"Arachosia" is the Latinized form of Greek Ἀραχωσία - Arachōsíā. "The same region appears in the AvestanVidēvdāt under the indigenous dialect form ????????? Haraxvaitī-." In Old Persian inscriptions, the region is referred to as, written h-r-u-v-t-i. This form is the "etymological equivalent" of Vedic Sanskrit -, the name of a river literally meaning "rich in waters/lakes" and derived from sáras- "lake, pond.". "Arachosia" was named after the name of a river that runs through it, in Greek Arachōtós, today known as the Arghandab, a left bank tributary of the Helmand.
Geography
Arachosia bordered Drangiana to the west, Paropamisadae to the north, and Gedrosia to the south. Isidore and Ptolemy each provide a list of cities in Arachosia, among them Alexandria, which lay on the river Arachotus. This city is frequently mis-identified with present-day Kandahar in Afghanistan, the name of which was thought to be derived from "Alexandria", reflecting a connection to Alexander the Great's visit to the city on his campaign towards India. But a recent discovery of an inscription on a clay tablet has provided proof that 'Kandahar' was already a city that traded actively with Persia well before Alexander's time. Isidore, Strabo and Pliny also refer to the city as "metropolis of Arachosia." In his list, Ptolemy also refers to a city named Arachotus or Arachoti, which was the earlier capital of the land. Pliny the Elder and Stephen of Byzantium mention that its original name was Cophen. Hsuan Tsang refers to the name as Kaofu. This city is identified today with Arghandab which lies northwest of present-day Kandahar.
Peoples
The inhabitants of Arachosia were Iranian peoples, referred to as Arachosians or Arachoti. They were called Pactyans by ethnicity, and that name may have been in reference to the present-day ethnic Paṣtun tribes. Isidorus of Charax in his 1st century CE "Parthian stations" itinerary described an "Alexandropolis, the metropolis of Arachosia", which he said was still Greek even at such a late time:
History
The region is first referred to in the Achaemenid-era ElamitePersepolis fortification tablets. It appears again in the Old Persian, Akkadian and Aramaic inscriptions of Darius I and Xerxes I among lists of subject peoples and countries. It is subsequently also identified as the source of the ivory used in Darius' palace at Susa. In the Behistun inscription, the King recounts that a Persian was thrice defeated by the Achaemenid governor of Arachosia, Vivana, who so ensured that the province remained under Darius' control. It has been suggested that this "strategically unintelligible engagement" was ventured by the rebel because "there were close relations between Persia and Arachosia concerning the Zoroastrian faith." in Arachosia, 329 BCE. The chronologically next reference to Arachosia comes from the Greeks and Romans, who record that under Darius III the Arachosians and Drangians were under the command of a governor who, together with the army of the Bactrian governor, contrived a plot of the Arachosians against Alexander. Following Alexander's conquest of the Achaemenids, the Macedonian appointed his generals as governors. Following the Partition of Babylon, the region became part of the Seleucid Empire, which traded it to the Mauryan Empire in 305 BCE as part of an alliance. The Shunga dynasty overthrew the Mauryans in 185 BC, but shortly afterwards lost Arachosia to the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. It then became part of the break-away Indo-Greek Kingdom in the mid 2nd century BCE. Indo-Scythians expelled the Indo-Greeks by the mid 1st century BCE, but lost the region to the Arsacids and Indo-Parthians. At what time Parthian rule over Arachosia was reestablished cannot be determined with any authenticity. From Isidore 19 it is certain that a part of the region was under Arsacid rule in the 1st century CE, and that the Parthians called it Indikē Leukē, "White India." The Kushans captured Arachosia from the Indo-Parthians and ruled the region until around 230 CE, when they were defeated by the Sassanids, the second Persian Empire, after which the Kushans were replaced by Sassanid vassals known as the Kushanshas or Indo-Sassanids. In 420 CE the Kushanshas were driven out of present Afghanistan by the Chionites, who established the Kidarite Kingdom. The Kidarites were replaced in the 460s CE by the Hephthalites, who were defeated in 565 CE by a coalition of Persian and Turkish armies. Arachosia became part of the surviving Kushano-Hephthalite Kingdoms of Kapisa, then Kabul, before coming under attack from the Moslem Arabs. These kingdoms were at first vassals of Sassanids. Around 870 CE the Kushano-Hephthalites was replaced by the Hindu Shahi dynasty, which fell to the Muslim Turkish Ghaznavids in the early 11th century CE. Arab geographers referred to the region as 'Arokhaj', 'Rokhaj', 'Rohkaj' or simply 'Roh'.
Religion
Arachosia retained Zoroastrian religious and cultural influence until the advent of Islam in the 7th century. Much of the country remained Zoroastrian even while in Arab hands, but within a few centuries Islam became the region's dominant religion. See Sistan for information on the religion of the area after the Arab conquest.
The theory of Croatian origin traces the origin of the Croats to the area of Arachosia. This connection was at first drawn due to the similarity of Croatian and Arachosian name, but other researches indicate that there are also linguistic, cultural, agrobiological and genetic ties. Since Croatia became an independent state in 1991, the Iranian theory gained more popularity, and many scientific papers and books have been published.
