Ancient Afghanistan and its Buddhist history

Fortress of Lugh, 9/8/21; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Ancient Origins and Myths of Afghanistan

(Fortress of Lugh) This is a brief look at the ancient origins, history, and myths of the region of modern-day Afghanistan [ancient Gandhara, Scythian Central Asia]. The region is extremely complex with a very eventful history, so this is a very general account. It does not necessarily reflect the origins of ALL ethnic groups in modern Afghanistan. Primary focus is on the Pashtuns, Tajiks, and other Iranian (Aryian) peoples in the region.

A few of the images were drawn from eupedia.com. To support the channel and get extra content, discussion, requests, and so on, see patreon.com/fortressoflugh. Paypal donations are greatly appreciated.

The Buddha was born in Afghanistan

The Buddha was born in a place called "Kapilavastu," the three seasonal capitals of the Saka/Shakya (Scythian) people, which Indian historian Dr. Ranajit Pal, Ph.D. (Non-Jonesian Indology and Alexander, New Delhi, 2002) identifies as Bamiyan and Kabul/Kapil, and we concur, placing the third seasonal capital in or near Mes Aynak, home of the largest unexcavated Buddhist temple complex in the world, seated above an ancient gold and rare earth mineral mining operation.

Bamiyan has the largest Buddha statues in the world, with the largest being a 1,000-foot-long reclining-into-nirvana Buddha buried for its protection, as the CIA and Pakistani ISI collaborated to create the Taliban by releasing hardened criminals from prisons and turning them into Mujahadeen fighters, useful in the CIA's proxy war against Russia in Central Asia, particularly in Afghanistan.

The CIA's hand is seen in the creation and promotion of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida, "The List," as well, turning disaffected young Muslims into enemy forces as a pretext for bringing in the American military-industrial complex "war machine" to set up some of the largest U.S. military bases in the world, which keep the US Department of War Defense within easy reach of the geopolitical "Middle East," Russia, and other targeted countries, such as:

• Iran,
• Iraq,
• Northern African states like
• Israel,
• Libya,
• Egypt,
• Syria,
• Yemen,
• Somalia,
• Jordan,
• Saudi Arabia, and
• Lebanon,

keeping them and others in check because we have an endless need of targets to promote imperialism and hegemony.

In ancient times, this sweeping area was known as Scythia and before that as Gandhara, which gives us the term Gandharan or Greco-Buddhist art, from the first human depictions of the historical Buddha, Prince Siddhartha "Shakyamuni" Gautama. The ancient Greeks came to the area to set up a country called Bactria, and there were other would-be empires in the militarily strategic area that yet remains problematic, geo-politically speaking, such as the Sasanian Empire.

Dr. Pal maintains that Prince Siddhartha's mother (and her sister, his foster mother, both co-wives of the Future-Buddha's father, King Suddhodana, though perhaps more accurately to be thought of as a kind of Afghan chieftain carrying on ancient traditions of Afghans, Gandharans, Pashtuns, and Scythian nomads like the loya jirga or "great councils") were from Sistan-Balochistan, on the border of today's Afghanistan and Iran.

CIA/ISI/Taliban damage in Bamiyan

This is where his mother was returning when she was pregnant with him, giving birth along the way in a magnificent garden grove that came to be called Lumbini, the Buddha's birthplace outside Kapilavastu, not to be confused with any place now in Nepal, as Dr. Pal asserts that its placement in Nepal is a Jonesian archeological fraud, prompted more by religious politics and tourism than reality.

India utterly controls tiny Nepal and could get it to officially accede to anything, including locating some of these Buddhist Circuit sites on their territory, as borders are said to have moved over the centuries. But as Dr. Pal correctly points out, the wandering ascetic Siddhartha was an outsider, not an Indian. In fact, there was no "India" at that time. This was Proto-India, which would become "India" proper under the Buddhist Emperor Asoka centuries later. Siddhartha traveled to Magadha, Savatthi, Rajagriha, and Bihar (named after the many vihars Buddhists set up to practice in).

• The long history of Buddhism in Afghanistan
• Buddhism in Central Asia (The Stans)
• Persecution of Buddhists out of Buddhist lands
• Sarvestan Palace (not unlike later Buddhist stupa dome architecture)