Pashtoonwali

PASHTOONWALI or PASHTO (or PAKHTO) AS A CODE OF HONOUR






In search of an answer on NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC / USA December 2004 Article by Tim McGirk, Photographs by Reza, Page 8-41, “Pashtoonwali” is comprised of the sum of the total values and social norms which determine the way of life to the Pashtoons who share Pashto as a common language and as Code of Honour.


Foreword






Afghanistan is one of the most complicated countries on earth. To understand its geopolitics, history, way of life, and culture is complex. Geopolitical analysis as developed in the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan, Halford Mackinder and Karl Haushofer is easily subject to abuse and oversimplification. It attempts to consider special aspects of any political pattern, especially through hypotheses explaining or predicting the distribution of power and political potential among states.
One of the most sophisticated recent attempts to apply these concepts on a global scale is that of Prof. Roy S. Cline. Cline has coined the term “politechtonics” to discuss the formation and break-up of power groupings - mainly regional in make-up - that determine the regional balance of influence and force in today’s international affairs (see Roy S. Cline: World Power Assessment, 1975, p.4). He identified a total of eleven regional groupings world-wide. Here, it is important to note that Afghanistan bordered on four of these groupings. Cine included Afghanistan in South and Central Asia (where she borders China, Pakistan, Iran and Central Asian countries). Clearly, this is a position of immense geopolitical and geo-strategical potential.
The problem with telling the story of Afghanistan now as ever is that it is so difficult to get the story straight and to get it out. That is not merely to distribute the stories but to get the story in the first place. Western scholars and journalists sitting in Peshawar, Islamabad, Karachi, Delhi – even in London, Paris and Rome – come up with incredible ideas of their own liking. Facts are few, opinions are fierce. Fair and accurate reporting is at a premium.
To understand Afghanistan’s problems properly especially outsiders must go there, stay a while, absorb sights and sounds, then think – and keep on thinking.
Afghanistan has been a vital link between Europe and Asia for thousands of years since Alexander the Great’s time. In the spring of 327 B.C. Alexander, after he wandered for forty months and after two years of strenuous fighting in Bactria and Sogdiaa, has crossed the Hindu Kush towards Kabul. There, he strengthened the hold he had previously secured upon this part of what is now Afghanistan and then set out for the conquest of India. So far, as the country west of the Indus river was concerned, this meant only a reassertion of the sovereignty of that Persian Empire of which he claimed to be the heir; for ever since the time of the great Darius it had included among its satrapies the present Pashtoonkhwa (North-West Frontier Province) as well as most of the Indus valley. But under the last weak Achaemenidian King of Kings, this sovereignty had probably become very shadowy in the mountainous tracts to the north.
This fact, together with the obvious need of securing the flank of his main line of communication explains why Alexander, on arriving in the upper valley of the Kabul river, led one corps of his army into the hill country of the north while the rest was to move down into the present Peshawar district and secured the passage across the Indus. Though we cannot follow the details of Alexander’s operations by the river Khoes, it is certain that they took him for a considerable distance up the large and populous valley of the Kunar river.
Then, he crossed the mountains to the east and had more than one hard fight in the territory which - the Greek records and geographical considerations combined – show to have been the present Bajaur. In Arrian’s “History of Alexander’s Conquests” we read the following passage: “The men in Bazira (Bazira is the same as Bajaur), despairing of their own affairs, abandoned the city…and fled the rock, as the other… were doing. For all the inhabitants deserted the cities and began to flee to the rock which is in their land.”
There it was where Alexander’s difficulties began; nor need we wonder when the historian gravely asserts that “so stupendous is the rock in this land that it was found impregnable even by Hercules, the son of Zeus.” Thus, history repeats itself and the people of Bajaur their tactics.
The river Curaios which the Macedonians had to cross before Alexander could lead them into the country of the Assakenoi has long ago been proved to be identical with the Panjkora, the Gauri of Sanskrit texts. Coming from the mountains of Dir, it flows past Bajaur on the east and then joints the Swat river where it passes through difficult gorges towards Pashkabur, the Peshawar plains (Kaspapuros: Purushapura, a Sanskrit terminology meaning the Centre of Conscience).
Turning to the philological side, it is very easy to prove that the modern name of Bir-kot, the Castle of Bir, preserves in its first part the direct phonetic derivative of the ancient local name which the Greek form of Bazira was intended to transcribe. The Greek letter “ß” was regularly used to render both the palatal media “j” and palatal semi-vowel “y”, two sounds common to the Indo-Aryan and Dardic languages but not known to the Greek alphabet and vice versa. Of this, we have conclusive evidence in the Greek transcriptions of indigenous names on the coins of rulers belonging to this very region and period. Thus, two Indo-Scythian rulers whose coins are found with exceeding frequency at sites of Swat are known as Azes and Azilizes from the Greek legends on their coins, while the Indian legends on the reverse call them Aya and Ayilisa. With the same ease, the gradual phonetic change of the restored indigenous form “Bajira” into “Baira” and then into “Bir” is accounted for by well-known phonetic laws which govern the development of all Indo-Aryan languages, from their ancient into their modern forms, and are likewise plentifully illustrated in the related Dardic languages. The addition of the designation “kot” (castle, fort, in Snskrit “kotta”) to the name is readily understood, the term “kot” being in general used throughout the north-west of India and in the valleys beyond, whatever the language spoken. A striking confirmation of the location of Bazira at Birkot, and of he derivation of the modern name of the latter, is supplied by Curtius. His account, very brief, of the operations that followed those in Bajaur tell us that Alexander “having crossed the river Khoaspes, left Koinos to besiege an opulent city – the inhabitants called it Baira- while he himself went on to Mazga.” There is good reason to believe that in “Khouspes” we have to recognize either the Swat river designated by Iranian form of its ambient Sanskrit name “Suvastu” or else its tributary, the Panjkora. Though Curtius, by a manifest error such as frequently occurs in his rhetorical narrative, makes siege of “Berio” simultaneous with , instead of subsequent to, that of Mazaga (Massaga), yet the reference to Koinos makes it certain that Beira he mentions is the same as Arryan’s Bazira. (Arrian Anabassis, IV.XXVII). In this form of the name we have but another attempt to reproduce the indigenous “Bajira” or “Bayira” (see Sir Aurel Stein: On Alexander’s Track to the Indus, 1998, p.41, 42, 47, 48).
With the death of Alexander in 323 B.C., the bright lantern that for a short spell illuminates the North-West Frontier (Pashtoonkhwa) scene, is put out and history becomes a laborious reconstruction, pieced together mainly from coins and inscriptions on documentary side supported only by occasional gleams shed by fragmentary records that have come down to us in the works of envoys and geographers. One such envoy was Megasthenes Seleucus, ambassador to the Maurya court, and the geographer Strabo and Ptolemy have been mentioned, too.
Ghandara as we know corresponds to Herodotus’ Paktuike and is Peshawar Valley. Arachosia corresponds roughly to Ghazni and Kandahar, Drangiana is Sistan, and Aria is Herat ; Baktria is the present city of Balkh.
In the article on Pashto (or Pakhto) in his “Linguistic Survey of India”, Grierson quoting Darmesteter holds it to be conclusively proved that this language belongs to the eastern group of the Iranian family. He admits that it has borrowed extensively from north-western India but affirms that its percentage is the Avesta with its so-called Zend commentaries. So Pashto (Pakhto) together with Baluchic and various Pamir languages can be related to the eastern Avesta. The Avesta and the Zend are Zoroastrian scriptures. Zoroaster, a prophet of disputed date but certainly before later Achaemenians who seem to have followed his teaching, spread his gospel from Sogdiana and the Eastern part of the Iranian world. This, according to Grierson, is the undoubted ancestry of the Pakhto or the Pashto language.
Morgenstierne, the most up-to-date authority, is better acquainted with the Afghans in the field than any who have written with authority on their language. The candle in his tent burns as clearly as the lamp in his study.
More than 72 years elapsed since Professor Geiger gave a foundation for the study of Pashto (Pakhto) etymology and phonetics. Geiger’s monograph, with the short survey, has remained the chief work of reference on Pashto linguistics and has been of the greatest use to all students of oriental studies.
In his Grammar of Pashto, Dr. Trump writes as follows: “We hope that the time is passed forever when the Pástò was classified under the semitic languages and that such assertions will in future only be looked upon as a curiosity, for the P� stò does not contain a single Hebrew word, and substantive…Òr, fire, which was identified with the Hebrew…light, is derived from the Zend.”
The Afghan history ostensibly begins in the 6th century B.C. with the Babylonian captivity.
Let us start at almost the same time with the establishment of the Achaemenian empire of Persia by Cyrus the Great in 559 B.C. In that year, Cyrus was enthroned, although he did not overcome Astyages of Media until 550 B.C., which ma be taken as the real beginning of the Achaemenian era, lasting until the empire was overthrown by Alexander in 331 B.C. Over this period of more than two centuries, Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier as far as the Indus – and after Darius, parts of the Punjab – also were included in the confines of the Persion dominion (see Caroe, The Pathans, p.26).
Pre-historic archaeology, together with oral history that was committed to writing during the medieval period such as legend, epic and myth, casts considerable light on the early culture and politics of the area. Rich archaeological sites such as the Greek city of Ai Khanum located in the upper reaches of the Amu Darya, the Khushanid site at h Kotal, and the massive Buddhas of Bamyan, are and were among the many remains that confirm Greek and Seleucid, Roman, Arab and Chinese references to this area.
Archaeologists dream of working in Afghanistan, and they say, Afghanistan is an archaeologist’s paradise. But, it’s carefully nurtured collection of antiques is vanishing, plundered by looters and sold to the West.
The archaeologist Nancy Duprée, who is based in Peshawar/Pakistan, knows all too well that one of this century’s great cultural disasters - the plundering of Kabul Museum and its riches – continuous apace, and in fact Kabul is stripped of its cultural treasures. Nancy Duprée (see footnote) says: The Kabul Museum’s major treasures were almost all missing. Gone were the 1700 pieces from Bagram, including several hundred second-century curved ivory reliefs discovered by the French in 1939. Hundreds of Greco-Buddhist bronzes, ceramics and statues had disappeared. There was no trace of the museum’s 35000 gold and silver coins from Tapa Maranjan, Kunduz and Mirzakah, nor was there any sign of the 20000 barbarian gold objects and pieces of jewellery that made up the glorious Scythian Tela-e-Tapa treasure which was excavated in 1978.
A large portion of the museum’s major treasures have found their way directly into Pakistan. . Again the archaeologist Nancy Duprée said recently in Peshawar: “A dealer came to see me yesterday for the second time in a year. He offered me a terracotta that I knew well because I’d already held it in my hands. It broke my heart, but I had to give it aback to him. The first time he had wanted US dollar 120,000. for it, and now he wanted US dollar 30,000.”
One person who is a dealer in antiques from London’s Old Bond Street says, he went to Peshawar “to help rescue the treasures of the Kabul Museum”, and after being contacted at his hotel was offered several dozen Bagram ivories of Kabul Museum for Usdollar 10 million.
During many years, the French archaeologists excavated the Bagram plains north of Kabul the prehistoric sites of Ai Khanum on the northern frontier, and the Buddhist valley of Bamyan – west of Kabul – and Hadda, near Jalalabad.
The Article PASHTOONWALI as Code of Honour” - by S. Kaimur as insider – hereinafter is only one more effort among many to inform the world about the real situation in Afghanistan.
He has provided the reader with a thorough account of the background and context of Afghanistan’s geographics and history as well as its socio-economic system – with a glimpse into its future.
By comparison, the defeat of the British in the last siege of Kabul which reached its crises almost one century ago, the departure of the Red Army in 1989 was lamentable. Kipling’s marvellous poem “Arithmetic on the Frontier” should be remembered as best example of Pashtoonwali as Code of Honour as follows:
When you are wounded and left on Afghanistan’s Plains
And the Women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll your rifle and blow out your brains
And go to your God like a soldier.
Footnote (Nancy Durpée): From Le Monde/International, see Dawat No. 5, 1997.
PASHTOONWALI (or Pakhto) AS A CODE OF HONOUR and its legal implications.
In search of an answer on NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC/USA December 2004 Article by Tim McGirk, photographs by Reza, pages 8-41, “Pashtoonwali” is comprised of the sum of the total values and social norms which determine the way of life peculiar to the Pashtoons or Pakhtoons or Afghans or Pathans, who share a common language (Pashto or Pakhto) and love of freedom and belief in a strict and ancient Code of Honour called Pashtoonwali.
One essential tenet of this code, “Nanawateh” or sanctuary, is particularly to help anyone who comes knocking at his door seeking refuge. It means that every Pashtoon is duty-bound to help anyone who comes to his door seeking refuge, even if it is his worst enemy. A Pashtoon is expected to give his life defending anyone seeking refuge, or a guest – and many have done so. A Pashtoon can act with nobility, and they are bonkers when it comes to giving sanctuary. It’s like a sacred mission. “Nanawateh” in one of its meanings is the request for help. Pashtoonwali as Code of Honour is the all-embracing regulator for the preservation and conservation of the society and for the behaviour pattern of the individual. It is an emic concept which includes everything which a Pashtoon should or should not do. It thus is a means of ethnic groups.
It is a common-place observation that there are basic convictions and values in every society which help shape the philosophy of life of its members and which determine the socially accepted behaviour patterns. In the Pashtoon society, the term Pashtoonwali includes both, the values of the society and the socially accepted behaviour patterns of the individual and the group derived from it. In addition to this, Pashtoonwali also includes the positive sanction of social reward behaviour in conformity to the norm, but it also includes punishment where the opposite is the case.
The idea a society has on what correct behaviour is and is not can be seen in the light of the claims made by the society on individual behaviour. They can be seen above all in the values forced on the individual if he is to be a respected member of society and to enjoy his acceptance.
All this is comprised in the concept of “Ghairatman”, a term which means both, “Gentleman” and “Man of Honour”, but which has notions of chivalry attached to it. “Ghairatman” is connected with the ideal of warrior and the use of force in personal matters. A Pashtoon however is only accorded the epithet “Ghairatman” when he satisfies the altruistic demands made on him such as, the defence and active support of the interests of his lineage, village, clan, nation and, above all, of women and other ”weaker” persons. “Ghairatman” is the ideal Pashtoon, the man whose behaviour is a yardstick for others and who, as a person, is an asset to the society.
The concept of “Ghairatman” can be sub-divided into two complexes of behavioural demands. The one (“nang”) guiding the individual in his community-oriented actions, the other (“tura”)directed to his own personal interests. The word “Nangialai”, denoting “Man of Honour” is ascribed to those Pashtoons who satisfy the altruistic demands made on them in relation to the preservation of the group. “Namus” implies the defence of women and territory, both essential prerequisites for the existence of his group.
The Afghan LOYA JIRGA as Platform of Pashtoonwali.
Observing the salient features of Afghan society, the traditional Afghan “Jirga” and “Loya Jirga” come first in the traditional political solution and has been alive since the ancient Aryan period. Afterwards, it was further modified. During the Greco-Bactrian period.
It provides Afghan society a historical, social and political background and has always helped Afghans deal with the situation of anarchy, chaos and emergency. Many orientalists believe that Afghan society is an egalitarian and democratic society. Some of them have the view that it is of ordered anarchy. Of course, Afghan society is one of the interesting cases for all curious and cultural anthropologies of the world. Many of them have studied it both, journalistically and participant observation. However, they have still not converged on a unified definition, and some of them have defined it in his or her own way. Yet, the phrase “ordered anarchy” sounds somewhat much closer to the reality because Afghan society’s both facets – order and anarchy - are quite at one hand; they have established glorious empires while on the other hand they make still the largest nomadic, semi-nomadic society of the world. Historically, they are famous for anarchic and unruly times; they have fought fierce wars against outsiders and, of course, among themselves! The latest episeries s going on since the last two-and-a-half decades. But, they are not only warlike people but they rather have some very mature social and political institutions and norms, both for war and peace days. Their policy is also based on well established principles and culturally recognized norms and values - in other words, how to fight and how to make peace. The institution of LOYA JIRGA embodies this reality of Afghan society.
If we analyse Afghan history, most of the great events, particularly the making of governments and announcements of wars and independence, have been determined and happened because of LOYA JIRGA. Empires in the subcontinent were established, maintained and replaced through the “Jirgas”; either the smaller ones compounded of the tribe of the king and/or other allied tribes. In Afghanistan, the tribe decies, not the individual.
Modern Afghanistan is a phenomenon purely determined by the Loya Jirgas convened by different Afghan tribes. Until the end of the Seventeenth Century, Afghanistan was divided between Mughals and Iranians. It was in the Eighteenth Century when Mirwais Ghilji convened a Loya Jirga in the villages of Kokeran and Marja. This Jirga choked out the rebellion against the rule of Asfahan. In those days, the northern part of Balochistan of Pakistan was also part of Kandahar. So, it was in this area where the rebellion was successful and Mirwais announced independent Afghanistan. But, it was a government of Afghan version. Mirwais did not declare himself king of the country. It was this specific Jirga providing the foundation of modern Afghanistan. For the first time, it was the government of “Afghan Afghanistan”. Before that time, Afghans used to either establish empires outside Afghanistan or they themselves were ruled by outsiders, and their land being just an annex to India or Iran. Generally, it is Ahmad Shah Abdali who founded modern Afghanistan. Yet, this approach is misleading. In fact, he only completed the process which was started by Mirwais.
The second Afghan Loya Jirga was held in 1747, after the assassination of Nader Afshar, which continued for nine consecutive days to reach a conclusion about the future king of Afghanistan. At the end, Ahmad Khan was announced in accordance with the tribal and egalitarian criteria of First among the Equals.
The third important Jirga was held in 1826 when Barakzais replaced Sadozais, the tribe of Ahmad Shah. Mohammad was selected the Amir of Afghanistan and the country was divided into seven administration areas. For all seven administration areas, a real brother of the Amir was made Governor.
Another important Jirga was convened in 1843 when the British imposed a puppet king, Shah Shuja, on the throne of Kabul. Participants of the Jirga announced Wazir Akbar Khan the leader of Afghani resistance and the First Anglo-Afghan War, which resulted in demolishing the Indus Army – the huge British force – both in personnel and material.
During the Twentieth Century, the Loya Jirga was rendered more sophisticated and formalised. It was Amir Habibullah who endorsed the status of permanent neutrality of Afghanistan.
In 1919, King Amanullah convened a Loya Jirga for the nullification of all those accords which the previous Amirs of Afghanistan have agreed with British India. This Jirga endorsed King Amanullah’s call for “Jehad” which resulted in the Third Afghan War. For the first time, there was a state-to-state war between Afghans and the British. Once again, the British were defeated by their rivals.
Amanullah Khan was a man of Jirga; he gave it a more institutionalised basis. He called Jirga after Jirga to elicit the opinion of the nation regarding the political, constitutional and international standards in that time.
With Zahir Shah ascending to the throne of Kabul, the formalisation of the Loya Jirga was entered into. During this era, the first Jirga was held in 1945 when the Second World War was going on. This Jirga recommended a non-aligned status of Afghanistan and decided that those German nationals who have taken refuge in Afghanistan were not be handed over to the winners of the war.
The last historic Afghan Loya Jirga was held in 2002. In the first one, Karzai was elected as interim-President of Afghanistan, and in the second one the Constitution of Afghanistan was approved in 2004.
As explained above, once again the Loya Jirga can play the historic role of peace-making institution in Afghanistan.
In the present situation of Afghanistan, the position of Loya Jirga is important on several accounts: The Loya Jirga is the soul and mind of Afghanistan, which has some kind of legitimacy: The Loya Jirga has root in Afghanistan since the ancient Aryan period. Barring a few groups, the majority of the genuine representatives of Afghanistan recognize and consider the Loya Jirga as the last institution of hope and democracy in the country.
ILLUSTRATIONS
It has become fashionable to portray Afghanistan as belonging to South Asia, Central Asia, or to the Middle East. It is, however, difficult to determine whether Afghanistan belongs more appropriately to Central Asia, the Indian Subcontinent or to the Middle East.
The tribal culture of the Afghans bears many similarities to that of the Arabian peninsula, yet the system of “Purdah” that is so characteristic of Muslim society in South Asia, is also evidence. The “Qanat” or “Kariz” system of irrigation in Afghanistan is unique for the eastern Islamic world and may be found from the foothills of Zagros Mountains to the desert oases of Chinese Central Asia.
Any attempt to assess a demographic analysis in the midst of a conflict is almost certainly deemed to failure, not least because there are no exact, credible data with which to measure demographic development. Few scholars agree on the precise details of Afghanistan’s population statistical data. As in its collecting of other statistics needed for planning development of the pre-war economy, the statistical arm of the Afghan government was always weak, and population figures in particular may have been exaggerated.
A fundamental difficulty has been the lack of any reliable census and hence estimates of total population before the Russian invasion varied from 12 to 20 million. The most reliable estimate is based on a UN national demographic survey of Afghanistan in which the total population of the country is estimated at 25 million, of which the Pashtoons represent 62% and – according to CNN – 11,5 million are estimated as the women and girls population.
The virtual collapse of the state infrastructure over the past twenty years has made this a particularly difficult task in relation to Afghanistan. There are, nonetheless, a number of broad trends which can be identified, and it is on these that focus shall be on here, while making no apology for what has to be somewhat impressionistic and subjective assessment.
In order to put these into contact, it is important to look at the nature of the period of Russian military occupation of Afghanistan, which demonstrates how the Communist party, Komsomol members and Trade Union leaders helped the Kabul regimes with money which was not theirs. “only insiders could grasp the meaning of the scene which could be observed in the garage on the premises of the former Soviet embassy in Kabul on one of the, as usual, sunny December days of 1988: A small group of “diplomats from Moscow” was handing over to an euqlly small group of Afghans no more less than 15 million Afghanis just received in cash from the Afghanistan Bank. It was about one cubic metre of banknotes put on the floor, in a garage box. The Afghans, who were staff of the Managerial Department of the Democratic Party of the Afghanistan Central Committee, packed the notes in bags, loaded them in a mini-bus and took off to the Central Committee. By December 1989, 744 million Afghanis were turned over to the “Afghan friends” in the garage of the Embassy in five rounds, which was equivalent to 9,4 million exchange rubels or over 14 million of the so-called clearing dollars according to the then-exchange rate. Thus was carried out the CPSUCC Resolution Financial A to the PDPA… to facilitate its transition to a self-financing region.” (see The Jerusalem Post, 4.6.1989).
It is said that history repeats itself. For Afghanistan, the repetition of history weights always the same. It has been repetition of destruction, being looted and plundered. The virtual collapse of the state infrastructure over the past twenty years has made clear that history has given Afghanistan little chance to heal the wounds of the past and present.
From other and better records, we are aware and come to the conclusion that after Achaemian times, this country was swept again and again by devastating invasions and migrations leading to collapse of the whole state infrastructure.
Perhaps it would be fair to conclude the Herodotean argument with the words of Winston Churchill as follows: “If Pathans themselves are in doubt, or hanker after more traditional forebears, let them remember that Herodotus was first to call the people around Paktuike the bravest of all the people in those parts.”
From Arrian’s account as it stands, it would be equally possible that Alexander directed his march to Bazira (Bajaur) , and he captured at first aussault the Ora. When the inhabitants of Bazira (Bajaur) heard that Ora had fallen, they regarded their case as desperate, and at that time they fled from their city to the Rock. The rivers he (Alexander) crossed were the Choes,Euaspla and Curaeus – in that order. Between the Euaspla and the Curaeus was a mountain divide. This can only have been the Kunar River. The Curaeus is the Panjkora which appears as the Gauri in the Sanskrit of the Sixth Book of the Mahabharata. Arigaion would be Nawagai in Bazira (Bajaur). After crossing Nawagai (Arigaion), Alexander necessarily would take the route through the Bajaur valley in order to pay a visit to the Mountain of Peacocks or Koh-I-Mohr (Kaimoor). Perhaps it would be fair to conclude the Arrian argument in his History of Alexander’s Conquest again with the words of Winston Churchill: “Arrian calls it Mount Meros. At its base, the city of Nyos stood in former times and, among many others, fell before the arms of Alexander. Its inhabitants, in begging for peace, boasted that they conducted their government with constitutional order,” and that “ivy, which did not grow in the rest of India, grow among them.” City, ivy, and constitutional order have disappeared alike. The mountain alone remains.” (see Winston Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force, p.112).
In Arrian’s History of Alexander’s Conquest, p. 271, we read the following passage:
When Alexander reached to the Mount Meros, he went there with his bodyguards praying and remembering Dyonisos.
Long before Alexander’s invasion, the victory was won in prehistoric times by an invading Aryan chief on the banks of Mount Meros which is sung already in a hymn of the Rigveda. The Mero (Meros) is, according to Puranas (Sanskrit: the storyteller of the Mahabharata) and its ancient astronomy, cosmology and cosmography, a mountain which demonstrates the centre of the universe and is the place of the sunrise and residence of Shiva, and all continents and oceans are surrounding it.
Dawat, Vol. 171 & 172 Jan-Feb. 2005


- PROF. Dr. S. KAIMUR