindha, a few among them—before she arrives at Hima‑Gahvara, the cave of snow. This obscure Tantric name in itself is a treasure‑house of meaning. Hima‑Gahvara is not a single peak but an expanse, a landscape of recesses and hidden hollows, where the goddess once descended and which later became the track of kings and expeditionists.
The name itself is evocative: hima (हिम) snow, and gahvara (गह्वर) 'cave', or 'deep recess'. It conjures a sanctuary that is both inaccessible and womb‑like, a place where energy is invoked in secrecy and power. In present geography, this resonates with the snowy ranges between Kabul, Ghazni, and Kandahar—a corridor of about 145 miles. Within these ranges lies Koh‑e Gowarah at 33.23N, 67.78E in Ghazni, its name stemming from Sanskrit gahvara and echoing across languages. In Pashto and Dari, Gowarah means 'cradle', mirroring the Tantric sense of a hidden womb. Nearby, at 33.13N, 67.61E, a place called Ghara preserves the same phonetic kinship.
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Koh-e Gowarah, not far from Kabul in Afghanistan
seems to have derived its name from Hima-Gavarah
of the Tantric tradition
Map Courtesy: MapCarta |
Kohe Gowarah, rising to 2,952 m, is a striking ridge in the Hindu Kush. Yet, like Vaishno Devi, Purnagiri, Kangra’s shrines, and Kāmākhyā, it is not the highest summit of its range. This modest elevation is not incidental — it is a recurring motif in the geography of goddess pilgrimage.
The tantric name Gahvara tells us much more than its surface meaning. Just as Gandhāra evolved into Kandahar, so too Gahvara transformed into Gowarah and, in another phonetic turn, Qarabagh—the consonant shifting from g to k/q. Qarabagh itself is a significant archaeological site, lying about thirty kilometres from Koh‑e Gowarah. Here, Buddhist caves still endure, among them the traces of the Jaghuri caves carved into the high valley of the Arghandab.
Jaghuri Caves and Mahabharata: In his travels ahead from Kapisa (present‑day Bagram), Xuanzang recorded his passage through Jaghuri caves as Jaguda, derived from Sanskrit jaguda, meaning 'saffron'. The name persists today on Afghanistan’s map as Jaghatu and sometimes as Jaghuri, scarcely altered. This continuity is striking: a phonetic thread stretching from Sanskrit Jaguda to these modern names, binding textual geography to the living landscape.
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Jaghatu in Ghazni is the Jagadu of the Mahabharata.
Qarabagh is the Land of Hima Gavarah of the Tantras.
Map Courtesy: Bing Maps |
The entire valley that we now call Ghazni first enters Sanskrit memory as Jāguḍa. In the Mahābhārata, we come across the verse 'agādratho avaniṃ jāguḍa-kuṅkumā-bhitāmrām' —“Agadratha went to the land of Jāguḍa, reddened with saffron.” Here, the country is named for its jaguda-kuṅkuma, its saffron fields glowing like fire across the ridges. The epic thus fixes Ghazni’s earliest identity as a land of fragrance, its people remembered for cultivating saffron.
Later, when Xuanzang walked into this same valley, he confirmed the epic’s memory. He wrote: “The country of Jāguda is more than seven thousand li in circuit, and its capital city, named Hexina (Ghazni), is over thirty li in circuit… The soil is good for growing aromatic turmeric, and it produces the hingu herb (Ferula asafoetida), which grows in the Rama‑Indu Valley.” His words echo the Sanskrit verse: saffron, turmeric, hingu—the valley was a treasury of fragrance and fertility.
The record of the Rama‑Indu Valley is unique, for it does not appear in any scripture and is therefore a precious fragment of memory. On today’s map, as one travels south from Bagram and Jagatu toward Ghazni, one crosses Ramak—a valley settlement whose name plausibly preserves the Rama‑Indu of Xuanzang’s account. In his Great Tang Records on the Western Regions (Da Tang Xiyu Ji), when describing the country of Jāguda (modern Jaghuri in Ghazni Province), Xuanzang notes that its fertile soil yields turmeric and the hingu herb, “which grows in the Rama‑Indu Valley.” The survival of Rama-Indu as Ramak on Afghanistan’s map thus offers a striking continuity: a phonetic echo of the Sanskrit name, binding Xuanzang’s textual geography to the living landscape.
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| On today’s map, the path from Kapisa (Bagram) and Jagatu into Ghazni crosses Ramak, plausibly preserving the name 'Rama‑Indu Valley' of Xuanzang’s account. Map Courtesy: Bing Maps |
Many of the names Xuanzang records vindicate what the Sanskrit texts had always stated. He describes his journey from Kapisa and Jaghuri back to China through Dasht‑e Nawur, the Bokan Pass, the Khawat valley, Fulishisatangna, and Vrijisthana.
i. Dasht-e Nawur: Why would Xuanzang have passed through Dasht-e Nawur? On Rennell’s late 18th‑century map, a site marked as Naggur corresponds to modern Nawur in Ghazni Province. This highland basin lies at over 3,200 meters and is dominated by a brackish lake nearly 60 km long.
It was once believed that the Arghandāb River (अर्घनदाब) rises from Dasht-e Nawur, its flow beginning slowly from the brackish waters, before gathering strength on its southwestward course toward Kandahar and the Helmand. The qualities of this origin—water pooled, heavy, and dark in a basin—evoke the Sanskrit ghana (घन), meaning dense, compact, or shadowed. Hence, the river is named Ar-ghana-dab.
Ancient geographers such as Ptolemy record Nawur’s lake as the source of the Arachotos (Arghandab) River. The Greeks made Arachosia of Arghana. And argala (अर्गल ), meaning obstruction, barrier, or slowing gate in Sanskrit, appears as 'argl' in Greek with the same meaning. Snowmelt gathers in the depression, held back as if by an argala, before release; the brackishness itself deepens the imagery, a ghana‑jala (dense water) shadowed in content and in hue. Today, the source of the river is identified at a place about 35 km away. The name suggests that these waters—whether basin or upland spring—were once conceived as part of a single continuum, hence the enduring etymological resonance.
Archaeological surveys revealed extensive Palaeolithic sites along its shores, with obsidian tools—cleavers, scrapers, microblades—testifying to very ancient habitation. A large stone fortification nearby suggests long defensive use. It was certainly an inhabitation of some Magnitude for its name is recorded as Naggur by Captain Wilford, a certain distortion of Nagara. He even identified it as the Devanagar of old, a site or centre, where, according to him, the Devanagari script first arose. Wilford was an 18th‑century orientalist and officer of the Bengal Army and was among the earliest European scholars to attempt systematic mappings of Sanskrit geography.
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James Rennell (1742–1830), the English geographer known
as the Father of the Indian Geographical Survey,
identifies a location called Naggur near Bamiyan. |
Wilford’s placement of Devanagara at Naggur was understandable: Nawur presented itself as an ancient, layered site—prehistoric settlement, fortification, and a lake once thought to be a river’s source. It could easily have been imagined as a forgotten sanctuary or a nagara of ṛṣis. Later scholars identify Jalalabad in Nangahar as the ancient Nagara-hara and the centre from where the Devanagari script arose.
ii. Scholars have long struggled with identifying Fulishisatangna and Vrijisthana; however, the answer to decoding these names lies in phonology.
In Chinese transcriptions of Sanskrit, the initial consonant written as /f/ in Chinese texts regularly corresponds to the Sanskrit /p/, a systematic sound-shift comparable in principle to the correspondences codified in Grimm’s Law for Indo‑European languages. Pushkulavati was recorded by Fa Hien, the 4th-century Chinese traveller, as Po-lu-sha, with the vati suffix left un-transliterated. Once this rule is applied, /p/ changes to /f/ and therefore Fulishisatangana emerges as the derivation of the original Pushkala. The suffix vati seems to have been changed to angna; vati means 'laden with' and 'angana' in Shaktism means 'to be a member of'. The Jaina monks have been called Pushkalaka (पुष्कलक) since the 9th century BCE, and later the Buddhist monks also adopted the same designation. This meaning is attested in the Monier-William Monier's Sanskrit Dictionary.
For Xuanzang, who was a monk, the name Fulishisatangna would mean to be 'a member of the Pushkala sangha in the city of Pushkalavati. The city of Vrijisthana, which Xuanzang records, is none other than the Vajrasthana of the Tantras, and as mentioned earlier, is now known as Barikot, the capital of the Swat valley.
The sequence of these cities follows the geographic path on the map in perfect order, confirming the accuracy of Xuanzang’s record and its harmony with the Sanskrit tradition.
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| The Journey of Chinese traveller Xuanzang, from Ghazni to Barikot,
connects the land of Charsadda (Pushkalavati of Ramayana), Jaghuri or (Jaguda of Mahabarata) and Barikote, the (Vajrasthana of the Tantras).
Map Courtesy: Google Maps |
Hima‑Gahvara, then, is more than a linguistic survival; it is a terrain sanctified in the Tantras as the seat of Kubjikā—the coiled one, folded into the mountain’s womb. The textual imagination and the physical landscape converge at Koh‑e Gowarah in Ghazni, embodying the 'cave of snow' described in esoteric tradition. Xuanzang’s record (630-632 ADE) confirms that the sanctity of this corridor was alive in his time, its glory compelling him to trace the same route. Within this corridor, rivers, peaks, and caves carried names resonant with Vedic and Tantric traditions, embedding the goddess’s ascent into the landscape. Thus Hima‑Gahvara, or Koh‑e Gowarah, stands not apart but within the expanse of Oḍḍiyāna, from Suvastu to Kapisa (Swat valley to Bagram), as mentioned within the sacred geography of the Tantras.
c. A note on Himalayan Shakti Peethas, beyond Oddiyāna: Vast the expanse of Oddiyāna might be, yet it is only one land of the goddess within a far greater expanse. The Tantras place Oddiyāna alongside the Mahāpīṭhas of the Himalayas, showing that the entire stretch of the Himalaya and Hindukush is the abode of Śakti. From the snowy caves of Hima‑Gahvara between Kabul and Ghazni, to the sanctuaries of Karala in Kangra and Jalandhar, and eastward into the Mahāpīṭhas of Purnagiri in Uttarakhand and Kāmārūpa at Kamakhya in Assam, the goddess’s presence is continuous.
Dinesh Chandra Sircar stated in his essay Shakti Peetha, first published in 1943, "In tantric literature, Oddiyana is identified as a Shakti Pitha, alongside Purnagiri, Kamarupa & Jalandhar, with Kubjika being its main goddess." Afghanistan lies at the north-west end of this stretch.
In the Kubjikāmata Tantra, the four sacred seats (pīṭhas) are enumerated, each defined by its sthāna. The Sanskrit verse reads:
Oḍḍiyānaṃ tu uparisthānaṃ, Kāmarūpaṃ tu nābhisthānaṃ, Jālandharaṃ tu jalasthānaṃ, Pūrṇagiriṃ tu parvatasthānam.-Kubjikāmata Tantra, ch. 18
In this verse, Oḍḍiyāna is described as Uparisthāna, 'the higher place', Kāmākhyā as Nābhi-sthāna, 'the navel place', Jālandhara as Jala-sthāna or 'the water place', and Pūrṇagiri as Parvata-sthāna or 'the mountain place'.
This verse makes the Indic logic explicit. Oḍḍiyāna is not vaguely 'the place of flight', nor just 'the mountain of the eagle', but precisely uparisthāna—the high place, from root oḍḍi (उड्डी) 'flown'. The designation is part of a coherent system in which each seat is mapped to a geographic and symbolic category. We have already seen in the previous section that Oddiayana was the centre of Kubjika Mata, the Asamayi temple of Kabul, hence anchoring the legend in real life.
By contrast, the Avestan Uparisaēna is simply a mountain name, with bird imagery attached through 'saēna', translated as 'eagle'. It has no developed framework of four seats, no systematic mapping of geography into symbolic categories.
Thus, while the word Uparisaina appears in the Avestan corpus, the source of its meaning lies in the Indic tradition. Only in the Sanskrit texts—especially the Kubjikāmata Tantra—do we find the fully developed context of the shaktism and shakti peethas that associates Oḍḍiyāna with the Hindu Kush as uparisthāna, 'the high place'. This Indic framing, rather than the Avestan echo, establishes the true source of meaning—a fact that mainstream historiography must finally acknowledge.
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The Puranic centres of Shakti, from the sacred site of Qarabagh (Koh-e Gowarah) in Ghazni, to Jalandhara and Kangra, from Purangiri in Uttarakhand to Kamrup in Assam, are the sites of Goddess Kubjika.
Map Courtesy: Bing Maps |
IV.
THE JAYANTI DEVI OF KABUL
Our path circles back to Kabul, where fresh facets of the goddess Kubjika unfold before us. The Manthāna‑Bhairava Tantra describes Jayantī (जयन्ती) as one of the goddesses who 'reside in the doors of the quarters'. In Tantric cosmology, by 'quarters' is meant the cardinal and intercardinal directions. These eight directions are regarded as sacred thresholds, each one guarded by a specific yogini, a female deity. Jayantī is counted as one among these eight Yoginīs. She is associated with Oḍḍiyāna as well as the western direction, and therefore she is identified with Kubjikā. Yet she is also Jayanti, or victory.
A. A Victory Goddess called Jayanti
Long before Alexander marched into the Kabul Valley after he annexed the Achaemenid Empire (founded by Cyrus in 559 BCE), the name Jayantī, meaning 'victory', was already inscribed in the land, and with it her veneration at Kubha. She was revered as the guardian of this western śakti‑pīṭha, enthroned upon the mountain summit. For the Greeks—ever attuned to myth and mystery—her lofty sanctuary would have appeared not merely as a shrine but as a place of mystical occurrences, elevated both in geography and in spirit.
It is possible then that they invoked Jayantī as their own goddess Nikē, embodying the idea of ‘victory’—niki in Greek. Through this resonance, the myth of the Greek Goddess of Victory may have been reframed upon Jayantī’s sanctuary, translating her Indic presence into a Hellenic idiom. In this way, the Kabul Valley became a fertile ground for traditions both Indic and Hellenic, from which the goddess of victory emerged and was remembered across cultures, her power carried into new tongues yet never diminished.
The land around the temple was remembered as Joy‑e‑Nike: jai in Sanskrit means 'victory', and nike in Greek means the same. Two languages, two traditions, converged in a single word of triumph. For the Greeks, the temple was a shrine of mystical victory; for the Hindus, a pīṭha of Jayantī Devī.
With the departure of the Greeks, the name Nike gradually wore off. The Sanskrit jai continued to anchor the temple’s name. Though Nike no longer formed part of its title, Jayani Devī lingered in memory, faintly surviving in the place‑name Joysheer, a market at the foothill of the temple. Here, the word joy no longer recalls Sanskrit jai (victory), but has shifted into Pashto usage, where zoye means 'place'.
Jayanti Devi also has her home in Kangra. There is also a site called Jayantipuri near Chandigarh, where the Pandavas are known to have built a temple dedicated to Jayanti Devi after their victory. Jayantipuri is identified with the present-day Jainti Majri, or Jynati Majri, near Chandigarh.
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The name Jayani Devi Sthaan survives in the name
Joysheer or Joisheer Bazaar, at the foot of the Asamayi Hill.
Map Courtesy: Bing Maps |
B. The Myth of a city called Nicaea in Afghanistan
In 326 BCE, Alexander advanced eastward from Kabul to confront King Porus, who ruled the land between the rivers Jhelum, then called Vitastā, rendered by the Greeks as Hydaspes, and the Chenab, known in the Rig Veda as Asiknī, which the Greeks called Acesines. As Alexander prepared to cross the Jhelum and meet his adversary, a settlement is said to have arisen on its left bank, where his army had encamped. Tradition holds that it was here that a city called Nicaea, or the 'city of victory', came up.
Unlike the Greek city 'Alexandria of the Caucasus' in Afghanistan, also called Kapisa, now called Bagram, where stones still speak of the Greek presence, the supposed foundation of Nicaea dissolves into silence. Its precise location has never been identified. Perhaps its existence was only a myth. The king's name Poros, conjectured to derive from Paurava, also finds no echo in Indian annals. Neither the Puranas nor later texts record him. No coins, no inscriptions, no ruins mark his reign. All that survives are Greek voices, weaving elephants and magnanimity into Alexander’s march. Perhaps Poros was never a monarch of cities and palaces, but a tribal chief of scattered settlements. Perhaps no battle thundered as the texts proclaim, but a weary army struck a deal, and the story was cooked into legend.
The silence of the land is testimony. A city that ever stood could not have vanished without a trace. A king imagined may be only a foil. What remains is the Greek need for grandeur: a noble adversary, a phantom city, a victory inscribed upon the imagination—so that the weary return of an army might echo as triumph, not compromise.
If we look at the geography, a more plausible setting for the location of 'Nicaea' also emerges. After marching from Alexandria (Bagram)—a distance of roughly 60 km—Alexander’s forces would have reorganised in Kabul before proceeding east toward Purushapura (modern Peshawar) or sailing through Pushkalavati (modern Charsadda), before the battle with the King.
The most logical encampment site for the troops would have been along the Paghman valley, where the river provided abundant water, the plains offered flat ground for tents and cavalry, and the route opened naturally into the Kabul basin, as the Paghman meets the Kabul River near the hillock of Kubjika's Temple.
The locals of Kubha would have referred to the Greek settlement as nikāya (निकाय), for that is the word for 'encampment' in Sanskrit and its derived languages. The memory of this encampment survives even today in Kabul, in the name Nikpay Alley—a broad and level ground at the western edge of the city, watered by the Paghman River and lying not far from the Temple.
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Nikpay Alley, a level ground just outside Kabul city,
about 20 km from the Asamayi Temple
was perhaps the Nicaea of the Greeks.
Map Courtesy: Bing Maps: Google Maps |
The summit temple, rising above the valley, perhaps became a commanding landmark for them—a shrine elevated in geography and in spirit, marking the frontier where Indic and Hellenic worlds met, and the site of their encampment gave rise to the myth of the city of Nicaea. It never came into existence in Afghanistan in reality.
C. The city of Nicaea in Greece
Instead, sometime after the Greeks returned to their homeland, there appeared a city called Nicaea in Greece. It looks like the Greeks who had marched into Afghanistan with Alexander in 327–326 BCE carried back more than tales of conquest. They took with them the folklore of their encampment in the town of Kubha, the impressions of spiritual practices at the Jayantī Devi Sthāna, and their settlement on the Beas or Hydaspes, near Dhalyalah, before their legendary final battle with Poros. The impact was lasting. In 1801, scholar Francis Wilford (1761-1822), writing in Asiatic Researches (Vol. IV), observed that the Greeks had renamed, not one, but two cities in their own land in memory of their 'victories' in Afghanistan—named Nicaea and Daedala.
Nicaea lay in a fertile basin at the eastern end of Lake Ascanius, a broad inland lake in northwestern Anatolia (modern Lake İznik in Turkey), about twenty kilometres east of Bursa. Before Alexander’s time, the site later called Nicaea was known by other names—Ankore or Elikore—words said to mean ‘anchor,’ perhaps marking a place where boats once moored in the lake. After Alexander died in 323 BCE, the settlement was re-founded as Antigoneia by Antigonus, one of the two successor generals of Alexander, around 316 BCE, and sometime between then and 301 BCE it came to be renamed Nicaea.
Interestingly, Lake Ascanius's name also bears a striking resemblance to Asiknī, the ancient Sanskrit name of the Chenab—the great river marking the eastward boundary of King Poros’s domain according to his legend.
Later, mainstream tradition holds that another of Alexander's generals, Lysimachus, renamed the city in honour of his wife, Nicaea. However, that is not generally accepted, for according to some accounts, his wife was perhaps named Arsinoe, and therefore the city name had a different source. Wilford explained, “The first (i.e. Nicaea) is a true and accurate translation of the Sanskrit Jayanidevi Sthāna, or the ‘place of the goddess of victory,’ who is worshipped under that name in Cabul to this day.” He further noted that in Greek, nike correctly means 'temple', while nikē signifies 'victory'—thus Nicaea translates as 'Temple of Victory'. One may therefore infer that, much like the name Poros, perhaps this story of the city being named after Lysimachus's wife was only another myth.
A later story claimed that Nicaea in Greece was dedicated to the 'Greek goddess of Victory'. Yet, as Wilford pointed out, there was no such goddess in the Greek pantheon until the Punic Wars, beginning in 264 BCE. The association of Nicaea with victory only emerged after the Greeks had encountered India, where the goddess of victory was already venerated.
D. Kubjika in Greek Mythology
In Greek mythology, Nicaea emerged as a nymph of springs and fountains, and as the goddess presiding over Lake Ascanius. Nicaea is first mentioned as the name of a nymph in late antiquity, specifically in the 'Dionysiaca' by Nonnus of Panopolis, a 5th‑century CE Greek poet. In that work, Nicaea is described as the daughter of Sangarius, the River‑God of Greek Mythology, and Cybele, the mother Goddess.
What is striking here is the uncanny echo of an Indic environment. The name Sangarius, though explained in various ways, appears cognate with Sanskrit sāgara — a word that encompasses both 'ocean' and 'river'. Likewise, the name Cybele, in mainstream literature, traced to the Phrygian goddess Kubileya or Kebeleya, meaning 'Mountain Mother', is none other than Kubjika, for the epithet 'Mountain Mother' aligns seamlessly with the Tantric goddess of Kubha, whose original seat was in Oddiyana. Thus, Nicaea’s lineage and associations reveal not a local Anatolian myth, but a layered continuity that resonates with Indic cosmology, especially with the sacred geography of Kubha, or Kabul. And thus, it is the temple of Jayantī — the Hindu Goddess of victory, and an avatara of Kubjika — that inspired the Greeks to associate it with their own goddess of victory, Nike, later enshrined in the name Nicaea.
The Plate of Cybele and Kubjika: In Afghanistan, near the northern border in Takhar province, lies a site called Ai-Khanoum, where the celebrated artefact, the Plate of Cybele (Ai-Khanoum disc), was unearthed. Dating to the 2nd century BCE, it portrays Cybele enthroned upon a lion-drawn chariot, ascending a mountain toward an altar, accompanied by Nike and the sun god. Scholars often interpret this as a Hellenistic rendering of the Phrygian Mother. Yet its Afghan provenance reveals something deeper: the imagery resonates with the Indic cult of Kubjikā in the Kubhā valley, where the goddess was enthroned upon her lion at the summit shrine of Asamai.
From Afghanistan, this cultic memory appears to have travelled westward along Greco-Bactrian corridors of exchange, crystallising in Anatolia as Cybele. The Plate of Cybele is not contemporary with Alexander’s visit.
It was created about 150 years later, during the Greco‑Bactrian period. The lion-throne motif on the Ai-Khanoum disc is thus not evidence of importation but of exportation—a local Indic goddess whose throne and mountain seat radiated outward, shaping Mediterranean iconography while preserving her Vedic-Puranic origin.
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National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul,
Plate of Cybele
Public domain image: Wikimedia Commons |
E. The Shrine of Kabul as Asamayi Temple
While the lore of Kubjika arose in Bactria and further west in Greece as a memory of the Shakiti Sthala of Kabul, the sacred landscapes of the east were not dependent on Greek nostalgia. In Kabul, the shrine of Kubha endured, its identity reshaped by the passage of time. Its titles shifted through the tongues of pilgrims and priests. Where the Greeks mapped their longing onto new cities, the people of Kabul traced an indigenous evolution, mapping their devotion onto the mountain temple — a continuity that gave rise to the name Asamayi.
The name Asamayi carries a fascinating layering of meanings and translations. Writing in the Asiatic Researches, two centuries ago, Francis Wilford stated, "It (the temple) is also called in Sanscrit, Jayini-devi-sthaan, or the place of the goddess of victory. The place where her temple stood is close to Cabul and is still secretly visited by Hindu pilgrims. Jayini-devi and Asa-mai are the same deity: the latter signifies the goddess, who grants the object of our asa or wishes. She is also called Asyaca in a derivative form, and the place is called by the Musulmans, Ashcan-arfan, who have thus altered the old name into an Arabic denomination of the same import, for it signifies who he knows our ashee or wishes." Wilford added that Muslims had reshaped the name into Ashcan‑arfan, an Arabicized form carrying the same meaning, 'she who knows our wishes'.
Other names recorded in 1801 include Asbana and Asvana (spoken as Ashaban), derived from Sanskrit āśā (“hope, desire”). Wilford noted: “Numerous are the legends in the Purāṇas relating to this place, which is called Asavana and in the spoken dialect Asbana. There are two places of that name; one is the lower (Asbana), and the other is Urdh A’sbana or A’sbana‑the‑upper.” This Urdh A’sbana—the “upper Asbana”, a variation of Oddiayan, retains a scriptural link to Kubjikā, the Tantric goddess of Kubha.
The temple of Kubha thus became a vessel of layered memory. Kabul’s shrine has remained alive under shifting names: Jayani‑devi sthana, Ashcan‑arfan, Asbana, Asamayi. Each name reflected the tongues and hopes of those who came to its hill: victory for warriors, desire for pilgrims, fulfilment for devotees. Two thousand years after Alexander, Wilford still heard these echoes, proof that the temple was not forgotten but continually reborn in speech. In its endurance, the Asamayi temple stands as Kabul’s own witness to history — a place where language, faith, and geography have conspired to keep the goddess of Kubha present across ages.
V.
TRACES OF HARAPPAN CIVILISATION IN AFGHANISTAN
The Harappan presence was not confined to the Sapta Sindhu alone. Archaeological evidence demonstrates that Harappan settlements extended deep into northern Pakistan and Afghanistan, with sites such as Dhalyalah near Jhelum and Shortugui in Badakhshan serving as trading colonies for lapis lazuli, salt, and other minerals. These outposts confirm that the Indus civilisation’s reach was transregional, embedding itself along the Oxus corridor and linking the Indic heartland with Central Asia.
A. Dhalyalah and the Greek City of Daedala
We step back in history and pick up the thread of the second city that had come up in Greece, after the return of Alexander's troops to their native land.
Wilford, writing in the early nineteenth century, observed that by approximately 310 BCE, a little over a decade after Alexander’s death in 326 BCE, a city named Daedala (located in the borderlands of Lycia and Caria) emerged in the Mediterranean and Anatolian spheres and became prominent in historical records. Wilford was of the view that Daedala, like Nicaea, was not a native invention but a name carried westward by the Greeks after their sojourn in India.
This insight gains force when we consider that Alexander had stationed his troops at a town called Dhalyalah, near the confluence of the Kunhar and Jhelum rivers. Downstream from here, it is said, the Battle of the Hydaspes was fought between Alexander and King Porus.
The origin of the name lies at the dramatic gorge where the Kunhar (the Vedic Kusava) collides with the Jhelum (the Vitastā of the Vedas, the Hydaspes of the Greeks). Locally, Dayadala described this jagged cleft, derived from the Sanskrit root dal (दल्) meaning “split, cleft, fragment.” In monsoon conditions, the same root shaded into daladala (दलदल), 'marshy ground', evoking the sodden plains that hindered Porus’s elephants and chariots. By contrast, Daedala in the Greek language carried no intrinsic meaning. The linguistic shift from the Sanskrit-influenced Dhalyalah to the Greek-friendly Daedala was a natural evolution of 'Hellenizing' the exotic east.
The naming was not a coincidence of sound, but a deliberate act of nostalgic cartography. Much like the many 'Alexandrias' founded across Asia, the naming of a city, Daedala in the West, served as a monument to the soldiers' journey. Much like the many 'Alexandrias' founded across Asia, the naming of a city, Daedala in the West, served as a monument to the soldiers' journey, a 'travelling toponym' transplanted from the Himalayan frontier into the Mediterranean world.
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Dalyalah Town, in Mirpur district, is located
on the Jhelum River, not too far from where the Kunar River
flows into the Jhelum. Map Courtesy: Bing Maps |
But why was the site of Dhalyalah so important? Situated at the confluence of the Kunhar and Jhelum rivers (Rigvedic Krumu and Vitastā), Dhalyalah marked the point where caravan goods from the Oxus or the Panj frontier re‑entered the Indus river system. This made it a hinge between Afghanistan’s mineral outposts and the Indus Valley’s urban centres. Local lore preserves the memory that the Greek troops came to Dhalyalah and camped here, echoing the same frontier route that Harappan traders had used centuries earlier.
Not only are the traces of a Vedic civilisation still widely evident in the region of the Jhelum, and cities such as Daedalyah, but remnants of Harappan presence are also scattered further west, and all across the rest of the Afghan land.
B. Harappan and Vedic presence in Gandamak
There is a place called Gandamak in the Nangarhar province. It lies on a strategic route east of Kabul, along the main road toward Jalalabad and the Khyber Pass, which historically connected Afghanistan to India. This location was a key staging point during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. It was the site of the signing of the Treaty of Gandamak in 1879, when Afghanistan ceded control of its foreign affairs to Britain.
Not far from Gandamak lies an obscure little town called Gangah Khel. Its coordinates — 34°14′32″ N, 70°02′36″ E — fix it precisely on the map, yet its name and its story risk fading into obscurity, overshadowed by larger names such as Jalalabad, only forty‑two kilometres away, and Kabul, eighty‑six kilometres distant. But Gangah Khel is more than a small dot on the map; its quiet presence conceals a history embedded in its name.
The valley around Gangah Khel carries resonances of sanctity. Nearby names such as Sawe echo the memory of Indic deities and rivers, while the Kabul River itself flows within two hundred metres, assuming the role of the Ganga of Nangarhar. Close by stands a mosque known as Masjid Quba Zerani. In its name may linger the ancient syllables of Kubha (कुभा), the old Sanskrit name of the Kabul River, and jhara (झर), meaning 'stream'. Though “Quba” is a common name for a mosque, it is tempting to imagine that a shrine to the Kubha goddess may once have stood here, sanctifying the waters that flowed past. The very name Gangah Khel suggests a settlement defined by water — a paradox, for it lies in an arid zone. Yet this paradox is the key to its story: a memory of sacred streams preserved in a landscape that has long since turned to dust.
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Gangah Khel is situated to the south of Gandamak,
and east of the Surkhab, a tributary of the Kabul River.
Courtesy: Mapcarta Maps |
Gangah Khel was not naturally fertile. The Kabul River, though close, often runs in deep channels that cut through the terrain without irrigating the surrounding fields. Its waters bypass much of the land unless deliberately diverted. This aridity demanded ingenuity. From the nearby Sping Ghar range, snowmelt fed the Surkhab tributary of the Kabul River, and here ancient engineers — heirs to the Indus Valley’s mastery of water — devised simple but effective stone‑lined channels, diversion embankments, and seasonal weirs to capture the meltwater and direct it into fields. Archaeological parallels from Gandhara and the wider Indus basin show that such early hydraulic works were already in use by the first millennium BCE, long before the later karez and qanat systems of the Islamic period. By harnessing the flow, they transformed a dry landscape into one sustained by water, creating pockets of cultivation where none should have existed. The Harappan masters called the place the 'Gangah', a centre of water and life in a desert of dust.
The name 'Gangah Khel' thus becomes more than a toponym; it is a memory of abundance created by human skill. The Kabul valley’s irrigation traditions link back to Gandhara’s hydraulic culture, where Vedic-Purāṇic shrines alike depended on carefully managed water. The paradox of a settlement defined by the Ganga in an arid zone is resolved when we see that the sanctity of water here was not natural but engineered — a sacred geography sustained by human hands.
Later, as centuries passed, surface water supplies became increasingly unreliable in the semi‑arid terrain, the Persian system of karez (qanats) was introduced—underground aqueducts tapping hidden aquifers. UNESCO and ICOMOS reports confirm this transition: from Bronze Age Indus Valley style surface systems to Iron Age Persian underground networks. Afghanistan became a living laboratory of water engineering, and Gangah Khel stood at its edge.
C. Shortogui, the Harappan Outpost
Near the site of Ai Khanoum, where the plate of Cybele was found, lay an older outpost by the name Shortugai. More than three millennia ago, the Indus Valley Civilisation had already pushed its northern frontier to the very edge of Afghanistan, founding its farthest settlement in the north at Shortugai in Takhar Province, twenty kilometres north of Ai‑Khanoum.
Situated on the banks of the Kokcha River, a tributary of the Panj (Oxus/Amu Darya), Shortugai stood at the frontier where Indic sacred geography met the borders of Tajikistan. Shortughai in Badakhshan was no accidental outpost: it was a deliberate station for trade, strategically placed on the Oxus corridor. That route connected Harappan traders into Bactria (Balkh), then onward into Margiana (Merv, Turkmenistan), and eventually into Iran.
The name Shortugai carries layered resonance. In Sanskrit, Śrotagā (श्रोतगा) means 'she who flows', śrota (श्रोत) is 'current' or 'stream', gā (ग) is 'she who goes'. This epithet of the river goddess aligns perfectly with Shortugai’s geography and its placement by the Kokcha, a flowing tributary feeding into the Panj river, tributaries of the Oxus, known in the Rig Veda by its Sanskrit name Vakshu. The tributary named Kokcha also displays a variation of the name Vakshu, showing how ancient hydronyms shift and fade, sometimes surviving only as fragments. Vakshu, the Rig Vedic name of the Panj, endures today in the Vakhsh River of Tajikistan, though in Afghanistan it lingers only in faint echoes like Wakhan and Kokcha.
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Vakshu, the Rig Vedic name of the Panj River,
survives in the name of a tributary called
Vakhsh in Tajikistan. Map Courtesy: Bing Maps
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Over time, the phonetic shift from Śrotagā to Shortugai preserved the Indic cadence while acquiring new meanings in Bactrian and Iranian tongues. In Persian usage, 'shotor' meant 'camel', giving rise to the pragmatic folk‑etymology 'camel place', reflecting its caravan role in lapis trade.
Since Shortugai was an important centre of the lapis lazuli and salt trade, its name seems to have acquired the meaning of salt or kṣāra (क्षार) and given the name to the province of Takhar itself. Khar is a common derivation of kshara, also meaning salt. Ancient Sanskrit place‑names often carry such layered meanings, each equally potent, revealing the intelligence and subtlety of Sanskrit toponymy. We shall encounter many more examples of this dual resonance as we move forward.
Shortugai was no isolated settlement: it served as a strategic Harappan trading post for lapis lazuli, salt, and other minerals. Archaeological finds such as Harappan pottery, standardised weights, and seals confirm its direct cultural and economic links with the great cities of the Indus Valley.
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Shortugai lay along the corridor that extended northward
from Kabul into the Bactrian heartland |
Shortugai occupied a pivotal position along the corridor that extended northward from Kabul into the Bactrian heartland. This route naturally aligned with the regions of present‑day Dushanbe in Tajikistan and Samarkand in Uzbekistan, both of which later became Silk Road hubs. In the Bronze Age, these corridors were already active through the BMAC (Oxus Civilisation), where Harappan artefacts have been found.
VI.
VEDIC-PURANIC BAGRAM OR KAPISHA
It was not only the Greeks who pressed into the valleys of Afghanistan, descending through the passes of the Hindukush, leaving behind traces of their Hellenistic settlements, but many regions of Afghanistan also became a locus for Buddhist communities and later a destination for Chinese pilgrims.
A. Parwan Province or the ancient Pravana
We now examine the path that brought the Chinese travellers into Afghanistan. Crossing the ridges of the Hindu Kush and Panjshir, the traveller travelling east to west descends into the fertile valley of Parwan Province, where the Ghorband river winds through orchards and villages. The name Parwan echoes the old Sanskrit name Pravana (प्रवण) meaning 'sloping down', 'flowing downwards' or 'inclined'. In ancient texts, pravana often describes a steep descent or a hillside. The topographic logic linking the ancient Sanskrit Pravana to modern Parwan is deeply rooted in the physical reality of the region's landscape. A valley that “slopes down” from high ridges into a river plain would naturally be called Pravana.
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Chinese monks such as Xuanzang passed through
Kapisa (Bagram) and Gardez. |
Some scholars note that the word parvan (पर्वन्)— which has the additional meaning of 'joint', 'knot', or 'division of a mountain' also resonates here. The Parwan Valley is precisely such a hinge. Crossing the Hindu Kush ridges, the traveller descends into Parwan, where the mountains break and bend toward the plains. The valley functions as a joint between highland and lowland, a natural articulation in the geography.
Sanskrit place‑names often speak in two voices. Pravana gives the slope, the downward flow, while Parvan adds the sense of pause or joint at the base of descent. Together they compress the valley’s logic into a single name—movement and meeting, slope and hinge, descent and connection.
Rather than an alternative origin, this meaning can be read as a secondary layer: the valley as a hinge, a joint where the high mountains bend toward the plains.
The same naming logic extends northward to the Salang Pass, which lies at the crest of the Hindu Kush about 90 kilometres north of Kabul. Its name originates in Sanskrit samlangha (संलङ्घ्) meaning 'to leap across'. There is a river here that bears the same name. It rises near the pass and flows southward, mirroring the 'flowing down' of Pravana.
Beyond Salang, the descent opens into the Shomali Plain, where the steep slope finally eases into fertile level ground. If Salang embodies the sharp fall of Pravana, Shomali is its gentler continuation. Its dark green fertility gave rise to its Sanskrit name, Shyamali (श्यामली)—'dark, rich, fertile'. Though history has made Shomali a battleground, its name predates conflict, carrying the memory of 'abundance' instead.
The ancient settlement of Bagram was built exactly at this transition point - the toe of the slope to control the flow of the trade coming down from the Salang Pass. The capital city of Parwan, till today, bears an ancient name. It is located on the Silk Route and is called Charikar, which stems from the Sanskrit root char (चर्) meaning 'journey', 'road', or 'a wanderer'.
B. The Sun City of Kapisha
Bagram, just a few miles from Kabul, was a key station on the Silk Route connecting Kabul with Bamiyan. Classical sources identify it with the ancient Kapisa, its name derived from the Sanskrit kapisha (कपिश), meaning 'sun' and evoking a coppery radiance.
The earliest references to Kapisa appear in the writings of the 5th‑century BCE grammarian Pāṇini, who calls the city Kāpiśī (कापिशी), a term that can also be interpreted as 'that which is praised by the wise'. In Chinese records, the name appears as Jabishi. Across these traditions, the etymologies converge on a single impression: Kapisa was remembered as a place of brilliance and renown, a city whose glory shone across languages and cultures.
Scholars, however, often equate the name Kapisa with Kambhoja (कम्बोज), regarding them as two forms of the same designation. The etymology of Kambhoja is said to derive from kāma (काम), meaning “desirable,” first invoked in the Mahābhārata to describe the tribes dwelling near Balkh—a reference to the handsome race of that land. Yet such interpretations, while evocative, risk narrowing the vision of Kapisa’s legacy. The glories of the region emanated not only from its people but also from its role as a nexus of trade, culture, and sacred memory, radiating prestige far beyond its frontiers.
In 329 BCE, Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria of the Caucasus at the same location, marking the valley that stands at the crossroads of civilisations. Yet its culture remained essentially Indic. In his influential work On Yuan‑Chwang’s Travels in India, 629–645 A.D., the British sinologist Thomas Watters cites Xuanzang’s account of Kapisa. Earlier, Samuel Beal had translated Xuanzang’s Buddhist Records of the Western World (1884), which first brought these descriptions into English scholarship.
Xuanzang recorded, “There were numerous Deva temples and over 1,000 dedicated followers, including the Digambaras and Pāśupatas, along with those who don skull‑wreaths as bead ornaments.” The Pāśupatas represent the oldest of the Śaivite sects. Their adherents, renowned for rigorous ascetic practices: covering their bodies in ashes, wearing skulls as symbols, and using them in ritual, were seen in large numbers at Bagram, establishing the presence of the Śaivite tradition there.
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Ivory Carvings of Hindu Goddesses from Kapisa,
Bagram, Afghanistan. Dated to the 1st-3rd century AD
Courtesy: KLOTZ - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 |
In the neighbouring region of Nuristan, referenced as Kambhoja in ancient scriptures, the pre-Islamic pantheon featured fierce protector gods associated with mountains and storms, similar to the deities Rudra and Shiva. Certain cult practices involved skull imagery and ascetic rituals, which Watters and Beal compared to the Pāśupata sects described by Xuanzang in his writings.
The Kalash people of Pakistan’s Chitral Valley, culturally related to the Nuristanis, still practice a Rig‑Vedic‑like religion. Their pantheon includes Mahandeo, a deity often compared to Śiva. The name, of course, stems from Mahadeva. This reiterates that Nuristan once shared similar Śaiva‑like cults, echoing the Indic substratum that persisted across the Hindu Kush frontier.
VII.
TRACES OF SHIVA, DURGA AT MES AYNAK, LOGAR
From Kabul, the dwelling of Śakti, the narrative flows southward into Logar Province — for where Śakti abides, Śiva is never far. At Mes Aynak, amid the copper‑rich earth, an ancient statue of Śiva still stands, sentinel over the land’s wealth. This was the great metallurgical heartland of Afghanistan, its mines and smelters known since antiquity. Though remembered today chiefly as a Buddhist site, beneath the monasteries lies a 5,000‑year‑old Bronze Age civilisation.
That deeper stratum is perhaps, and very likely, a Hindu site. For here the iconography blurs: images of Buddha appear in stances more characteristic of Śiva. Among the surviving relics are intricate stone carvings of Śiva — both aniconic liṅga forms and depictions entwined with Buddhist figures, showcasing the religious synthesis of the Kushan era. Coins bearing the trident‑holding Śiva have also been found. One particular carving shows the idol with bare legs, a posture long associated with Śiva, and markedly unlike the seated Buddha. Thus, Mes Aynak preserves a palimpsest of devotion, where copper, fire, and faith converged in forms both Vedic and Tantrik.
In the Tantric tradition, Śiva is revered as Tamravaktra, “the one with a copper‑colored face.” The Śiva Purāṇa remembers him as Tamralinga, worshipped in the form of a copper linga.
One more aspect shows that Shiva's presence in the pre-Buddhist era was quite possible. It is essentially a copper site, and Shiv's name and copper often go together. Even the hue of his jatas, his matted locks, is described as tamraprabha — the radiant shine of copper. In Siddha Dharma, Tamravaktra Jvāla is invoked as flame, guardian of hidden Tantras, protector of sādhakas walking the agnipatha, the path of fire — and this fiery rūpa is understood not as a separate deity, but as Śiva himself in his copper‑flame aspect. Here, to the ancient minds, closer to nature and rooted in spiritualism, copper ore, fire ritual, and divine presence converge, trade becomes tantra, and metallurgy becomes metaphysics. This fire ritual also became a part of the Zoroastrian fire worship in a temple that came up here. It is estimated to be 2,600 years old, predating the Buddhist occupation.
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