Rock Art and Inscriptions in the Upper Indus

Along the upper Indus River in northern Pakistan, images and inscriptions engraved on the surfaces of rocks line pathways between South and Central Asia. These ancient pathways belonged to a network of routes through the Karakorum, Hindu Kush and western Himalayan mountain ranges in present-day Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan provinces. Dozens of sites with tens of thousands of rock drawings and approximately 5000 inscriptions are clustered along interconnected passageways through the upper Indus, Gilgit and Hunza river valleys. Connections between these pathways (which can be thought of as capillaries) and the major arterial routes of Pakistan, Afghanistan and northern India (called the “northern routes” or Uttarāpatha in Sanskrit) and the so-called “Silk Routes” in Central Asia allowed wayfarers and local inhabitants to follow many possible itineraries across frontiers in early migrations, to trade in valued goods, and to participate in important processes of cultural and religious exchanges. Rock art and inscriptions on these pathways help to tell stories about various layers of local, regional and world history.

Arteries of the northern routes formed a network for cultural exchange, administration and trade. Rather than a single road, arterial routes and interconnected feeder routes were joined together along a corridor running from the Ganges-Yamuna river valleys in northern India through Mathura to the Punjab, Taxila and ancient Gandhara. The Sanskrit term uttarāpatha (literally meaning ‘northern path’ or ‘northern road’) is more commonly used to indicate the cultural geography of the peoples living in the northwestern borderlands of the Indian subcontinent than a system of routes. The term has multiple meanings and associations in Sanskrit texts and inscriptions, which tend to reflect the perspectives of writers who viewed the inhabitants of these regions as qualitatively different from themselves. The northern routes were typically viewed as sources of riches that were difficult to attain and inhabited by fabulous beings and foreigners who deviated from acceptable customs. While the northern routes were associated with long-distance traders, stereotypes of improper behaviour and impurity due to foreign contact are also common themes.

Archaeological patterns for the movement of various types of non-local commodities (such as lapiz lazuli from Badakhshan in northeastern Afghanistan and other precious stones) show that the arterial routes of the uttarāpatha were used for transregional distribution. Patterns of contact and exchange with the northwestern borderlands overlap with production of agricultural surpluses, increases in the populations of towns and cities, growth of city-states (mahājanapadas), greater movement of people between regions, and use of new writing systems and coins and seals in the periods when Buddhist institutions began to emerge and expand, especially in the last centuries of the first millennium BCE. The Mauryan emperor Aśoka (who ruled from around 270-230 BCE) had inscriptions written in Brāhmī, Kharoṣṭhī, Greek, and Aramaic scripts as far northwest as Mansehra and Shahbazgarhi in Pakistan and Kandahar in Afghanistan to spread and prescribe his own version of Dharma. Although Aśoka is portrayed in Buddhist literature as an ideal ruler and patron, Buddhist stūpas (shrines for the Buddha’s relics) and nearby monasteries for communities of monks and nuns flourished in Taxila, Gandhara, the Swat valley, and other areas along the arteries of the northern routes in the following centuries. During periods in the early centuries CE when local and regional rulers such as the Sakas, Apracas, and Kushans held sway over parts of the northern routes, artisans and scribes in Gandharan Buddhist centers produced visual and literary cultures preserved in sculptures and early manuscripts.  More information is available in a StoryMap for the Gandharan Birch Bark Scrolls .

A branch of the northern routes from Taxila and Gandhara following the Kabul River valley into eastern Afghanistan and across the Hindu Kush to ancient Bactria was called the “old road’ (La vieille Route) by Alfred Foucher (1942-1947), an eminent French scholar who was a pioneer in the study of Gandharan art history and archaeology. Foucher believed that this route was the primary artery for cultural exchange and religious transmission between South Asia and the silk routes in western Central Asia. 

A web of overland routes for trade and cultural exchange connecting Asia and Europe is popularly known as the Silk Route. Unlike the northern routes (uttarāpatha), a term which is known to have been used in Sanskrit texts and other pre-modern sources, the silk route (German: Seidenstraße) was coined in the late nineteenth century by Ferdinand von Richthofen. Instead of following a fixed path, the silk routes consisted of many interlinked arterial and feeder routes used for trade, migrations, military expeditions, diplomatic missions, and religious and cultural transmission. Silk was one of many commodities involved in trade and tribute exchanges of high-value items as well as common stock animals, such as horses and camels. 

In the broadest sense, the  silk routes  extended across Eurasia in a vast network that included arterial routes and capillary connections to South Asia. In a first century CE account written in Greek (Parthian Stations), Isidore of Charax described an itinerary from the eastern Mediterranean region through Mesopotamia and across the Iranian plateau to Kandahar in eastern Afghanistan. Chinese texts refer to links between Han capitals at Ch’ang-an (modern Xian) and Loyang with the western regions (Xi-yu) in modern Xinjiang in the late first millennium BCE. A northern route around the Tarim Basin started from the Jade Gate (Yu-men-kuan) outside of Dunhuang and continued to the Turfan oasis, following the southern foothills of the Tien-shan range to Kucha and Kashgar. Alternatively, a southern route also beginning outside of Dunhuang continued from the Yang-kuan Gate to Miran, Niya, Khotan, Yarkand, and Kashgar. An intermediate route led from Dunhuang to Lou-lan on Lop-nor Lake, bifurcating to Miran on the southern route and to Karashahr on the northern route.  

Movement across the Tarim Basin Silk Routes by quasi-nomadic groups sparked Chinese diplomatic and military involvement in the Western Regions in the second and first centuries BCE. As a result of conflicts with the Xiongnu confederacy, groups known as the Yuezhi in Chinese gradually migrated from areas west of Dunhuang to the Oxus River (Amu Darya) valley in ancient Bactria. According to Chinese historical sources, migrations of the Yuezhi put pressure on another group known as the Sai to move southwards into the Iranian plateau and through mountain passes to South Asia. Saka and Kushan descendants of the Sai and Yuezhi played significant roles as intermediaries between Central Asia and South Asia in historical periods from around the first century BCE to third or fourth century CE. (See  History and Significance  for further discussion of Sakas and Kushans.)

In the southern Tarim Basin of Xinjiang, the city of Khotan was a major center for cross-cultural contact and exchange during the first millennium CE.  Saka and Kushan coins found there along with local coins with legends in Chinese and the Kharoṣṭhī script issued by Khotanese kings reflect important cultural and commercial ties. Discoveries of Buddhist texts, including an incomplete manuscript of the Dharmapada written in the Gāndhārī language and found near Khotan in 1892, and portable Gandharan stone sculptures demonstrate links between Buddhist literary and material cultures of Gandhara and Khotan in the early centuries CE. Khotan was a famous source of jade, and finely woven tabby silk fragments probably came there from China through long-distance trade or tribute.

The desert oases east of Khotan were also important nodes for regional trade networks and centers for Buddhist art and architecture. Almost a thousand documents written in the Niya Prakrit dialect of the Gāndhāri language provide direct evidence of commercial transactions and administrative disputes involving local and foreign merchants during the third to fourth centuries CE. Exquisite mural paintings of the Buddha and his disciples and an illustration of the Viśvantara-Jātaka at Miran are stylistically similar to Buddhist art in the Swat valley of Pakistan.

By the fifth century CE, northern routes around the Tarim Basin probably eclipsed the southern route, based on important archaeological sites clustered around Kucha and the Turfan oasis.  Mural paintings, manuscript fragments, graffiti inscriptions, and archaeological remains from sites around Kucha  exhibit distinctive features of vibrant regional Buddhist artistic and literary cultures.  Branches of the northern silk routes extended westward beyond the Tarim Basin to Sogdia and Bactria and southward to Kashmir and Gandhara via capillary routes in northern Pakistan.

A network of capillary routes in Gilgit-Baltistan directly linked Gandhara, Swat and Kashmir to the Tarim Basin of eastern Central Asia. Passageways through the upper Indus, Gilgit, and Hunza valleys connected the arteries of the northern routes (uttarāpatha) with the southern silk routes. Unlike modern travellers whose route between Pakistan and China is restricted to the Karakorum Highway (KKH), in ancient times merchants, monks, missionaries, pilgrims, and others who took these capillary routes were able to choose from many possible pathways. They must have based their decisions about which routes to follow on several factors:

• seasonal conditions for crossing mountains and fording rivers 
• economic considerations, such as availability of provisions, pack animals, and guides 
• political situations, which were especially for their security along the way, as well as varying stability at their places of origins and their intended destinations 
• locations of wayside shrines to give thanks for dangerous crossings and to seek blessings for safe onward journeys 

Topographical features of the high mountain environment largely tend to determine settlement patterns and regional routes because the alluvial canyons of the upper Indus River and the tributary valleys of the Gilgit, Hunza, and other affluents form natural passages in this transit zone where the Hindu Kush, Himalaya and Karakorum ranges converge. Many of the world’s tallest mountain peaks, including K2 (8611 meters), Nanga Parbat (8126 meters), and Rakaposhi (7788 meters) are located in Gilgit-Baltistan, where glaciers still cover approximately a quarter of the high-altitude Karakorum range.

Geological dynamism and the vertical landscape present formidable challenges for generating the surplus resources necessary to support residential communities of Buddhist monks and nuns, but the geographical barriers of the high mountains are not (and never have been) insurmountable. The region of the upper Indus was not cut off in a mountainous cul-de-sac or an isolated Shangri La. 

As illustrated in the map, there were many possible links across mountain passes and between deep valleys. From Gandhara, Swat and Kashmir in the south, travel routes to the upper Indus transit zone depended on the time of year and local conditions. While the most direct route was described by Chinese visitors as the “Hanging Passages” and followed the Indus River gorge in Kohistan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to connect with the Swat valley through the Shangla Pass, other ancient travelers probably followed less dangerous routes from Mansehra in Hazara district through the Kaghan Valley and over the Babusar Pass, which can only be crossed during the summer because accumulations of snow prevent passage in other seasons. In the colonial period, the ‘Gilgit Transport Road’ followed a route from Kashmir through the Astore valley, but large stretches of this route lacked grazing areas for laden animals. In ancient times, other routes between Kashmir and Chilas were probably more practical, including capillary routes between Kashmir and Baltistan cross the high altitude Deosai plateau, and it is possible to reach Ladakh by following the Indus River.

Numerous capillary routes link the valley of the upper Indus River with Gilgit. During the summer, interconnected routes through side valleys of the Gilgit and Indus rivers allowed ancient travellers to bypass dangerous river crossings. Paths through the Kar Gah and Shingai Gah valleys, located west of Gilgit near Naupur, lead over the main ridge of mountains to watersheds of the Kiner Gah and Hodar Gah valleys and down to Thalpan and Hodar on the northern bank of the upper Indus River, where especially large groups of drawings and inscriptions are clustered. The Kar Gah headwaters are also connected with the wide valley of Khanbari Gah, which flows into the Upper Indus downstream from petroglyph and inscription sites at Thor and Oshibat. Side valleys flowing into the Gilgit/Ghizer River provide possible connections with the Tangir and Darel valleys, which join the Upper Indus near Shatial. A capillary network of intersecting river valleys connected Gilgit with Chitral, Swat and ultimately with ancient Gandhara, Bactria and Sogdia via other regional networks.  

Capillary routes across the Karakorum, Hindu Kush, and Pamir mountains provided direct connections between the northwestern Indian subcontinent and Central Asia. Despite the difficulties of the mountain passes, “A shortcut between Central and South Asia was possible, partly compensating for the dangers and strains” ( Jettmar 1989: xxvii ). Although the modern KKH follows the Hunza/Nagar valley and crosses the Khunjerab Pass, the Mintaka (ca. 4629 m) and Kilik (ca. 4755 m) passes also provide access from the Misgar valley to the Taghdumbash Pamir in southwestern Xinjiang. Other paths through the Shimshal valley and over the Hispar glacier to Baltistan may have also served as minor feeder routes during various periods. The Baroghil Pass (ca. 3804 m) links the Wakhan valley of northeastern Afghanistan to the upper valley of the Yarkhun River, and the Darkot Pass (ca. 4630 m) connects the upper Yarkhun valley with the upper Yasin valley. The headwaters of the Yarkhun valley are joined via the Karambar Pass (ca. 4188 m) with the Karambar valley, which feeds into the Ishkoman River near Imit. The Karambar valley is connected with the Wakhan valley via the Khora Bhurt Pass (4630 m) and with the Chupursan valley via the Chilinji Pass (5247 m). The interlinked network of high mountain passes was intermittently used by various travelers, merchants, pilgrims, and semi-permanent resident communities for crossing the permeable frontiers between Central Asia and South Asia.   

Digital maps can illustrate connections between capillary routes, but digital imaging of places and spaces long these routes allow us to re-imagine the experience of visiting sites where local inhabitants and long-distance travelers marked the rocks with images and writing. 

Petroglyphs (rock drawings) and inscriptions at nodes on the network of capillary routes between South Asia and Central Asia provide visual and written testimony of these ancient visitors. While waiting for the right conditions, they abraded auspicious designs and informal graffiti writing into the surfaces of rocks covered with a dark patina of desert varnish. By rubbing away the darker outer layer on the rock surfaces, a lighter layer underneath is exposed, and it is this contrast between the darker and lighter layers that take many centuries to re-patinate which results in the records from different periods being preserved. Concentrations of inscriptions and rock drawings mark important junctions where those who wrote their names and drew pictures on the rocks may have been forced to stop temporarily before proceeding onwards. It is likely that the annual period from October to January when water levels in rivers swollen with glacial meltwater begin receding was the optimal time for journeys, since river crossings were less dangerous than during the summer (mid-May to mid-October), when the torrents become treacherous. As Karl Jettmar remarked: “In olden times as well as up to the twentieth century this was a manoeuvre of considerable risk. You prayed before you started and you offered thankful gifts when you had succeeded” ( 1979: 920 ). 

Let's take a short tour of places and spaces along these routes by virtually visiting sites with significant clusters of petroglyphs and inscriptions along the Upper Indus River and interlinked mountain valleys.  

Symbols and writing abraded onto rocks in the Upper Indus region of northern Pakistan represent a spectrum of petroglyphs and graffiti from prehistoric and protohistoric times in the first millennium BCE to the present. The practice of drawing images on rocks (“petroglyphs”) along the Upper Indus River can be traced back to prehistoric times. As in other mountainous regions of the Upper Indus River and its tributary valleys extending to Ladakh and Zangskar, the oldest layers of petroglyphs are concentrated at places that may have served as hunting stations. At these places, rocks were chosen for engraving according to at least four criteria ( according to Rob Linrothe, 2016, p. 139 ): 

1. Patina of desert varnish on the glossy surfaces of rocks made of granite and composite materials formed ideal canvasses for long-lasting art 
2. Accessibility and visibility along pathways following river and stream beds
3. Stability of rock formations and cliff faces
4. Placement at special sites, particularly river crossings (Sanskrit: tīrtha) 

For making sense of various types of drawings on rocks, classifications of petroglyphs into distinctive typologies can help to understand different symbol systems. A very basic division can be made between drawings of animals (“zoomorphs”) and human-like figures (“anthropomorphs”). In Upper Indus rock art, the most widespread type of rock art is zoomorphs of wild or domesticated goats (the term “caprinus” is used to encompass all types of goats). When particular features in the drawings allow us to distinguish an ibex (knotted horns, beards, etc.) from a markhor (wavy horns), a more specific identification can be made. 

Similar classifications are made for animal drawings of humped cattle, yaks, and zebus (encompassed in the broader category of “bovid”), deer, antelopes, and stags (“cervid”), horses (“equid”), and leopards, lions, and tigers (“felid”). Besides these mammals, classifications of birds, reptiles, fantastic animals (such as dragons, hypocampus, and other mythical animals) provide frameworks for more specific identifications. Features of animals such as their body parts, positions, and other motifs (for examples, compartmentalized designs, harnesses, saddles, ornaments like dots between horns) are also annotated in the animal images as searchable tags. 

Drawings of human figures and supernatural beings can also be classified into various types based on identification of specific features:

Male/female/hermaphrodite 

Hunters/warriors/riders 

Horned (?) anthropomorphic beings / giants

Deities / Buddhist figures

Just as for drawings of animals, features of anthropomorphic petroglyphs including body parts, positions (including gestures of hands and arms), attire, and armor are also annotated and searchable. Anthropomorphic drawings of humans and other figures sometimes belong together in groups and in other cases in scenes involving animals (such as hunting scenes) or with other humans (for example, in battle, or in religious scenes of veneration). The interpretation of figures, groups, scenes, artifacts, and ornaments depicted in the rock drawings can help to understand changes in patterns of visual imagery and relationships to the local and regional environment. 

Architecture and elements of built environments depicted in petroglyphs also provide keys for unlocking religious and cultural symbolism. In the broad category of drawings classified as “Buildings” is the distinctive architecture of Buddhist Stūpas. Stūpas can be identified on the basis of domes (Sanskrit: aṇḍa) resting upon multiple platforms and topped with a staff (yaṣṭi) holding multiple umbrellas (chattrāvali) along with other connected features, such as pennants, bells, columns with capitals, and crowning elements such as the Varṣasthālī with tridents and other designs. In Buddhist rock art of northern Pakistan, ubiquitous stūpas are often drawn together with donative inscriptions in ensembles. 

A set of three drawings (“triptych”) on a large rock ( number 34 in the German catalogue ) at the site of Shatial, which was the first of the Places and Spaces visited in our tour, is a masterpiece of Upper Indus rock art.

• Triptych Part 1: At the centre of the drawing is an elaborate stūpa venerated by two human figures making offerings on both sides of a staircase with three steps. Above the staircase, a set of four merlons decorate the large rectangular platform of the stūpa. On top of the platform on both sides of the stūpa’s dome are vertical pillars, apparently crowned with capitals of felids (lions or tigers). Next to the Harmikā atop the dome are two structural elements that support a massive Chattrāvali with seven umbrellas extending outwards horizontally from the central staff (yaṣṭi). Flowing outwards and downwards from the peak of the superstructure are long pennants. Multiple bells are attached to the pennants, umbrellas, platform, and the dome, which also includes an internal niche with a single bell inside.
• Triptych Part 2: To the viewer’s right of the central stūpa is an unusual building with a large triangular roof that is completely filled in by the abraded surface of the drawing. Long undulating pennants hang from the rooftop of the building, which could perhaps indicate that a shrine or Buddhist monastery was intended. Bells are also attached to the pennants and the bottom level of the roof, which covers the rectangular outline of the building, with a staircase consisting of three steps leading up to it. Below the staircase a single human figure depicted in profile is an adorant who extends flowers or a branch in the direction of the stūpa.
• Triptych Part 3: On the other side of the stūpa is a distinctive rendering of a visual narrative of one of the Buddha’s previous births (jātaka), which can be identified as the story of the king who gives away a portion of his own flesh to save a small bird from a larger predator (hawk or falcon). As in South Asian Buddhist art depicting this story of the “gift of flesh”  by the king of the Śibis, a human figure (one of the king’s attendants) holds a scale with the small bird on one side and a lump of the king’s flesh on the other. However, the main figure in this visual narrative is not King Śibi, but his future birth as the Buddha seated under the canopy of the Bodhi tree with the small bird whose life has been saved in his lap. Below the Buddha figure, two adorants kneel and make offerings on both sides of an “overflowing vase” (Sanskrit: pūrṇaghaṭa).

In his study of the triptych “Une peinture sure pierre: Le Triptyque au Stūpa du Shatial” in  Antiquities of Northern Pakistan 3 (Philipp v. Zabern, Mainz: 1994) , Gérard Fussman observed superimpositions of writing around and on top of the Buddhist images. Since the images overlap some of the inscriptions in Kharoṣṭhī, Brāhmī and Sogdian scripts, while other inscriptions deliberately avoid covering the lines of the drawing, Fussman proposes to date the composition of the drawing to ca. 300-350 CE on the basis of paleographic comparison of the writing (see below). Although some uncertainty remains with the reading of some inscriptions surrounding the triptych, this extraordinary example demonstrates how superimpositions of rock inscriptions and drawings can be used not only for relative dating but as Linrothe has suggested “a special type of addition, one that captures, in a sense, the earlier image and incorporates it into the new composition” (2016: 156). In this case, the writing of names in proximity to this set of drawings may have been connected with religious devotion to the Buddha and the stūpa rather than any intent to deface the images.  

Epigraphical study of inscriptions written on the rocks at Shatial and other locations show that the Upper Indus region of northern Pakistan was a multilingual crossroads between South Asian, Central Asian, and Iranian linguistic and cultural spheres. Mobility across linguistic zones is mirrored by the variety of languages and writing systems, which provide important evidence of linguistic changes from approximately 2000 to 1200 years before the present time.  

While writing on rocks sometimes superimposes the earliest prehistoric drawings, the earliest layer of writing in this region is in the Gāndhārī language and Kharoṣṭhī script. This regional vernacular language (related to but distinct from other Middle Indic languages as the Prakrit of the Northwestern borderlands) first emerges in the Aśokan rock edicts at Shahbazgarhi in the Gandharan heartland of the Peshawar Basin and at Mansehra on the Karakorum Highway in Hazara in the middle of the third century BCE. The Kharoṣṭhī script continued to be used almost exclusively for writing Gāndhārī until the third century CE and as late as the early fourth century in the southern Tarim Basin in modern Xinjiang. It is therefore not surprising to find that the Kharoṣṭhī script was used for writing Gāndhārī at many sites in this transit zone between South Asia and eastern Central Asia. The most significant concentrations are at Chilas 2, Alam Bridge, and Haldeikish. As discussed earlier during our visit to Chilas 2, links between the Gāndhārī inscriptions and relatively early Buddhist drawings without images of the Buddha in human form reinforce the strong impression that this site reflects a first stage for the initial transmission of Buddhism in the Upper Indus region. At Alam Bridge, the Gāndhārī inscriptions are written on rocks in the eastern part of the site on an ancient route near an old crossing place of the Gilgit River. A typical expression in the epigraphic formula of Gāndhārī inscriptions at Alam Bridge and Haldeikish is “x, son of y, arrived” (y-putro x sabratu). Analysis of the proper names, titles, and dates in the inscriptions written in Gāndhārī can help to clarify changes in naming patterns, formulae, and religious practice over time by making comparisons with later layers of inscriptions and petroglyphs.

In the rock inscriptions of the Upper Indus region, graffiti records written in a northern Brāhmī script used for Sanskrit and hybrid Sanskrit generally succeed the earlier Gāndhārī inscriptions, but there are some cases of interesting overlaps in bilingual / bi-script inscriptions. An overwhelmingly vast majority of around 80% of Upper Indus rock inscriptions are in Brāhmī, which eventually replaced Kharoṣṭhī as the script used by visitors and local inhabitants, probably by the fourth century CE. This transition seems to correlate with a change in the language of Buddhist transmission along the northern routes/regions of South Asia and in Central Asia. The historical value of thousands of Brāhmī Sanskrit inscriptions written on the surfaces of rocks along the Upper Indus for understanding languages, naming patterns, and cross-cultural exchanges can not be overstated. The written evidence not only serves as a basis for scholars to glean evidence for political history (see below on History and Significance), but also for what these fragments of writing cumulatively reveal about the lives of actual people. Many Brāhmī inscriptions written together in ensembles with Buddhist petroglyphs of stūpas and other images express veneration and record donations with formulae such as “This is the religious offering of donor x” (Hybrid Sanskrit: # devadharmo yaṃ + proper name ending in genitive -sya) [devadharma is more commonly written than deyadharma, literally: “Dharma that is to be given”]. 

In Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts from Gilgit, a transition from “Gandhāran Brāhmī” (a descriptive term for the script proposed by Oskar von Hinüber) to a regional offshoot of Brāhmī termed “Proto-Śāradā” (a precursor to Śāradā script subsequently used in Punjab and Kashmir) becomes apparent by the first half of the seventh century CE. The change in type of script used for writing in northern Pakistan serves as a loose paleographical horizon for assigning Upper Indus Brāhmī inscriptions to periods between the fourth (at the earliest) and seventh (at the latest) centuries CE. 

About 600 Middle-Iranian inscriptions predominantly written in Sogdian, with a smaller number in Bactrian and a few examples in other Iranian languages and scripts also belong to periods between the third to seventh centuries CE. Personal names linked to places near Samarkand in Sogdia (western Central Asia) and references to other toponyms have been studied by specialists in early Iranian languages and history such as Nicholas Sims-Williams, Étienne de la Vaissière, and Pavel Lurje. Their studies support the view that visitors whose inscriptions are clustered at Shatial and some other sites along the Upper Indus extending to Ladakh were involved in a triangular long-distance trade network between India/Upper Indus, China, and Sogdia. 

Chinese, Tibetan and Judeo-Persian inscriptions along the Upper Indus also demonstrate long-distance trading, cultural, and other relationships.  

Now that methods for reading inscriptions and interpreting the figures drawn on rocks along the Upper Indus River and side valleys have been introduced, their significance for piecing together the early history of the region and broader connections to artistic and other cultural patterns can be highlighted.  

Petroglyphs and inscriptions that can still be seen in places where they were drawn and written thousands of years ago are valuable primary sources for the history of local people and visitors who came from neighbouring regions of South Asia, Central Asia, and East Asia. Prehistoric images of animals, humans, and other figures underlying later drawings and written inscriptions reflect the earliest stages of regional cultural history. Although these earliest drawings can not be linked with the names of particular rulers, officials, or identities of groups of people from the first millennium BCE, careful analysis of rock art features can reveal similarities and affinities with material and visual cultures of people who inhabited and migrated through the Pamir, Hindu Kush, Karakorum, and Himalayan mountains.  

With the first appearance of writing on rocks in this region around 2000 years ago, we enter the realm of written historical records. One of the local groups called the Daradas is known from literary references in both western classical and Sanskrit sources. Kharoṣṭhī and Brāhmī inscriptions at Alam Bridge, Chilas and Thalpan attest the names and titles of Darada kings, including Mahārāja Vaiśravaṇasena who described himself as the “subduer of enemies” in a rock inscription written in an ornate variety of Brāhmī script at Chilas Terrace (rock 8, Chilas 10). 

While these in situ rock inscriptions help us to locate the Darada kingdom along the Upper Indus River to the north of the Kashmir Valley, a Brāhmī inscription written in three lines on a rock at Shatial refers to the Khaśa Kingdom visited by Rumeṣa Pekako, a visitor with a Sogdian name who came to Shatial with a group of other travelers. It seems likely that Rumeṣa Pekako and his fellow travelers reached Shatial by following a route through the Jhelum and Kaghan valleys and over the Babusar Pass to the Upper Indus River, since geographical references to the Khaśas in the Rājataraṅgiṇī, a Sanskrit verse history of Kashmir composed by Kalhaṇa in the twelfth century, situates some of the Khaśas to the West of Kashmir after the Jhelum River exits the Kashmir Valley.  

For more information and additional references, see Jason Neelis, “From Khāśarājya to Daraddeśa – Steps towards a Regional Macrohistory of Peristan in the First Millennium CE,” in Roots of Peristan: The Pre-Islamic Cultures of the Hindukush/Karakorum, edited by Alberto M. Cacopardo and Augusto S. Cacopardo ( Rome: 2023 ), Part II, 727-741. 

Artefacts and other kinds of sources provide limited information about the regional history of the Upper Indus. The Sakas (known as the Śakas in Sanskrit, Sai in Chinese, and Scythians in Greek) and affiliated local rulers such as the Apracas in Bajaur and Oḍi Rājas in Swat controlled arterial routes between ancient Gandhara and Mathura in northwestern India during the first century CE. A bronze rhyton in the form of a centaur holding an ibex found at Imit in the Ishkoman Valley northwest of Gilgit (which is now held in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford University) and bronze vessels found in Saka burial sites in the Pamir mountains supports the possibility that a branch of the Sakas who migrated from Central Asia to South Asia took capillary routes across mountain passes and river valleys in northern Pakistan.  

Also see a German article by Boris A. Litvinskij, “Pamir und Gilgit: Kulturhistorische Verbindungen,“ in  Antiquities of Northern Pakistan, edited by Karl Jettmar in collaboration with Ditte König and Martin Bemmann, vol. 2 (Mainz: 1993), pages 141-149  

The impact of the Kushans is reflected in Gāndhārī inscriptions at Alam Bridge and Haldeikish with second or third century dates that may be calculated according to the era of Kaniṣka (discussed earlier in the second chapter tour of Spaces and Places), but the names and titles of Kushan rulers are not found in Upper Indus rock inscriptions. Evidence of their dominion in this region is circumstantial, since travel along the network of capillary routes between Gandhara, Swat and the southern Tarim Basin increased during the Kushan period.  

See Jason Neelis, “Passages to India: Śaka and Kuṣāṇa Migration Routes in Historical Contexts” in  On the Cusp of an Era: Art in the Pre-Kuṣāṇa World, edited by Doris M. Srinivasan (Leiden:  2007), 55-94 .

Direct ties between the visitors who wrote their names in Sogdian and Bactrian on rocks along the Upper Indus River and the Kidaras, Alchon Huns and other groups of people who eventually succeeded the Kushans in the Punjab, Kashmir and other areas of the northwestern borderlands of South Asia are difficult to prove. Sogdian inscriptions at Shatial include several names of visitors who were probably long-distance traders with the ethnonym ‘xwn’ (“Hun”). According to Étienne de la Vaissière ( in Sogdian Traders: A History, translated by James Ward, Leiden: 2005, pp. 81-82 ), the fact that this element does not appear as the father’s name (patronym) in Sogdian personal names may support his postulation that he Sogdian presence in the Upper Indus ended around 450 CE. A few portraits in rock drawings at Shatial, Haldeikish, and other sites resemble the portraits on coins and seals issued by these rulers and officials in areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India.  

A Chinese inscription of a Wei envoy to Mi-mi (Maymurgh in Sogdia), which is superimposed by a petroglyph and Brāhmī inscription of Hariseṇa at Haldeikish, also provides important historical evidence of long-distance trans-regional movement through the Hunza, Gilgit, and Upper Indus valleys around 1500 years ago. Since Maymurgh is first attested in Chinese sources as a Sogdian principality in 457 CE ( de la Vaissière 2005: 107 ), the Chinese inscription shows that the court of the Northern Wei dynasty maintained diplomatic relationships with the Sogdians in western Central Asia. The somewhat unusual route through the Hunza valley taken by this diplomatic envoy could have been influenced by various factors, including the journeys of Chinese pilgrims such as Faxian, whose path from Khotan to the Swat Valley at the beginning of the fifth century included visits to Jie Cha (perhaps in Baltistan, according to Max Deeg), Ta Li Luo (Darada?), and other places that have not been definitely localized.  

The Palola Ṣāhis emerged as a local dynasty in Gilgit by the late sixth century CE and continued to be important patrons along with élite members of their court of scribes who wrote Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts and an atelier of artisans who made bronze Buddhist sculptures until the first part of the eighth century CE. While their names and titles are mostly known from the colophons of the manuscripts and Proto-Śāradā inscriptions on the pedestals of the sculptures, their stone inscriptions at Hatun in the Ishkoman Valley (671/2 CE) and Dainyor (730/1 CE) across the Hunza River from Gilgit are also valuable sources for reconstructing dynastic history. References to Palola Bhikṣus in Brāhmī graffiti at Alam Bridge and the names of Palola Ṣāhi rulers written on rocks at sites along the Upper Indus River help to fill out the picture of this illustrious line, which is curiously not widely noticed in other historical sources.  

In the fifth volume of  Antiquities of Northern Pakistan (Mainz: 2004) , Die Palola Ṣāhis: ihre Steininschriften, Inschriften auf Bronzen, Handschriftenkolophone und Schutzzauber ; Materialien zur Geschichte von Gilgit und Chilas, Oskar von Hinüber collects all of the available sources available at the time of publication.  

The end of the Palola Ṣāhis coincided with a struggle over control of the high mountain routes between Central Asia and South Asia between the Chinese Tang dynasty and the Tibetan empire in the first half of the eighth century CE. A Chinese expedition of 10,000 soldiers led by the Korean general Gao Xianzhi crossed the Pamir mountains to defeat a Tibetan garrison in Wakhan (present-day northeastern Afghanistan), continued through the Yasin Valley and encountered Tibetan encampment at Gakuch (where a cluster of Tibetan inscriptions is concentrated), and eventually reached Gilgit and conquered main Tibetan outpost at Katsura outside of modern Skardu in Baltistan in 753 CE. A very interesting Tibetan inscription at Haldeikish translated by Brandon Dotson as “The hunt transferred from Dmu to that valley, Dra’i srug grove, and many deer – about a hundred – were killed” ( 2013: 70-71, figure 3 ) shows that the ritual of the lings hunt was a historical reality that may have taken place at a hunting park which served as a military staging ground for the Tibetans during the conflict with the Chinese. This conflict demonstrates the strategic value of the Karakorum region in the middle of the eighth century CE, when the Chinese Tang dynasty vied with the Tibetan empire and expanding Arab forces that had reached western Central Asia by this time.  

I provide a brief overview in “Hunza-Haldeikish Revisited: Epigraphical Evidence for Trans-regional History,” in Karakoram in Transition, edited by Hermann Kreutzmann (Karachi: 2006), pp. 159-170; for further context in more detailed historical survey, see chapter 2 of  Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks ; Tibetan inscriptions at Gakuch are published by Karl Jettmar and Klaus Sagaster with Loden Sherab Dagyab, “Ein Tibetisches Heiligtum in Punyal,”  Antiquities of Northern Pakistan, vol. 2, edited by Karl Jettmar with Ditte König and Martin Bemmann (Mainz: 1993), pp. 123-139 ; Brandon Dotson, “The Princess and the Yak: The Hunt as Narrative Trope and Historical Reality in Early Tibet,” in Scribes, Texts, and Rituals in Early Tibet and Dunhuang: Proceedings of the third Old Tibetan Studies Panel, edited by Brandon Dotson, Kazushi Iwao, and Tsuguhito Takeuchi ( Wiesbaden: 2013 ), pp. 61-85.  

In the visual culture of Upper Indus rock art, symbols were used to express identities, belief systems, and ways of life that not only extend far into the past, but which sometimes relate to persisting conceptions about nature and the environment. For example, particular types of animals that live in higher altitudes of the mountain slopes, such as the ibex and markhor, can be associated with a vertical cosmology in which the fairies (peris) inhabit the mountain peaks and malevolent spirits dwell in the polluted areas of the valley floors (where most sites with petroglyphs and inscriptions are concentrated). Buddhist art and architecture of stūpas and other drawings of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and stories from the past and present lifetimes of Śākyamuni Buddha seem to have served as wayside shrines, where the Buddha was thought to be present and worshipped. By making images of stūpas for devotees to worship, donors of the drawings earned religious merit, as recorded in donative formulae of inscriptions. Thus, inscriptions and petroglyphs provide valuable evidence of religious practices of donation and veneration, iconographic transformations of the Buddha image (as discussed in the Places and Spaces chapter during the visit to Chilas 2), changes in naming patterns, and a transition from the use of Gāndhārī to Sanskrit as the regional language of Buddhist transmission. Although the Buddhist religious presence was never exclusive, since non-Buddhist rock art Śiva liṅgas, tridents (triśulas), and other aniconic as well as iconic images are also drawn on rocks, Buddhist images belong to a coherent religious and cultural phase that is concurrent with the written evidence of Gāndhārī / Kharoṣṭhī and Sanskrit / Brāhmī and Proto-Śāradā inscriptions. However, various stages of Buddhist transmission reflected in Upper Indus visual images of petroglyphs and written evidence of the inscriptions do not necessarily reflect patterns of gradual diffusion by contact expansion, since these materials are not the uniform result of a systematic expansion of Buddhism guided by local resident communities of monks and nuns. Earlier layers of culturally significant art are not completely occluded by Buddhist art, and new kinds of images marked by horse-riders, disks, axes, and other symbols emerge later and outnumber Buddhist drawings at most sites.  

 See Jason Neelis, “Localizing the Buddha’s Presence at Wayside Shrines in Northern Pakistan,” in Religions and Trade, edited by Volker Rabens and Peter Wick. Dynamics in the History of Religion (Leiden; Boston: 2014), pp. 45-64.  

An overview of scholarship of Upper Indus rock art and inscriptions concludes this chapter. Early explorations of this region during the colonial period by John Biddulph, Gottleib Wilhelm Leitner, and August Hermann Francke focused on the people and languages of the frontiers of British India, but their accounts also included notices of the Kargah Buddha as well as the Buddhist rock sculpture at Manthal and Tibetan inscriptions. The first publication to draw attention to Upper Indus petroglyphs and inscriptions around Chilas was a description of  “Festivals and Folklore of Gilgit” by Ghulam Muhammad in Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal  I/7 (1907), pp. 93-127 [reprint, Islamabad: National Institute of Folk Heritage, 1980] . During his explorations of routes through the Upper Indus during journeys to Central Asia from Kashmir in the early twentieth century, Marc Aurel Stein also noted sites of antiquarian interest, but only part of one short article on  “Archaeological Notes from the Hindukush Region” published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1944: pp. 8-24)  during the Second World War briefly addressed rock art and inscriptions. Construction of the Karakorum Highway between Pakistan and China (1979-1983) also opened the field of rock art and epigraphy to systematic exploration and documentation by Pakistani and German research teams led by Ahmad Hasan Dani  (Chilas, the City of Nanga Parvat (Dyamar), Islamabad: 1983;  “The Sacred Rock of Hunza,” Journal of Central Asia 8.2 (1985): pp. 5-124; History of Northern Areas of Pakistan, Islamabad: 1989/1991; Human Records on Karakorum Highway, Islamabad / Lahore: 1983/1995 ) and Karl Jettmar ( selected articles from his prodigious output are collected in Beyond the Gorges of the Indus, Karachi: 2002 ). Jettmar established a “Research Unit” (German: Forschungsstelle) in the Heidelberg Academy for the Humanities and Sciences (Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften), which continued to be led by Harald Hauptmann until 2013. The publications by the Heidelberg research unit of five volumes of reports and studies in  Antiquities of Northern Pakistan (Mainz: 1989-2004)  and eleven volumes of catalogs in the series for  Materials for the archaeology of the northern regions of Pakistan (German: Materialien zur Archäologie der Nordgebiete Pakistans [MANP]) (Mainz: 1994-2013)  provides a substantial basis for scholarship. In these publications, Gérard Fussman contributed readings of Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions, Oskar von Hinüber is responsible for Brāhmī inscriptions, Nicholas Sims-Williams reads the Sogdian, Bactrian and other Middle Iranian inscriptions, and other collaborators contribute to the reading of smaller numbers of Chinese, Tibetan and non-Indo-Iranian inscriptions.  An online database for “Felsbilder und Inschriften am Karakorum-Highway”  with descriptions of petroglyphs by Ditte Bandini partially fills some gaps in the publication series, but access is still awaited to the photographic archives of the Heidelberg Academy.  

Scholars within and outside of Pakistan are continuing to make progress in the study of Upper Indus rock art and inscriptions. Pakistani researchers who have made important studies include Dr. Mohammad Nasim Khan,  Dr. Muhammad Arif , Dr. Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro, Abdul Ghani Khan, Zafar Iqbal, and Dr. Muhammad Zahir (whose article on  “Discovery and Contextualization of a Possible Buddhist Monastic Complex at Thalpan District, Diamer, Gilgit-Baltistan Province, Pakistan,” Gandharan Studies 13 [2019], pp. 37-59  suggests that further excavation could reveal archaeological remains of Buddhist monasteries and stūpas). Workshops held at Lahore University of Management Sciences (2018) and Karakorum International University (2019) that attracted many participants from throughout Pakistan show that the future of the field is indeed bright!

Efforts to link Upper Indus petroglyphs and inscriptions to neighbouring areas and broader contexts of Himalayan rock art are also leading to fruitful results. For example, Laurianne Bruneau, Martin Vernier, Ani Danielyan, and collaborators in the  Franco-Indian Archaeological Mission in Ladakh  (MAFIL) have been developing a database and handbook for rock art documentation with an illustrated repertory of terms. The Italian Archaeological Mission in Swat directed by Luca Maria Olivieri has devoted a groundbreaking study to painted rock shelters of the Swat Valley ( Talking Stones by Olivieri and a field companion volume on A guide to Kandak and Kotah Valleys – Living and Archaeological Landscapes by Carla Biaggioli, Matteo De Chiara, et al. ACT-Field School Project Reports and Memoirs, Seires Minor 2 and 4, Lahore: 2015-2016 ). By asking “Who were the painters of the painted shelters?” Olivieri opens up very interesting questions about cultural aspects, contacts, community religiosity, the significance of “mythoepic patrimony,” and the “strong sense of rock landscape symbolism” ( 2015: 124 ). Anna Filigenzi explores similar ideas about landscape and sacred topography in studies of “late Gandharan” Buddhist rock sculptures in Swat, which formed a “wider cultural and economic geography” ( 2014: 115 ) with the Upper Indus region ( “Reinvented Landscapes,” in Cultural Flows across the Western Himalaya, edited by Patrick McAllister, Cristina Cherrer-Schaub, and Helmut Krasser [Vienna: 2014], pp. 105-150 and Art and Landscape: Buddhist Rock Sculptures of Late Antique Swat / Uḍḍiyāna [Vienna: 2015] ).

Other scholars interested in linking rock art and inscriptions in northern Pakistan to networks for cross-cultural transmission of Buddhism include Serena Autiero ( “Between Gandhāra and Xinjiang: Notes on the Upper Indus Petroglyphs, Buddhism and Globalization,” Journal of Asian Civilizations 44.1 [2021], 21–66 ) and Marike van Aerde ( “Routes beyond Gandhara: Buddhist Rock Carvings in the Context of the Early Silk Roads,” in Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historical Silk Road, edited by L.E. Yang, et al. [Cham, Switzerland: 2019] pp. 555-480 and with Alex Mohns and Abdul Ghani Khan, “Buddha on the Rocks: Gandhāran Connections through the Karakorum Mojntains,” In The Global Connections of Gandhāran Art, edited by Wannaporn Rienjang and Peter Stewart [Oxford: 2020] pp.105-134 ).

The variety of approaches – anthropological, archaeological, artistic, historical, and religious – to the study of Upper Indus petroglyphs and epigraphy leaves much room for further investigation.

See also, Jason Neelis, Chapter 5 of  Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks  and  “La Vieille Route Reconsidered: Alternative Paths for Early Transmission of Buddhism Beyond the Borderlands of South Asia”  in Bulletin of the Asia Institute 16 (2002 [2006]), 143-164. 

The cultural heritage of rock art and inscriptions along the Upper Indus River in northern Pakistan is under grave threat. Upstream from Shatial, Diamer-Basha Dam is being rapidly constructed in order to meet demands for hydropower.  When the dam is completed in 2029 , dozens of the most extensive sites with over 37,000 petroglyphs and inscriptions will be submerged in a flood basin on both sides of the Indus River extending from Basha to Raikot/Rakhiot Bridge below Nanga Parbat and Fairy Meadows.

Other threats posed by human activity are also considerable. Road construction through or adjacent to archaeological sites with rock carvings and inscriptions threatens potential damage from blasting and dumping of debris. As the Karakorum Highway must be re-routed on both banks of the Indus River above the flood basin of Diamer-Basha dam, care should be taken to avoid the rock carving sites that remain above the water levels. When the highway between Gilgit and Skardu was widened in 2019, a temporary workers’ camp set up among the rocks above Alam Bridge saved large amounts of debris from road construction from being dumped on some of the earliest and most historically significant Kharoṣṭhī and Brāhmī inscriptions. 

Blasting of rocks for building materials is also causing to sites adjacent to the KKH. For example, a rich concentration of boulders with previously undocumented rock drawings along the roadside overlooking the confluence of the Gilgit and Indus rivers near Juglot has been blasted with dynamite for construction materials, with petroglyphs destroyed in the process. Unfortunately, other sites such as Thor West have already been completely destroyed. The cultural heritage of destroyed sites and damaged rocks is lost, so efforts to take stock of current conditions and to assess the impact of past damage using archived materials of the KKH Research Unit of the Heidelberg Academy are urgently needed. 

The overpainting of rocks with advertisements and slogans is also distressing and egregious.  At Chilas Bridge (also called Jayachand), for example, some of the world’s most outstanding Buddhist petroglyphs were almost completely covered with whitewash, painted flags, and written slogans in June 2019. In addition to posting government attendants at the most threatened sites (as is done at Shatial in KPK and Haldeikish, which continue to be fairly well preserved), community outreach programs may help to increase public awareness of the value of these sites for cultural heritage tourism, which could have local and regional economic impacts. 

 Nisar Abbas Sadpara, May 18, 2024, WAPDA Chairman Reviews Work at Diamer-Basha Dam, The News International 

 Farooqui, Usmaan, March 04, 2021, The cost of Pakistan’s dam obsession, The Diplomat 

 National, October 04, 2021, ‘Concentrated efforts need for completion of Bhasha dam;’ The News International 

 Usmani, Ibrahim, Sept 28, 2020, What values does Diamer Bhasha Dam provide to Pakistan?, The News International 

 Faraz, Shabina, August 6, 2020, Pakistan’s Diamer Basha dam will drown ancient carvings, The Third Pole 

 Hyatt, Ishrat, June 30, 2020, Appeal to save ancient rock carvings, The News International 

 Whitaker, Justin, June 02, 2020, Ancient Buddhist Rock Carvings in Pakistan Vandalized, Buddhistdoor Global 

 Bhutta, Zafar, August 22, 2013, Diamer-Bhasha project: Rock carvings at dam site to be preserved, The Express Tribune 

 Yusuf, Suhail, May 18, 2011, Threatened rock carvings of Pakistan, Dawn 

To address imminent threats, a multi-disciplinary partnership between Pakistani, North American, Australian, and European archeologists, epigraphers and digital imaging specialists supported with funding from the  Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC ) is using non-intrusive advanced imaging techniques to document and preserve sites in Gilgit-Baltistan: 

• Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) creates precise digital records of entire sites. Point clouds generated from laser scans provide the data for making site videos. Textured 3D models (such as Shatial rock 34 posted to  heritage.360.pk ) can be used to fill gaps and enhance the documentation using other methods described below. 
• Photogrammetry methods also result in 3D models of individual rocks and rock faces by combining high-resolution “raw” photos taken with DSLR cameras from different perspectives around the rock surfaces. Using image data collected in the field, the project team has made almost 3000 3D models  publicly available on a Sketchfab site 
• Virtual tours / Panotours stitch together panoramic photos to provide wide-angle contexts for the locations of sites within the landscape of the high-mountain desert environment. Virtual tours of selected sites including  Chilas 2-6 ,  Alam Bridge , and  Haldeikish  are available through  heritage360.pk .  

 Team members  have been applying these techniques, which do not require excavations or other physical interventions, as well as other techniques such as drone-mounted video photography and Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) since initiating field work at Shatial in 2018. From 2021, we have dedicated our efforts and resources from SSHRC grants to the urgent task of mitigating the impending loss of visual and written cultural heritage in the projected flood basin of Diamer-Basha dam. Our goal is to preserve the endangered signposts of cross-cultural transmission by digitally documenting these irreplaceable primary sources as thoroughly as possible. As of late May 2024, we have completed digital surveys of 32 sites in eight zones by scanning almost 4000 rocks with petroglyphs and inscriptions.  For more detailed searchable results of annotated images of rock drawings and inscriptions that can be pinpointed to precisely georeferenced locations as we make the analysis of the digital survey available, please visit the other components of  the Upper Indus project site .

We would like to invite you to learn more about our ongoing work and to make your own contributions to the efforts by becoming involved in various ways: 

• a future iteration of the Upper Indus project website will include interactive spaces for creating your own narratives from visiting in person (before the majority of sites are flooded by Diamer-Basha Dam) or virtually.
•  tell your own story about the images of rock art and offer alternative readings of ancient and modern graffiti written on the rocks 
• link exhibitions or artwork inspired by the images (or your own pics posted to Instagram, etc.)  

Interactive features are intended to “crowd source” knowledge form local communities, modern visitors, and other stakeholders with the aim of integrating living memories with scholarly researchers. Together we can enhance the resources for preserving this valuable part of northern Pakistan’s and the world’s cultural heritage before it disappears underwater! 

Since our limited funding from Canadian sources is rapidly dwindling, we are seeking additional support by applying for grants and circulating with begging bowl in hand. If you would like to make a monetary donation to sustain the work, please contact me via e-mail:  jneelis@wlu.ca