3 thousand year old city found in Swat

[Elite Pakhtun]

I visited this place when I was very young. Buddhist Sites in Takht-i-Bahi Mardan Khyber Pukhtoon Khwa,Pakistan UNESCO World Heritage List - YouTube

@Karachi, buddhism doesn't export a regional culture the way for example sikhi does.

[Khostai]

Yes Pashtun did migrate to this place some years ago, but that migration was not some 200 or 500 years ago, it was more than thousand years ago, budhism, zaroastrianism was also practised by Pashtuns, a lot of Pashtun still have some stories from the zaroaster in their folklore and also budhist practises like puting up a wish or a prayer in a peace of fabric and tieng it up to a three, or the thing that they do in mazar with new year, by raising the banner with flags is also related to budhism, it is modified and even persianised, but its origin is actualy still budhist.

And yes we also have people from West Asia who are absorbed in to our population, but still we are not alien to this land, we are quite native as it can get, if we are immigrant and alien, then are so every human outside Africa, becuase somehow everyone migrated somewhere in time.

And like other members already told here, budhism in every country has its own culture, and Paki and Indus still act and look the same becuase they had Hindu culture, what Afghans did not had. You can even see the big diffrence between Budhist Nepal and Hindu India near the border. Budhism and people who follow Budhism are quite diffrent from Hindus and Hindu influenced people.

[Khostai]

I am sorry to say by this history on not related to Pashtuns, since Pashtuns do not claim to have Buddhist/Hindu heritage, Pashtuns orignally probably came from Central or West Asia, and mixed (only some what) with the locals, I would say only 10-15% of Pashtuns genes are from those Buddhist/Hindus

Just becuase some extremist here claime to be prophets what ever or even Bani Israel, does not exclude the rest who are sain and now that it also concerns our history and herritage. Pashtun cannot have only 10-15% you are making this just up.

[Samandri]

But Pashtuns identity/culture is very very different from Indics, this proves that the buddist/hindu past of the region does not belong to them for the most part. and yes, it was indics who lived there, ancestors of present day populations likePunjabis/Hindkowans/Kashmiries, Pashtuns did drive them out of many regions like (Peshawar)

Budhism is also practiced by Chinese and Japanses, are they also Indics?.......Hinduism and Budhism are not one religion......in fact Budhism has spread to China from Afghanistan via Central Asia.

Kushans , originally from Tarim, basin of present-day China, settled in Afghanistan and northernand accepted Budhist religion.....Budhist past of nations outside India doesnt indicate Indic roots......

Budhist monuments are also discovered in Kandahar and eastern Afghanistan, so some sections of Pashtuns or Proto-Pashtuns might have been Budhists.

That being said, Pashtuns have nothing to do with Gandhara civilization of Peshawar valley and Swat........they began to settle in this region during Mahmud Ghaznavi times

[Samandri]

@Samandri please settle this. He is right that Pakhtuns love Islam like no tomorrow, but I don't think he's right in saying just because they had that in the past, the heritage still has nothing to do with them. Were the locals driven out and displaced, or is he wrong?

Yousafzais arrived in lower Swat in late 15th century, and defeated (and expelled) the ruling clan "Swati" , who settled in Mansehra and Battagram (they use surname of Swati and the ones in Battagram speak Pashto)..........about Swatis, read this Swati :: Khyber.ORG

The rest of the locals in Swat were absorbed as denizens..........as artisans. And they are obviously the descendants of ancient population of Swat.

[Karachi]

Then how do you explain this?

Mes Aynak - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



This buddhist site is in Logar province south of Kabul, also populated by pashtuns.

Buddhism was far more widespread than you think. Look at this
Greco-Buddhism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am not sure, you see if Pashtuns were Buddhist, why do they follow Pashtunwali, which is actually older then Islam and so different from anything buddhist. There were many people who live in these lands before Pashtuns came. People forget that Dardic People played a very important role in Vedic/Indo Aryan history and they lived on these lands, The Dardic people are mentioned in the earliest Hindu book (Rig Vedas). Pashtuns must have come later, maybe before Islam, but defiantly after the buddhist/hindu period of the region.

Now that said, of course there are some Pashtuns and even Pashtuns which are probably Dardic/Indic in origin, so those people do belong to this region