The true and detailed History of Peshawar

Peshawar is located in an area that was dominated by various tribes of Indo-Iranian origin. The region was affiliated with the ancient kingdom of Gandhara and had links to the Harappan civilization of the Indus River Valley and to Bactria and other ancient kingdoms based in Afghanistan. According to the historian Tertius Chandler, Peshawar had a population of 120,000 in the year 100 BCE, making it the seventh most populous city in the world.[3]
Vedic mythology refers to an ancient settlement called Pushkalavati in the area, after Pushkal, the son of King Bharata in the epic Ramayana.[4], but this settlement's existence remains speculative and unverifiable.[5] In recorded history, the earliest major city established in the general area of Peshawar was called Purushapura (Sanskrit for City of Men) was founded by the Kushans, a Central Asian tribe of Tocharian origin, over 2,000 years ago.[6] Prior to this period the region was affiliated with Gandhara, an ancient Indo-Iranian kingdom and was annexed first by the Persian Achaemenid empire and then by the Hellenic empire of Alexander the Great. The city passed into the rule of Alexander's successor, Seleucus I Nicator who ceded it to Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya empire in 305 BCE. Buddhism was introduced into the region at this time and may have claimed the majority of Peshawar's inhabitants before the coming of Islam.[7]
The area that Peshawar occupies was then seized by the Greco-Bactrian king, Eucratides (c. 170 - c. 159 BCE), and was controlled by a series of Greco-Bactrian and later Indo-Greek kings who ruled an empire that spanned from ancient Pakistan to North India. Later, the city came under the rule of several Parthian and Indo-Parthian kings, another group of Iranic invaders from Central Asia, the most famous of whom, Gondophares, ruled the city and its environs starting in circa 46 CE, and was briefly followed by two or three of his descendants before they were displaced by the first of the "Great Kushans", Kujula Kadphises, around the middle of the 1st century.
Peshawar formed the eastern capital of the empire of Gandhara under the Kushan king Kanishka I who reigned from at least 127 CE and, perhaps, for a few years prior to this. Peshawar also became a great centre of Buddhist learning. Kanishka built what may have been the tallest building in the world at the time, a giant stupa, to house the Buddha's relics, just outside the Ganj Gate of the old city of Peshawar.

Kanishka's stupa was said to be an imposing structure as one travelled down from the mountains of Afghanistan onto the Gandharan plains. The earliest account of the famous building is by the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim monk, Faxian, who visited it in 400 and described it as being over 40 chang in height (probably about 120 m or 394 ft) and adorned "with all precious substances". "Of all the stûpas and temples seen by the travellers, none can compare with this for beauty of form and strength." It was destroyed by lightning and repaired several times. It was still in existence at the time of Xuanzang's visit in 634. From the ruined base of this giant stupa there existed a jewelled casket containing relics of the Buddha, and an inscription identifying Kanishka as the donor, and was excavated from a chamber under the very centre of the stupa's base, by a team under Dr. D.B. Spooner in 1909. The stupa was roughly cruciform in shape with a diameter of 286 feet (87 m) and heavily decorated around the sides with stucco scenes.
Sometime in the 1st millennium BCE, the group that now dominates Peshawar began to arrive from the Suleiman Mountains of southern Afghanistan to the southwest, the Pashtuns. Whether or not the Pashtuns existed in the region even earlier is debatable, as evidence is difficult to attain. Some writers such as Sir Olaf Caroe write that a group that may have been the Pakhtuns existed in the area and were called the Pactycians by Herodotus and the Greeks, which would place the Pakhtuns in the area of Peshawar much earlier along with other Aryan tribes. Ancient Hindu scriptures such as the Rig-Veda, speak of an Aryan tribe called the Pakht, living in the region. Regardless, over the centuries the Pakhtuns would come to dominate the region and Peshawar has emerged as an important center of Pakhtun culture along with Kandahar and Kabul as well as Quetta in more recent times. Muslim Arab and Turkic arrived and annexed the region before the beginning of the 2nd millennium. The Pakhtuns began to convert to Islam following early annexation by Arab empire from Khurasan (in what is today western Afghanistan and northeastern Iran).[8]
“
Sebuktagin dying in 997 was succeeded as governor of Khorasan by his son Mahmud, who throwing of all dependence on the Samani princes,assumed the title of Sultan in 999, and from this reign the Hindu religion in these parts may be said to have received a death blow. In the early reign of this celebrated invader of India the plains of Peshawar were again the scene of some great battles, the first of which was fought on the maira between Nowshera and the Indus, in the year 1001. Mahmud was opposed by Jaipal , who had been constantly endevouring to recover the country wrested from him by Sebuktagin , still aided by some Pathans whose allegiance to the Muslim governor of Peshawar was not of long continuance . The battle took place on 27th November and the Hindus were one again routed , Jaipal himself being taken prisoner , who upon his subsequent release, resigned the crown to his son Anandpal . On this occasion Mahmud punished the Pathans who had sided with the enemy , and as they were now converted entirely to the Islam, they were ever afterwards true to their new allegiance, and joined the Sultan in all his wars against the infidels.[9]
”
Peshawar was taken by Turkic Muslims in 988 and was incorporated into the larger Pakhtun domains by the 16th century. The founder of the Mughul dynasty that would conquer South Asia, Babur who hailed from what is today Uzbekistan, came to Peshawar and found a city called Bagram and rebuilt the fort there, in 1530. His grandson, Akbar, formally named the city Peshawar which means "The Place at the Frontier" in Persian and expanded the bazaars and fortifications. The Muslim technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, theologians and Sufis flocked from the rest of the Muslim world to Islamic Sultanate in South Asia and many settled in the Pashawar region.[5]
The city has been known both as the "City of Flowers" and the "City of Grain". In the days of the Kushan King, it was called the "Lotus Land".

The Pakhtun conqueror Sher Shah Suri, turned Peshawar's renaissance into a boom when he ran his Delhi-to-Kabul Shahi Road through the Khyber Pass and Peshawar. Thus the Mughals turned Peshawar into a "City of Flowers" by planting trees and laying out gardens similar to those found to the west in Persia. Khushal Khan Khattak, the Pakhtun/Afghan warrior poet, was born near Peshawar and his life was intimately tied to the city. He was also an implacable foe of the Mughal rulers, especially Aurangzeb. Khattak was an early Pakhtun nationalist, who agitated for an independent Afghanistan including Peshawar. After the decline of the Mughal Empire, the city came under Persian control during the reign of Nadir Shah by the 18th century.
Peshawar would also join, following a loya jirga as a Pakhtun region, the Afghan/Pakhtun empire of Ahmad Shah Durrani by 1747. Pakhtuns from Peshawar took part in incursions of South Asia during the rule of Ahmad Shah Durrani and his successors. Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji lead the Sikh, Khalsa army and invaded and conquered Peshawar in 1834 after wresting it from Afghanistan. In the wars between to two nations, Peshawar's own Shalimar Gardens were destroyed, not to mention the dwindling of the city's population by almost half. Peshawar was finally made a part of The Sikh Kingdom, a part of Punjab.
With the rapid collapse of the Sikh Empire caused by internal fighting and the interference of the British, after the passing by of Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji and its defeat in the second Anglo-Sikh War, the British eventually occupied the city. They continued to rule from 1849 to 1947, when the city became part of the new nation of Pakistan.
The mountainous frontier was mapped out in 1893 by Sir Mortimer Durand, then foreign secretary of the British Indian government, who demarcated the boundary of his colony with the Afghan ruler at the time, Abdur Rahman Khan. It is now known as the Durand Line.
The Kabul government argues the pact expired when British colonialists left the region almost seven decades ago.
The Durand Line divided the Pashtun community, and to this day many Afghans claim large swathes of Pakistani territory, including the bustling frontier cities of Peshawar and Quetta, rightfully belong to Afghanistan. Islamabad has long feared separatist ambitions among its Pashtun community
Being among the most ancient cities of the region between Central, South, and West Asia, Peshawar has for centuries been a centre of trade between Afghanistan, South Asia, and Central Asia as well as the Middle East. Its famed markets such as the Qissa Khawani Bazaar (market of story tellers) are emblematic of this mixture of cultures.
Peshawar emerged as a centre of both Hindko and Pakhtun intellectuals. Its dominant culture for much of British rule was that of the hindko speakers, also referred to as "Khaarian" ('city dwellers' in Pashto).[10]
Its unique culture, distinct from the surrounding Pashtun areas, led to the city being romanticized by Pashto singers, with songs like larsha Pekhwar tha (let us go to Peshawar) and more recently Pekhawar kho pekhawar dhay kana.
This culture has gradually disappeared with the massive influx of Afghan refugees and the increasing migration of Pashtuns into the city, its demographics have now changed and Pashto is now the dominant language of the city.
After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 Peshawar served as a political centre for anti-Soviet Mujahideen, and was surrounded by huge camps of Afghan refugees. Many of the refugees remained there through the civil war which broke out after the Soviets were defeated in 1989, antecedent to the rule of the Taliban, and the invasion by American and allied forces in late 2001. Peshawar would replace Kabul and Qandahar as the centre of Pakhtun cultural development during this tumultuous period. Additionally, Peshawar managed to assimilate many of the Pakhtun Afghan refugees with relative ease, while many other Afghan refugees remained in camps awaiting a possible return to Afghanistan.
Until the mid-fifties Peshawar was enclosed within a city wall and sixteen gates. Of the old city gates the most famous was the Kabuli Gate but only the name remains now. Peshawar has not grown as much in size or capacity as the population has. As a result it has become a polluted and overcrowded city.[11]
Peshawar continues to be a city that links Pakistan to Afghanistan as well as Central Asia and has emerged as an important regional city in Pakistan and remains a focal point for Pakhtun culture. The Bakhshali Manuscript used in the Bakhshali approximation was found nearby, and the book Peshawar Nights uses the city as its setting. Today, like the surrounding region, it is at the cross-roads of the struggle between the extremist Taliban and moderates, such as liberals and Pakhtoon nationalists.

ref : www.wikipedia.com