@bennedose
By the time Afghanistan was overrun by Islamic hordes it was largely Buddhist - so lets quit this nonsense about a great Hindu civilization that was replaced by Islam
Ignorance. There is no population census of that time that we know which group was larger. However, you turned entire chronology upside down. It was in post Gupta age that Hindu civilization got completely entrenched in Afghanistan. Arab authors tell us that people of Kabul and Ghazni did not eat beef. Beef is not anathema to Buddhists so this means that there were more Hindus in those areas than Buddhists.
That great Hindu civilization had already vacated space to Buddhists.
It was other way around. Hindus were more dominating than Buddhists at that time.
The Persian empire had its eyes on "India" right from 1000 BC - but in many old accounts anyone who got up to the Indus was said to have got to India. From Afghanistan invaders repeatedly raped the area that was Pakistan.
In pre Islamic times, invaders came from area beyond Kabul river.
Perhaps "civilization" ended after Ashoka but all the same Afghanistan served as strong base for Islamic kings to come and rape and loot what is now Pakistan.
More BS. The great arts, literature and coins all emerged in these areas after Ashoka died. Show me a single piece of writing from that area before Ashoka. This is downright porn.
The history of Punjab is one of a people who constantly lost all battles and kowtowed to every invader until Ranjit Singh arrived.
Hindu Sahi empire was as much large as Ranjit Singh's excepting Kashmir. It also was more durable and lasted longer than Sikh empire.
The history of Punjab is one of a people who destroyed one of the greatest empires of ancient world, it is a history of a people who migrated to different areas of India and set up great kingdoms. Punjab was on path to invaders so had to suffer so much losses. It is history of clans who survived invasions after invasions.
So the area called Afghanistan has been ruled by the Persian Zoroastrian emperor Darius, later Ashoka and still later Greeks and later the Islamic hordes. Perhaps "civilization" ended after Ashoka but all the same Afghanistan served as strong base for Islamic kings to come and rape and loot what is now Pakistan. Ghazna in Afghanistan was the capital of the Ghaznavids - who ruled up to Lahore - and whose illegitimate children are now Pakistanis who worship them. But Afghanistan was then home to a big empire under the Turkic Islamic hordes. Both the Afghanistan and Pakistan area have only declined as civilizations in the 1300 years after Islam came, but by the same token, Hindus and Buddhists have only been driven away - so saying that Afghanistan got worse after Islam came is a sour grapes statement. The point really is why focus on the decline of Afghanistan when the area called Pakistan were always losers and remain that way even today.
Civilization does not mean wearing lungi and flashing curved blades. It means arts, literature and other such cultural stuff. Disunity in these areas did prove disastrous but their civilization was brilliant than many parts of modern day India.
Entire India has been losers if military defeats matter a lot.
And when you talk of decline in civilization why leave out Uttar Pradesh and Bihar? As if civilization has survived in these states. Someone please point out what parts of the ancient Indian civilization survived untouched in the area called Uttar Pradesh.
UP and Bihar are inhabitated by Indo Aryans following their age old religion, speaking age old languages, writing in their own scripts and being backbone of India.
Do Afghans write in Indic script, follow Hinduism, speak indic languages? You can not see difference between UP and Afghanistan! Such idiocy is not rare these days.
