Hindu-Kush
Hindu Kush, also known as Pāriyātra Parvata (Pariyatra) (Sanskrit: पारियात्र पर्वत) or Paropamisadae is an 800 km long mountain range that stretches between central Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.
Origins of the name
The origins of the name "Hindu Kush" are uncertain, with multiple theories being propounded by different scholars and writers. Hindu Kūh (ھندوکوه) and Kūh-e Hind (کوهِ ھند) are usually applied to the entire range separating the basins of the Kabul and Helmand rivers from that of the Amu River (ancient Oxus) or more specifically to that part of the range, northwest of the Afghan capital Kabul. Sanskrit documents refer to the Hindu Kush as Pāriyātra Parvata (पारियात्र पर्वत).
The mountain range was called "Paropamisadae" by Greeks in the late first millennium BC. In the time of Alexander the Great, they were further referred to as the Caucasus Indicus or "Indian Caucasus", which past authors have additionally considered as a possible derivation of the name "Hindu Kush".
The highest point in the Hindu Kush is Tirich Mir (7,708 m or 25,289 ft) in Chitral District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
History
Alexander the Great explored the Afghan areas between Bactria and the Indus River after his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BC. It became part of the Seleucid Empire before falling to the Indian Maurya Empire around 305 BC.
Alexander took these away from the Persians and established settlements of his own, but Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), upon terms of intermarriage and of receiving in exchange 500 elephants.[1] ( —Strabo, 64 BC–24 AD)
Indo-Scythians expelled the Indo-Greeks by the mid 1st century BC, but lost the area to the Kushan Empire about 100 years later.[2]
Before the Christian era, and afterwards, there was an intimate connection between the Kabul Valley and India. All the passes of the Hindu-Kush descend into that valley; and travellers from the north as soon as they crossed the watershed, found a civilization and religion, the same as that much prevailed in India. The great range was the boundary in those days and barrier that was at time impassable. Hindu-Kuh--the mountain of Hind--was similarly derived.
Pre-Islamic populations
Pre-Islamic populations of the Hindu Kush included Shins, Yeshkun, Chiliss, Neemchas, Koli, Palus, Gaware, Krammins, Indo-Scythians, Bactrian Greeks, Kushans.
In Ramayana
"On your seagoing there, oh, vanara-s, you will see the golden peak of a waterlogged mountain called Mt. Pariyatra (पारियात्र), which peak will be hundred yojana-s in height, and which is difficult to see as it will be blindingly glittering. (4.42.19b, 20a)
Twenty four crores of mighty and atrocious Gandharva-s whose glow is similar to the fire and who can change their guise at their wish are living there on that mountain Pariyaatra. (4.42.20b, 21)