Pakistan [antikvár]

THE LAND OF THE INDUS Up in the mighty Karakoram mountains in the north, the River is still young as it cuts its way through some of the most forbidding country on earth. By the time it reaches the plains of Panjab it has matured, slowing right down to old age as it washes the banks of timeless Sind before dying in the Arabian Sea. The journey ends but the flow is eternal. Since the beginning of time, the River has witnessed so much. Its blood soaked sands have been the playground and burial place of some of the greatest imperialist adventurers - Iranian, Greek, Scythian, Turkish and the British. Alexander, Mahmud Ghaznavi, Timur and countless warlords have furiously fought for imperial supremacy over the rugged land of the Indus valley. Pakistan, the meeting place of many worlds, has not only provided the theatre for the ravages of invading armies. It has also been the abode of peace and prosperity for humanity on a very large scale. Ancient cities, some abandoned millennia ago and some still thriving in the modern age, are testimony to the fact that the Land of the Indus has provided for many of the world's greatest civilisations. Since the Harappans, who built the world's oldest advanced civic culture some 5,000 years ago, many have come and gone or come and stayed in and around the Indus Valley. From those early times, through the Vedic and Buddhist eras and on to the world of Islam, the Pakistanis of today are the common inheritors of some of the greatest cultural traditions of humanity. They are traditions which sail slowly along the river and plough the fields at the water's edge and roll with the simple bullock cart along the endless track of time. They are traditions which have been written down in great epic poems or simply passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation, which are now poured out in song and dance and music and verse. They sing of the call of the mountains and of love in the desert. They beat the drums and even blow the bagpipes at the door of the holy man's shrine. Emanating from the historical continuity of intensely human values, the cultural strength of the Pakistanis has grown not in spite of but because of the fact that so many people have chosen the Indus as a home, and even invaded it to fulfil their dreams.