THE INDO NORTH WEST FRONTIER: 'O! East is East: and West is West, and…' the 'twain did meet & will continue to meet, at great cost; in Punjab: the Land of the Five rivers: JEHLUM, CHENAB, RAVI, BEAS, SUTLUJ; which continue to flow since ancient times, from the roof of the world: the Himalayas, along the plateaus, foothills, plains, deltas; into the Arabian Sea: for all successive River INDUS VALLEY civilizations: A very sacred land: every inch an imprint of almost all the major ancient religions: of the East: and of the West: whose priests and soldiers: here, one after another: all had their: wave and way, wars and warriors, sword and sway: : forging each other, till the seekers from amongst themselves, led by Guru Nanak, revolted proclaiming -'Na Mai Hindu! Na Mai Musulmaan'- Neither am I a Hindu! Nor am I a Muslim! - ushering in the latest revolutionary religion :Sikhism, of -'Ek Onkar Sat Naam'- There is One God: The True Name - : followed by -'the Sikhs'- the seekers - : followers of this new faith. These pot pourri *excerpts below, hence, glimpse facets: before: during: after: - 'The Gurus'- of : the Punjab & their Punjabiat: -
"… The Punjab,
the 5 Aab,
the land of the five rivers,
cover an area of 175, 248 square miles/
one-tenth of the whole area of the Indian sub- continent:
include a population of 28,0006,777 souls/
one eleventh of the total population among their inhabitants of whom number
one-fourth of the Muhammadan,
one-twentieth of the Hindu, and eleven-twelfths of the Sikhs.
Occupying the angle where the Himalayas, which shut in the
peninsula to the north, meet the Sulaimaans which bound it on the
west, and lying between
Hindustan and the passes by which alone access from the great Asian continent
is possible,
the Punjab,
in a very special sense, is the
guardian of this gateway, to the Indo Sub- continent: and its
North West Frontier.
[ * Excerpt from: A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North - West Frontier Provinces: compiled by H.A. ROSE. Based on the Census Report for the Punjab, 1883 : By Sir DENZIL IBBETSON, K.C.S.I., and the Census Report for the Punjab, 1892, and the Hon. Mr E.D.MacLAGAN, C.S.I., Pub : Director, Language Department, Punjab. ]