Pakthas

Pakthas are an ancient people that find reference in Sanskrit and Greek sources as a people living in the region which includes south-eastern Afghanistan and Northern parts of Pakistan. In the Rigveda, the Kurram is mentioned as "Kruma". Pachytyans were in charge of all "elephants" used in battle fields. Elephant hoarders or boarders or they took care of elephants. Today, the Kurram Valley is mostly inhabited by the Bangash and Turi Pashtun tribes, and because of that the ancient Pakhtas are believed to be part of the modern-day Pashtun confederation.

"The Pakthas, Bhalanases, Vishanins, Alinas, and Sivas were the five frontier tribes. The Pakthas lived in the hills from which the Kruma originates. Zimmer locates them in present-day eastern Afghanistan, identifying them with the modern Pakthun."

The Pakthas were one of the tribes that fought against Sudas in the Dasarajna the Battle of the Ten Kings (dāśarājñá), a battle alluded to in Mandala 7 of the Rigveda (RV 7.18.7).

Heinrich Zimmer connects them with a tribe already mentioned by Herodotus (Pactyans), and with Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Greek historian Herodotus mentioned a people called Pactyan living on the eastern frontier of the Achaemenid Arachosia Satrapy as early as the 1st millennium BCE.

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