Hazara region

Hazara (Hindko/Urdu: ہزارہ‎, Pashto: هزاره‎) is a region in the North-Eastern part of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is located east of the Indus River and comprises seven districts: Abbottabad, Battagram, Haripur, Mansehra, Upper Kohistan, Lower Kohistan, and Torghar.

"The origin of the name Hazāra is obscure." This source continues: "It has been identified with Abisāra, the country of Abisares, the chief of the Indian mountaineers at the time of Alexander's invasion.

The name Hazara has also been derived from Urasā, or 'Urasha', an ancient Sanskrit name for this region, according to Aurel Stein. Some Indologists including H. C. Raychaudhury, B. N. Mukerjee, B. C. Law, J. C. Vidyalankar, M. Witzel, M. R. Singh and K. N. Dhar concur with Stein's identification of modern Hazara with ancient Urasa. e when under the British.

It is also possible that the name Hazara comes from the phrase Hazara-i-Karlugh.

Evidence from the seventh-century Chinese traveller Xuanzang, in combination with much earlier evidence from the Indian epic the Mahabharata, attests that Poonch and Hazara District of Kashmir had formed parts of the ancient state of Kamboja, whose rulers followed a republican form of government.

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