Gandhara Civilization: The undeniable link between Gandhari and Pashto Languages

By Assad Sharifi

Gandharan sculptors and artists create Buddhist artifacts

The soil of Gandhara is heavy with forgotten footprints. Between its stones sleeps the wisdom of a world both ancient and deeply personal to those who call themselves Pashtuns today. To know Gandhara is not to know a stranger, but to rediscover the mirror of one's own cultural shadow.

Gandhara Civilization was never simply a “region”, it was a cradle of languages, philosophies, arts, and spiritual ferment. Located along the banks of the mighty Indus and spreading into the valleys of Swat, Peshawar, and Kabul, Gandhara was the point where India kissed Central Asia and Persia embraced the East.

But today, I wish to call your attention not to its statues or monasteries, but to its language — the Gandhari Prakrit — and its living descendant: Pashto.

The Gandhari Language: The Lost Mother Tongue of the Frontier

Gandhari Prakrit was the spoken language of ancient Gandhara, written in the Kharosthi script — a script that reads from right to left, unlike its Indian sisters. This language was the lingua franca of merchants, monks, and philosophers along the Silk Road. But unlike most tongues, it was not buried with its ruins.

The Gandhari language was a soft, aspirated, and elegant Prakrit. What makes it special is its phonetic DNA, many strands of which have quietly survived the fall of kingdoms, the coming of empires, and the reshaping of religions. And the best-preserved heir to this tongue is Pashto.

The Gandhari Soundscape in Pashto

When we listen to Pashto, especially the dialects of the Yusufzai, Momand, Afridi, and Shinwari regions, the old Gandharan sounds are alive like ancient embers. Some key phonetic features illustrate this continuity:

Gandhari Prakrit	Pashto	Observation
-ṣa / -sa endings	-sa, -sha, -za (e.g., warsa for "year")	Pashto retains the ending, whereas Sanskrit would have shifted.
Initial gh-/kh-	gh-, kh- (e.g., ghwaṛa for "want")	This hard yet breathy sound survives intact in Pashto.
Retroflex consonants	ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ṣ (e.g., ṭikray for "small plate")	Gandhari’s heavy use of retroflex sounds is still a signature trait of Pashto.
-ri endings	-ṛai, -ray (e.g., saray for "man")	Identical to Gandhari pronunciation.

Vocabulary: Words Older Than Empires

Many common Pashto words are older than the mountains themselves, echoing directly from the Gandhari lexicon.

• Zra (زړه) for "heart"

• Saray (سړی) for "man"

• Khwaga (خواږه) for "sweet"

• Zamung (زمونږ) for "our"

• Loy (لوی) for "big"

These words are not of Arabic, Persian, or modern Indo-Aryan stock. They are deeply Indo-Iranian, and more specifically, Gandhari.

Even the tone and stress patterns of Pashto — the melody of rising and falling emphasis — carry the same rhythm you would hear in a Gandharan street some two thousand years ago.

The Silent Witness: Pashto’s Grammar

The Gandhari language favored simplicity: it dropped heavy inflections, avoided elaborate conjugation, and used participles more fluidly — exactly the kind of minimalist syntax we see in Pashto.

For example, in both Gandhari and Pashto, verbs use participles to express the past:

• Gandhari: kataṃ karitaṃ (I did)

• Pashto: ma kri di (I have done)

The structure is strikingly parallel, especially considering that Sanskrit and even Hindi have moved away from this construction.

Gandhara Civilization Never Died — It Changed Its Clothes

When people walk the streets of Peshawar, Jalalabad, and Swat today, they carry in their tongues the DNA of their Gandharan ancestors. Pashto, for all its layers of Persian and Arabic influence, holds at its core the unbroken soundscape of Gandhara.

So, the next time a Pashtun utters the word "Zra" or "Saray", remember: this is not merely Pashto. It is the voice of Gandhara, whispering through centuries of war, trade, philosophy, and poetry.

Conclusion: The River Beneath the River

Languages die only when the people forget them. Gandhara did not vanish; it simply grew a new skin. Pashto stands today as one of the last living bridges to a world where monks, merchants, and mystics debated under Bodhi trees and carved their wisdom into stone.

If you listen closely, Gandhara still speaks. You only need to open your Zra.

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