CHAPTER SIX

IN THE INDO-IRANIAN BORDERLANDS: AND , WITH A NOTE ON THE KUH-I KHWAJA IN

From Iranian settlement to Mauryan suzerainry Of the eastern Iranian lands other than , only Arachosia and Gandhara have yielded some direct contemporary evidence concerning their Zoroastrian communities during the Seleucid period. Arachosia, known to the ancient Iranians who lived there as Harahvaiti, 1 was centred on the upland plain watered by the Argandab, in the south of modern . The first Iranian settlers there (who arrived perhaps from around 1000 B.C.) evi­ dently named the Argandab itselfHarahvaiti after the chiefriver of their mythology, believed to pour down from the great world­ mountain and to be the source of all other earthly waters.2 The actual l-Iarahvaiti/ Argandab rises in the high mountains of East­ Central Afghanistan, and flows in a south-westerly direction to join the Helmand. That river then carries their confluent waters on to empty eventually into the lake in Seistan, the ancient K4saoya, early sanctified for Zoroastrians as the place where the Saosyant will one day be conceived. 3 The name Harahvaiti was then evidently given by extension to a region watered by the river, probably more or less that known to the early Muslim geographers (by a deformation of the ancient name) as the plain of Rukhwad (or more commonly Rukhkhad or Rukhkhaj).4 This area was dominated by a stronghold, presumably originally called by the Iranians the fort of Harahvaiti, then also

1 For other forms of this name see R. Schmitt, "Arachosia", Elr. II 246--8. 2 Cf. Skt. Sarasvati, the name given by early lndo-Aryan settlers to a river which watered an area important in their own early colonization; see further HZ I 71-2. 3 Cf. HZ I 274, 293; II 279. 4 See Le Strange, Eastern Caliphate, 339, 346. The name Rukhkhad was also given still to a river, a tributary of the Argandab, which has been identified as that named in Yt. 19.66 as the Zarnumaiti, see D. Monchi-Zadeh, Topographisch­ historische Studien zum iranischen Nationalepos, Abh. f. d. Kunde d. Morgenlan­ des, XLI 2, Wiesbaden 1975, 120, 123, 126; W. Vogelsang, "Early historical 126 IN LANDS OF ANCIENT IRANIAN HABITATION simply Harahvaiti; so that they ended by giving this one name to river, region and citadel. The stronghold has been identified as the "Old Town", some 3 km. to the west of modern Kandahar, which was destroyed by Nadir Shah in 1738. This was sheltered by the steep Qaitul ridge, on whose further side the Argandab flows. 5 The site, excavation has shown, had been occupied before the Iranians appeared; but the fertile, well-watered plain around seems to have attracted them to settle there in numbers, presumably in time pushing most of the indigenous peoples up into the surrounding hills; 6 and with this settlement Harahvaiti became part of a wide area in Eastern and Afghanistan where early took root, and flourished well and long. 7 The stronghold of Harahvaiti (Arachotoi to the Greeks) was well placed not only to dominate the surrounding region but also to control the ancient highways that passed through it, linking Iran with the Indian sub-continent8 and joining together lands of early Iranian settlement. One of these highways led from Seistan up the Helmand and Argandab valleys, and branched at Kandahar, one way continuing east through the Sulaiman range to the lower Punjab, the other south-east to Hind (Sind). A third ran on up the higher reaches of the Argandab valley, and over a pass into that of the Kabul river. The Kabul valley too was part of an area where Iranians had settled early, calling it (in rendering) Paruparaesana after its huge mountain range, the Hindukush, to the eastern Iranians the Upairisaena (Paropamisadai, Paropami­ sos respectively to the Greeks). The route through Paropamisadai

Arachosia in south-east Afghanistan", Ir. Ant. XX, 1985, 62 n. 19, 90. It survives also in the name of a small village, Ariikh, c. 55 km. north-east of Kandahar, see C. E. Bosworth, "Kandahar", El 4 (1978), 536; W. Ball, "The Seven Qandahars, The name Q .ND.HAR in the Islamic Sources", SAS 4, 1988, 134. 5 On the identification of the town Harahvati with "Old Kandahar" (Qanda­ har in Persian spelling), see with full documentation P. Bernard, "Un probleme de toponymie antique clans l' Asie Centrale: les noms anciens de Qandahar", St. Ir. 3, 1974, 171-85; Ball, art. cit., pp. 131, 132-6. 6 On the fertility of the area, from medieval to modern times, see Le Strange, I.e.; Bosworth, art. cit., p. 537. 7 See the admirable researches ofG. Gnoli (bibliography down to 1985 given in his own ZTH, p. xviii, with his De Zoroastre a Mani to be added). The present writer remains, however, one of those not persuaded that the evidence for the early date of Zoroastrianism in these regions amounts to proof that the prophet himself promulgated his religion somewhere there. For conflicting views on this matter see latterly Gnoli, " " and Boyce, "Avestan people", Elr. II, 44-7, 63-6, and further o.c. inn. 134, below. 8 K. Fischer, "Zur Lage von Kandahar an Landverbindungen zwischen Iran und lndien", Bonner Jahrbiicher 167, 1967, 129-232; Ball, art. cit., p. 138. For a bibliography of the excavations at Old Kandahar, 1946-1978, see Ball, Archaeo­ logical Gazetteer of Afghanistan, I, Paris 1982, 145-7.