Piracha
Encyclopedia
Paracha (Also rendered as Peracha,Piracha) is a family name in Afghanistan
, Pakistan
, Bangladesh
, and India
.
However, most Pirachas today, devout Muslims who hold an Arab connection sacred, believe that they are descendents of Hazrat Aziz Yemeni, a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Hazrat Aziz was a farash (Arabic: "one who spreads a carpet") to Muhammad and hence his decsendants took on the surname Farasha. During the Arab conquest of Persia (640-644 AD), Abul Aas, the son of Hazrat Aziz Yemeni, settled down in Persia and married a Persian Princess. According to myth, the Persians transcribed his surname as Paracha and that is how his successors came to be known in Persia and later in Afghanistan and the Indus Valley after the Arabs conquered these areas.
This myth is quickly debunked when analysed in the context of the Persian language. The word Piracha (Hindko for the Sanskrit word Prachya) is not found in any dictionary of the Persian language. On the contrary, the word farasha with its original spelling, pronunciation, and meaning has become a part of the Persian language since the Arab conquest of Persia and appears in all standard Persian lexicons. Since the sound of "f" and the corresponding letter of the alphabet (fa or fae) is common to both Arabic and Persian, it would make no sense for the Persians to transcribe Farasha as Paracha - especially since the word farasha was also inducted unchanged into the Persian language. The induction of scores of Arabic words beginning with fa unchanged into Persian with their original form and meaning intact – faragh (leisure), faraghat (respite), firaq (separation), far’d (individual), firar (flight), fat’h (victory), fira’sat (sagacity) etc. – is clear evidence that there was no reason to transcribe Farasha as Paracha or to borrow a word from an Indian Prakrit to identify an Arab Commander of the victorious army.
Secondly, linguistic transcriptions have well defined rules. An important rule is that the transcript must invariably transfer the original meaning of the word being transcribed into the new language. When Panchanada was transcribed as Punjab in Persian, it meant the same thing as Panchanada in Sanskrit, i.e. the land of the five tributaries of the river Indus. Similarly, when the Greeks transcribed Prachya as Prasii or Prasiake, the meaning remained the same, i.e. Eastern, or the people of Magadha and surrounding provinces lying east of the river Sarasvati. This rule is grossly violated if Farasha is transcribed as Paracha because the meaning of farasha is completely lost.
The earliest use of the word Prachya is in Aitareya Brahmana, the prose commentary on Rigveda, where Prachya has been defined as the name of the eastern country in a five-fold division of Vedic India.[2] Satapatha Brahmana, the prose commentary on Yajurveda, is the second source confirming the Aryan origin of the Prachya. It informs its readers, while discussing certain sacrificial rituals, that the Prachya address Agni, the god of fire, as ‘Sarva.’[3] Two sacred books of the Indo-Aryans thus define Prachya as the eastern country of Vedic India. According to Panini and later grammarians, Sanskrit had been divided into two distinct literary forms in the later Vedic age – Udicya (northern) and Pracya (eastern).[4] This explains the text of Satapatha Brahmana when it refers to Sarva representing Agni in the eastern dialect. Two important books of ancient Indo-Aryans thus identify Prachya as the eastern country – the country east of the river Sarasvati.
Writing about this period, Dr. Romila Thapar records: "Classical Sanskrit became gradually and increasingly the language of the Brahmans and the learned few, or had a restricted use on certain occasions such as the issuing of proclamations and official documents or during Vedic ceremonies. In the towns and the Villages, however, a popular form of Sanskrit was spoken which was called Prakrit. It had local variations; the Chief Western Variety was called Shauraseni, and the eastern variety was called Magadhi."[5] Pali was literary Prakrit based on Sanskrit and used in the east. Buddha (563-483 BC), wishing to reach a wider audience, taught in Magadhi. He was a prince of Sakyas, a Himalayan republic, who had rejected Brahmanism and was preaching a religion completely opposed to Vedic teachings, the caste-system, animal sacrifices, and Brahman rituals. As he was preaching in Magadhi, the language of The Prachya, Magadha became the heartland of Buddhism and Prachya became the vanguard of this dissident movement. According to Dr. Joshi, the Brahmans of the Vedic tradition "abused and reviled" the Buddha as an atheist (nastika), a demon (asura) and as an outcaste (Shudra).[6] The word Prachya thus historically represents the tip of the iceberg of intense hostility towards any system of thought opposed to Brahman apartheid. This antipathy is mutual and the Prachya did not wish to be connected with Brahmanism either. Prachya is hence not a Hindu designation, but a Sanskrit word for the eastern country (Magadha) which had supported the arch enemies of Brahmanism – Mahavira and Buddha.
Prachya contribution to the development of Sanskrit language and literature can be assessed from the fact that Panini of Taxila and the later grammarians divide Sanskrit into two main dialects – Udicya (northern, Taxila and Kashmir) and Praciya (eastern, Magadha and surrounding countries).[7]
The strongest evidence in support of the Prachya claim to an Aryan origin is, therefore, the word Prachya itself. Prachya is a linguistic as well as a geographic identity. It is a Sanskrit word, and Sanskrit was the language of the Indo-Aryan elite of antiquity. It was a geographic term used for the country east of the river Saresvati in Sanskrit literature. Sarasvati has been defined as a river which rises in the mountains bounding the north-east part of the Province of Delhi and flowing in a south-eastern direction gets lost in the sands of the Rajisthan desert.[8] It was the Naditama (foremost of the rivers) in the Later Vedic and Epic literature. The word Prachya is, thus, area specific and cannot be used for the Aryans of Iran or Afghanistan.
Prachya is not an isolated word and forms part of a family of well-known words like Prachin (eastern, ancient); Prachinate (antiquity); Prachin Adhikar (prescriptive right); Prachi (an eastern female); Purva (being before or in front, previous, antecedent, east, eastern, easterly), Purvardha (the first half, front or upper part, eastern part); Purva-disa, Purva-dis, Purva–dik, Prachya, (the eastern region, eastern quarter, the eastern part of India), Purva-desi (a native of the eastern part of India), Purva-samundra, the eastern sea; Purva-Ja (former, elder, born in the east or the eastern country).[9] Historically, the people of Magadha and surrounding provinces were described as Prachya in Sanskrit, Greek and Buddhist chronicles.
, Pashto
, Punjabi
and Urdu.
A Word From Antiquity, Fazal Ur Raheem
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
.
Origin
Contrary to common belief, the word Piracha or a variant thereof, is not found in any Arabic or Persian dictionary. This word was never a part of Arabic or Persian languages at any time in history. In contrast, John Platt’s Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English identifies Piracha as the Hindi variant of the Sanskrit adjective Prachya, meaning "eastern, a person living in the east, the eastern country, the country which lies south or east of the river Sarasvati."[1]However, most Pirachas today, devout Muslims who hold an Arab connection sacred, believe that they are descendents of Hazrat Aziz Yemeni, a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Hazrat Aziz was a farash (Arabic: "one who spreads a carpet") to Muhammad and hence his decsendants took on the surname Farasha. During the Arab conquest of Persia (640-644 AD), Abul Aas, the son of Hazrat Aziz Yemeni, settled down in Persia and married a Persian Princess. According to myth, the Persians transcribed his surname as Paracha and that is how his successors came to be known in Persia and later in Afghanistan and the Indus Valley after the Arabs conquered these areas.
This myth is quickly debunked when analysed in the context of the Persian language. The word Piracha (Hindko for the Sanskrit word Prachya) is not found in any dictionary of the Persian language. On the contrary, the word farasha with its original spelling, pronunciation, and meaning has become a part of the Persian language since the Arab conquest of Persia and appears in all standard Persian lexicons. Since the sound of "f" and the corresponding letter of the alphabet (fa or fae) is common to both Arabic and Persian, it would make no sense for the Persians to transcribe Farasha as Paracha - especially since the word farasha was also inducted unchanged into the Persian language. The induction of scores of Arabic words beginning with fa unchanged into Persian with their original form and meaning intact – faragh (leisure), faraghat (respite), firaq (separation), far’d (individual), firar (flight), fat’h (victory), fira’sat (sagacity) etc. – is clear evidence that there was no reason to transcribe Farasha as Paracha or to borrow a word from an Indian Prakrit to identify an Arab Commander of the victorious army.
Secondly, linguistic transcriptions have well defined rules. An important rule is that the transcript must invariably transfer the original meaning of the word being transcribed into the new language. When Panchanada was transcribed as Punjab in Persian, it meant the same thing as Panchanada in Sanskrit, i.e. the land of the five tributaries of the river Indus. Similarly, when the Greeks transcribed Prachya as Prasii or Prasiake, the meaning remained the same, i.e. Eastern, or the people of Magadha and surrounding provinces lying east of the river Sarasvati. This rule is grossly violated if Farasha is transcribed as Paracha because the meaning of farasha is completely lost.
The earliest use of the word Prachya is in Aitareya Brahmana, the prose commentary on Rigveda, where Prachya has been defined as the name of the eastern country in a five-fold division of Vedic India.[2] Satapatha Brahmana, the prose commentary on Yajurveda, is the second source confirming the Aryan origin of the Prachya. It informs its readers, while discussing certain sacrificial rituals, that the Prachya address Agni, the god of fire, as ‘Sarva.’[3] Two sacred books of the Indo-Aryans thus define Prachya as the eastern country of Vedic India. According to Panini and later grammarians, Sanskrit had been divided into two distinct literary forms in the later Vedic age – Udicya (northern) and Pracya (eastern).[4] This explains the text of Satapatha Brahmana when it refers to Sarva representing Agni in the eastern dialect. Two important books of ancient Indo-Aryans thus identify Prachya as the eastern country – the country east of the river Sarasvati.
Writing about this period, Dr. Romila Thapar records: "Classical Sanskrit became gradually and increasingly the language of the Brahmans and the learned few, or had a restricted use on certain occasions such as the issuing of proclamations and official documents or during Vedic ceremonies. In the towns and the Villages, however, a popular form of Sanskrit was spoken which was called Prakrit. It had local variations; the Chief Western Variety was called Shauraseni, and the eastern variety was called Magadhi."[5] Pali was literary Prakrit based on Sanskrit and used in the east. Buddha (563-483 BC), wishing to reach a wider audience, taught in Magadhi. He was a prince of Sakyas, a Himalayan republic, who had rejected Brahmanism and was preaching a religion completely opposed to Vedic teachings, the caste-system, animal sacrifices, and Brahman rituals. As he was preaching in Magadhi, the language of The Prachya, Magadha became the heartland of Buddhism and Prachya became the vanguard of this dissident movement. According to Dr. Joshi, the Brahmans of the Vedic tradition "abused and reviled" the Buddha as an atheist (nastika), a demon (asura) and as an outcaste (Shudra).[6] The word Prachya thus historically represents the tip of the iceberg of intense hostility towards any system of thought opposed to Brahman apartheid. This antipathy is mutual and the Prachya did not wish to be connected with Brahmanism either. Prachya is hence not a Hindu designation, but a Sanskrit word for the eastern country (Magadha) which had supported the arch enemies of Brahmanism – Mahavira and Buddha.
Prachya contribution to the development of Sanskrit language and literature can be assessed from the fact that Panini of Taxila and the later grammarians divide Sanskrit into two main dialects – Udicya (northern, Taxila and Kashmir) and Praciya (eastern, Magadha and surrounding countries).[7]
The strongest evidence in support of the Prachya claim to an Aryan origin is, therefore, the word Prachya itself. Prachya is a linguistic as well as a geographic identity. It is a Sanskrit word, and Sanskrit was the language of the Indo-Aryan elite of antiquity. It was a geographic term used for the country east of the river Saresvati in Sanskrit literature. Sarasvati has been defined as a river which rises in the mountains bounding the north-east part of the Province of Delhi and flowing in a south-eastern direction gets lost in the sands of the Rajisthan desert.[8] It was the Naditama (foremost of the rivers) in the Later Vedic and Epic literature. The word Prachya is, thus, area specific and cannot be used for the Aryans of Iran or Afghanistan.
Prachya is not an isolated word and forms part of a family of well-known words like Prachin (eastern, ancient); Prachinate (antiquity); Prachin Adhikar (prescriptive right); Prachi (an eastern female); Purva (being before or in front, previous, antecedent, east, eastern, easterly), Purvardha (the first half, front or upper part, eastern part); Purva-disa, Purva-dis, Purva–dik, Prachya, (the eastern region, eastern quarter, the eastern part of India), Purva-desi (a native of the eastern part of India), Purva-samundra, the eastern sea; Purva-Ja (former, elder, born in the east or the eastern country).[9] Historically, the people of Magadha and surrounding provinces were described as Prachya in Sanskrit, Greek and Buddhist chronicles.
Language
Most common languages the Piracha speak today are HindkoHindko language
Hindko , also Hindku, or Hinko, is the sixth main regional language of Pakistan. It forms a subgroup of Indo-Aryan languages spoken by Hindkowans in Pakistan and northern India, some Pashtun tribes in Pakistan, as well as by the Hindki people of Afghanistan...
, Pashto
Pashto language
Pashto , known as Afghani in Persian and Pathani in Punjabi , is the native language of the indigenous Pashtun people or Afghan people who are found primarily between an area south of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan and...
, Punjabi
Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
and Urdu.
See also
- Al-OmariAl-OmariThe al-Omari a family that claims descent from Umar, the second caliph, or leader, of the Islamic empire. The family claims an origin in Mecca, now in Saudi Arabia...
- SiddiquiSiddiquiSiddiqui, is a Muslim family name, found in the South Asia and the Middle East. Shaikh is an additional title used occasionally by Siddiqui/Siddique to signify their Arab heritage...
A Word From Antiquity, Fazal Ur Raheem