0000 à1469: HISTORICAL LAND : '5 - AAB' : PUNJAB : * ANCIENT LAND OF THE FIVE RIVERS :

The Punjab:

• Till date
• has seen
• so far :
• The great Aryan
• and Sythian swarms
• which in successive waves of migration left their arid plateaux
• for the distant fruitful plains of India,

The conquering armies

• of Alexander the Great, all the way from Macedonia;
• The peaceful Chinese pilgrims;
• in search of the sacred scriptures of their faith,
• The Muhammadan invaders,
• who came, driven by lust of territory and pride of creed,
• to found one of the greatest Muhammadan empires
• the world has ever seen,

The devastating hordes: led successively by

• Qutlugh,
• Timur,
• Nadir Shah,
• and Ahmad Shah Abdali,

The armies

• of Babur and of Humayan all alike entered India
• across the wide plains of the five rivers: the '5 Aab'
• from which the Old Ancient Land of the Punjab takes its name.

This great central watershed

• which constitutes the eastern portion of the Punjab
• has ever been
• the battlefield of India.

Its eastern valley west of the Jumna

• was in prehistoric times
• the scene of that conflict which, described in the
• Mahabharata,

Forms

• the main theatre of operations to witness: first
• this incident of one of the oldest epics
• in existence;

While in later days it witnessed the successive struggles: which gave: India first: to the:-

• Muhammadans: who transferred the Empire of Hindustan from the Lodi Afghan to the
• Mughal dynasty:

[ postscript:- and later to witness:the fall of the Mughals to the ]
[ Mahrattas: at Panipat; & then in turn: the shaking of their power later to the ]
[ Sikhs: who in turn, seeing the atrocities on the white women/children in 1857 Indian Mutiny]
[ abandoned Dehli to the: British: who thus became the masters of British Empire in India. ]


A GLOSSARY OF THE TRIBES AND CASTES OF THE Punjab and North-West Frontier Province
Based on the Census Report for the Punjab, 1883, by the late Sir DENZIL IBBETSON, K.C.S.i., and the Census Report for the Punjab, 1 892, by the Hon. Mr. E. D. MacLAGAN, C.S.i., and complied by H. A. ROSE. pub. By LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT, PUNJAB 







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