History of the Punjab

The name Punjab is a xenonym/exonym and the first known mention of the word Punjab is in the writings of Ibn Batūtā, who visited the region in the 14th century. The term came into wider use in the second half of the 16th century, and was used in the book Tarikh-e-Sher Shah Suri (1580), which mentions the construction of a fort by "Sher Khan of Punjab". The first mentioning of the Sanskrit equivalent of 'Punjab', however, occurs in the great epic, the Mahabharata (pancha-nada 'country of five rivers'). The name is mentioned again in Ain-e-Akbari (part 1), written by Abul Fazal, who also mentions that the territory of Punjab was divided into two provinces, Lahore and Multan. Similarly in the second volume of Ain-e-Akbari, the title of a chapter includes the word Panjnad in it. The Mughal King Jahangir also mentions the word Panjab in Tuzk-i-Janhageeri.Punjab, derived from Persian and introduced by the Turkic conquerors of India, literally means "five" (panj) "waters" (āb), i.e., the Land of Five Rivers, referring to the five rivers which go through it. It was because of this that it was made the granary of British India. Today, three of the rivers run exclusively in Punjab, Pakistan, while Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, India have the headwaters of the remaining two rivers, which eventually run into Pakistan.

This is the original home of the Gypsies, Ods and Sadhs, the Gurjars, Ahirs and Khatris; here came Skylax, Alexander, Huen Tsang and Fa Hien. Here we saw past the pageant of Aryanism, Zoroastrianism, Hellenism, Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism. How did this land fare under each contact, under each cataclysm, under each fresh revolution in thought and deed? How in its blood and brain it received and integrated something of Greece, Persia, China and Tibet, Arabia, Egypt, Central and Western India? Knowing that, we would, also, understand why Buddhism and all it outwardly implied in wood and colour and stone and deed has not much survived in Panjabi life and letters, only, in part in Punjabi religion; and why Brahman ritualism has passed away while the Kshatriya philosophy, the Vedanta, has survived; why the spirit more than the word of Islam as it emerged from its Persian cradle, has appealed to the rural Panjab; why the Chinese and Bengali games of children, the Chinese pigtail, the Chinese magic, the Greek semi-circular head-gear, the Turkish words for daily food and utensils, Vikramadityan Rajput tales and customs, Buddhist folktales, and the lore of saints; and lovers from Persia and Arabia, have found a congenial home in the soil or become favourites with the natives; why again the cult of Krishna or Rama worship has not struck roots here; why local saints have prospered; why comparatively so few traces of the changing past have got preserved in life or literature.

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