Episode Discussion Thread #10 1st Dec to 31st Dec 2015 - Page 68

Originally posted by: MaddyO

Where is Radhagupt. ...??

Originally posted by: AKT.JA

Hindu Kush basically means "killing field of Hindus". I have heard two theories about the origin of the name:

(1) It refers to the original massacres of the native population of that area by Muslim invaders.

(2) It refers to the deaths of a large number of Hindu captives from India who were being marched to the slave markets of the Middle East and died in those harsh mountains.

I cannot tell you which one is more correct. Babur, what did your ancestors tell you?

Originally posted by: babur1527

On his way to Taxilla still. 😆

Enjoyed the episode. However. Let me point out some bloopers.

1. Hindu Kush was a name given by the Muslim invaders. Being the descendant of one I can assure you that. 😆

2. The word Mohur is Farsi. I think the sanskrit word is Mudra.

3. Still not getting the logic of why and how would a Kalinga King go all the way to Taxilla on a suicide mission.

Originally posted by: AKT.JA

Oh yes, I forgot about this third theory. However my common sense leads me to suspect it as rooted in the politically convenient sophistry that we South Asians tend to prefer over objective truth. I trust kush = killing, as in khud-kushi which is common all over South Asia and means suicide. The 14th century Arab traveler/writer Ibn Batuta said the term meant Hindu-killer. Local Afghan populations has also attributed the same meaning for centuries.

Wikipedia collects several options:

[quote]The origins of the name Hindu Kush are uncertain, with multiple theories being propounded by different scholars and writers. In the time of Alexander the Great, the Hindu Kush range was referred to as the Caucasus Indicus or the "Caucasus of the Indus River" (as opposed to the Greater Caucasus range between the Caspian and Black Seas), and some past authors have considered this as a possible derivation of the name Hindu Kush. Hind Kh () and Kh-e Hind ( ) usually applied to the entire range separating the basins of the Kabul and Helmand Rivers from that of the Amu Darya, or, more specifically, to that part of the range lying northwest of Kabul.
...

The Persian-English dictionary[11] indicates that the word 'ko' [ko] is derived from the verb ('kotan' [kotn]), meaning to kill. Although the derivation is only a possible one, some authors have proposed the meaning "Kills the Hindu" for "Hindu Kush", a derivation that is reproduced in Encyclopedia Americana which says that the name Hindu Kush means "kills the Hindu" and is a reminder of the days when Indian slaves from the Indian subcontinent died in the harsh weather typical of the Afghan mountains while being transported to Central Asia.[12] The World Book Encyclopedia states that "the name Kush ... means Death",[13] while Encyclopdia Britannica says "The name Hindu Kush first appears in 1333 AD in the writings of Ibn Battutah, the medieval Berber traveller, who said the name meant 'Hindu Killer', a meaning still given by Afghan mountain dwellers who are traditional enemies of Indian plainsmen."[14]

The word Koh or Kuh means "mountain" in some local language Khowar. According to Nigel Allan, Hindu Kush meant both "mountains of India" and "sparkling snows of India", as he notes, from a Central Asian perspective.[15][/quote]