Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/257

Rh HISTORY.] AFGHANISTAN 239 contract, some part of the country west of the Indus, occupied by an Indian population, and no doubt embracing a part of the Kabul basin. Some 60 years later occurred the establishment of an inde pendent Greek dynasty in Bactria. Of the details of their history and extent of their dominion in different reigns we know almost nothing, and conjecture is often dependent on such vague data as are afforded by the collation of the localities in which the coins of independent princes have been found. But their power extended certainly over the Kabul basin, and probably, at times, over the whole of Afghanistan. The ancient architecture of Kashmir, the tope of Maiiikyala in the Panjab, and many sculptures found in the Peshawar valley, show unmistakable Greek influence. Deme trius (circa B.C. 190) is supposed to have reigned in Arachosia after being expelled from Bactria, much as, at a later date, Baber reigned in Kabul after his expulsion from Samarkand. Eucratides (181 B.C.) is alleged by Justin to have warred in India. With his coins, found abundantly in the Kabul basin, commences the use of an Arianian inscription, in addition to the Greek, supposed to imply the transfer of rule to the south of the mountains, over a people whom the Greek dynasty sought to conciliate. Under Heliocles (147 B.C. ?), the Parthians, who had already encroached on Ariana, pressed their -conquests into India. Menander (126 B.C.) invaded India at least to the Jumna, and perhaps also to the Indus delta. The coinage of a succeeding king, Hermteus, indicates a barbaric irruption. There is a general correspondence between classical and Chinese accounts of the time when Bactria was overrun by Scythian invaders. The chief nation among these, called by the Chinese Yuechi, about 126 B.C. established themselves in Sogdiana and on the Oxus in five hordes. Near the Christian era the chief of one of these, which was called Kushan, subdued the rest, and extended his conquests over the countries soiith of Hindu Kush, including Sind as well as Afghanistan, thus establishing a great dominion, of which we hear from Greek writers as Indo-Scythia. Buddhism had already acquired influence over the people of the Kabul basin, and some of the barbaric invaders adopted that system. Its traces are extensive, especially in the plains of Jalalabad and Peshawar, but also in the vicinity of Kabul. Various barbaric dynasties succeeded each other, among which a notable monarch was Kanishka or Kanerkes, who reigned and con quered apparently about the time of Our Lord, and whose power extended over the upper Oxus basin, Kabul, Peshawar, Kashmir, and probably far into India. His name and legends still filled the land, or at least the Buddhist portion of it, 600 years later, when the Chinese pilgrim Hwen Thsang travelled in India ; they had even reached the great Mahommedan philosopher, traveller, and geographer, Abu Rihan Al-Biruni, in the llth century ; and they are still celebrated in the Mongol versions of Buddhist ecclesiastical story. In the time of Hwen Thsang (630-45 A.D.) there were both Indian and Turk princes in the Kabul valley, and in the succeeding cen turies both these races seem to have predominated in succession. The first Mahommedan attempts at the conquest of Kabul were un successful, though Seistan and Arachosia were permanently held from an early date. It was not till the end of the 10th century that a Hindu prince ceased to reign in Kabul, and it fell into the hands of the Turk Sabaktegin, who had established his capital at Ghazni. There, too, reigned his famous son Mahmud, and a series of descendants, till the middle of the 12th century, rendering the city one of the most splendid in Asia. We then have a powerful dynasty, commonly believed to have been of Afghan race ; and if so, the first. But the historians give them a legendary descent from Zohak, which is no Afghan genealogy. The founder of the dynasty was Alauddin, chief of Ghur, whose vengeance for the cruel death of his brother at the hands of Bahrain the Ghaznevide was wreaked in devastating the great city. His nephew Shahabuddin Mahommed repeatedly invaded India, conquering as far as Benares. His empire in India indeed ruled by his freedmen who after his death became independent may be regarded as the origin of that great Mahom medan monarchy which endured nominally till 1857. For a brief period the Afghan countries were subject to the king of Kharizm, and it was here chiefly that occurred the gallant attempts of Jala- luddin of Kharizm to withstand the progress of Chinghiz Khan. A passage in Firishta seems to imply that the Afghans in the Sulimani mountains were already known by that name in the first century of the Hegira, but it is uncertain how far this may be built on. The name Afghans is very distinctly mentioned in Utbi s History of Sultan Mahmud, written about A.I). 1030, coupled with that of the Khiljis. It also appears frequently in connection with the history of India in the 13th and 14th centuries. The successive dynasties of Dehli are generally called PatJian, but were really so only in part. Of the Khiljis (1288-1321) we have already spoken. The Tughlaks (1321-1421) were originally Tartars of the Karauna tribe. The Lodis (1 450-1526) were pure Pathans. Fora century and more after the Mongol invasion the whole of the Afghan countries were under Mongol rule ; but in the middle of the 14th century a native dynasty sprang up in western Afghanistan, that of the Kurts, which extended its rule over Ghur, Herat, and Kandahar. The history of the Afghan countries under the Mongols is obscure ; but that regime must have left its mark upon the country if we judge from the occurrence of frequent Mongol names of places, and even of Mongol expressions adopted into familiar language. All these countries were included in Timur s conquests, and Kabul at least had remained in the possession of one of his descendants till 1501, only three years before it fell into the hands of another and more illustrious one, Sultan Baber. It was not till 1522 that Baber succeeded in permanently wresting Kandahar from the Arghuns, a family of Mongol descent, who had long held it. From the time of his conquest of Hindustan (victory at Panipat, April 21, 152G), Kabul and Kandahar may be regarded as part of the empire of Dehli under the (so-called) Moghul dynasty which Baber founded. Kabul so continued till the invasion of Nadir (1738). Kandahar often changed hands between the Moghuls and the rising Safavis (or Sons) of Persia. Under the latter it had remained from 1G42 till 1708, when in the reign of Husain, the last of them, the Ghilzais, provoked by the oppressive Persian governor Shahnawaz Khan (a Georgian prince of the Bagratid house) revolted under Mir Wais, and expelled the Persians. Mir Wais was acknowledged sovereign of Kandahar, and eventually defeated the Persian armies sent against him, but did not long survive (d. 1715). Mahmud, the son of Mir Wais, a man of great courage and energy, carried out a project of his father s, the con quest of Persia itself. After a long siege, Shah Husain came forth from Ispahan with all his court, and surrendered the sword and diadem of the Sons into the hands of the Ghilzai (Oct. 1722). Two years later Mahmud died mad, and a few years saw the end of Ghilzai rule in Persia. Nadir Shah (1737-38) both recovered Kandahar and took Kabul. But he gained the goodwill of the Afghans, and enrolled many in his army. Among these was a noble young soldier, Ahmed Khan, of the Saddozai family of the Abdali clan, who after the assassination of Nadir (1747) was chosen by the Afghan chiefs at Kandahar to be their leader, and assumed kingly authority over the eastern part of Nadir s empire, with the style of Dur-i-Durrdn, &quot; Pearl of the Age,&quot; bestowing that of Durrani upon his clan, the Abdalis. With Ahmed Shah, Afghanistan, as such, first took a place among the kingdoms of the earth. During the twenty-six years of his reign he carried his warlike expeditions far and wide. Westward they extended nearly to the shores of the Caspian ; eastward he repeatedly entered India as a conqueror. At his great battle of Panipat (Jan. 6, 1761), with vastly inferior numbers, he gave the Mahrattas, then at the zenith of power, a tremendous defeat, almost annihilating their vast army; but the suc cess had for him no important result. Having long suf fered from a terrible disease, he died in 1773, bequeathing to his son Timur a dominion which embraced not only Afghanistan to its utmost limits, but the Panjab, Kashmir, and Turkestan to the Oxus, with Sind, Biluchistan, and Khorasan as tributary governments. Timur transferred his residence from Kandahar to Kabul, and continued during a reign of twenty years to stave off the anarchy which followed close on his death. He left twenty-three sons, of whom the fifth, Zaman Mirza, by help of Payindah Khan, head of the Barakzai family of the Abdalis, succeeded in grasping the royal power. For many years barbarous wars raged between the brothers, during which Zaman Shah, Shuja-ul-Mulk, and Mahmud, successively held the throne. The last owed success to Fatteh Khan, son of Payindah, a man of masterly ability in war and politics, the eldest of twenty-one brothers, a family of notable intelligence and force of character, and many of these he placed over the provinces. The malig nity of Kamran, the worthless son of Mahmud, succeeded