Chilas

Ancient petroglyphs

More than 50,000 Buddhist petroglyphs and inscriptions line the Karakoram Highway in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. They are concentrated at ten major sites between Hunza and Shatial, but more have been found near Skardu and Shigar, where Karl Jettmar [de] and Thewalt found the remains of a Buddhist monastery in 1984. The carvings were left by various invaders, traders and pilgrims who passed along the trade route, as well as by locals. The earliest date back to between 5000 and 1000 BC, showing single animals, triangular men and hunting scenes in which the animals sometimes are larger than the hunters. These carvings were pecked into the rocks with stone tools and are covered with a thick patina that proves their age. Later — mostly Buddhist — carvings were sometimes executed with a sharp chisel.^[10][7]

Jettmar tried to piece together the history of the area from various inscriptions and recorded his findings in "Rockcarvings and Inscriptions in the Northern Areas of Pakistan" and the later "Between Gandhara and the Silk Roads: Rock carvings along the Karakoram Highway".

The Kharoshthi term "Kaboa" (or Kamboa) appears in a short commemorative Kharosthi inscription found from Chilas as reported by the Archaeological Department of Pakistan. The inscription has been transcribed, translated and interpreted by Ahmad Hasan Dani, a Pakistani archaeologist, historian, and linguist, who was among the foremost authorities on South Asian archaeology and history. According to Dani, Kaboa or Kamboa of the inscription is a Kharoshthised form of Sanskrit Kamboja.^[11][12] Thus, it seems likely that Chilas also formed part of an ancient Kamboja kingdom.

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  (Bala)rama and Krishna at Chilas. The Kharoshthi inscription nearby reads Rama [kri]ṣa. 1st century CE.^[13]
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  Buddhist stupa, circa 300–350 CE based on paleography.^[9]
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  Donor in Central Asian dress with Sanskrit name venerating a stupa, Thalpan-Ziyarat, northern Pakistan, circa 7th century CE.^[14]

Later history

Chilas was historically a part of Yaghistan, and closely connected to the small independent republics in the Indus Kohistan. The Dogra rule was imposed on Chilas in 1852, but the Chilasis continued to enjoy internal independence. When British established Gilgit Agency in 1888 Chilas along with other tribal areas became its part. Even after British rule was imposed, the Indus Valley west of Chilas was a nest of tiny republics; there was one in almost every side valley, each loosely guided by a jirga (council of tribal elders) but effectively leaderless, all at war with one another and feuding internally. Though administratively lumped with Gilgit, Chilas and its neighbours were considered temperamentally more like Kohistani people, probably due to a similarly hostile environment and the same Sunni Muslim orthodoxy. Their ancestors were converted to Islam by a Sufi Muslim, Syed Noor Shah, from the Kaghan Valley. Syed Noor Shah, also known as Ghazi Baba, was the first man to preach Islam in Thak, and built the first mosque, which is still there. Ghazi Baba belonged to the Syed family of Kaghan. In Tangir and Darel, Islam came from Swat.^[15] After the 1947 Gilgit rebellion Chilas became a part of Pakistan, as did other Northern Areas, now renamed Gilgit-Baltistan.