Five rivers still name a region split between two countries
Punjab is the northwestern South Asian region of five rivers spanning Pakistan and northwestern India. Lahore is its historic capital and largest city; Indus Valley settlements along the rivers reach back to about 3000 BCE before Indo-Aryan migrations.
Boundaries shift with ethnography: British India’s Punjab province (1849–1947 era definitions) differed from today’s two provincial Punjabs. Punjabi Muslims dominate the Pakistani side; Punjabi Sikhs form the majority in Indian Punjab. Persian panj-āb again calques the Indo-Aryan “five waters.” Agriculture remains the economic signature of the plains.
When Alexander crossed the Indus in the fourth century BCE, Omphis of Taxila submitted, but Porus, whose lands between the Jhelum and Chenab reportedly held nearly 300 cities, refused. They met at the Hydaspes in 326 BCE, and after his defeat Porus asked to be treated as a king, so Alexander kept him on the throne and even enlarged his territory. Alexander founded Nicaea at the victory site and Bucephalous in memory of his horse, which died soon after the battle. Later silver tetradrachms showed a mounted Alexander with a long pike charging two Indians riding an elephant.
Porus was later murdered by Eudemus, the Macedonian satrap, even though the regent Antipater had confirmed his rule along the Indus. Chandragupta Maurya, said in legend to have studied at Taxila under Kautilya, built his empire around 320 BCE with help from small Punjabi states before toppling the Nandas at Pataliputra. He also fought Seleucus when Alexander’s eastern successor invaded.
In the ninth century the Odi Shahi dynasty from Gandhara replaced the Takka kingdom, with Gakhar warriors forming much of its army. Mongol-era notices and Ibn Battuta’s travels already used the toponym.
Source: Punjab
